Science fiction is a genre of fiction which mainly deals with made-up storylines, which have a scientific background. Settings can include future cities, alternate timelines, hyper-science advancement, and paranormal activities. The book 'Prey' by Michael Crichton is an example of this. It deals with nanobots taking the shape of (spoiler) humans. The story delves into themes of artificial life, genetic algorithms and futuristic examples of computing.
Speculative Fiction on the other hand is more concerned with Philosophy and ahistorical storytelling. There is a heavy undercurrent of social and cultural commentary. Philip K Dick has written several speculative fiction novels including The Man in the High Castle. Brown (2001) describes Philip K Dick as "a self-taught anti-establishment intellectual with an appetite for knowledge and an intimidating ability to absorb information. He had a thorough grounding in philosophy, psychology and religion." (p. vi). All these qualities shine through in The Man in the High Castle, which portrays the alternate history of Japan and Germany winning World War 2.
Philip K Dick however often skirts the line between science fiction and speculative fiction. A Scanner Darkly is an example of this. The futuristic technology of the scanners is much more science fiction than speculative. However, Philip K Dick's analysis of identity, and loss of identity through the lens of a drug user, is very evocative of some philosophies within speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction and science fiction are very closely related, but there are distinct enough differences. Science fiction is heavily science oriented, whereas speculative fiction is much more concerned with history and philosophy.
Fair comment. 'The novel of ideas' is a way to describe Man in High Castle and most of Dick's novels. The interest is not primarily in character development, as with Mainstream, or straight story lines, as with pulp fiction, but what it means to be human.
ReplyDeleteYup exactly. He paints a much wider swath with his brush than mainstream writers do, capturing many of his ideas on humanity. He has rather fascinating takes on life and people.
DeleteHi Lachlan - check out the comments on the other posts here.
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