Science fiction

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction?

Which is The Man in the High Castle?

Science fiction as a genre can be described as fantasy, made-up or imagined worlds for example, Star Wars. Fantasy is based more on the past, for example, the Middle Ages and magic or unexplainable events. Science fiction is based on futuristic technology, with space travel, time travel, aliens, robots or alternative worlds or history. Roberts (2000) states science fiction is ‘a genre or division of literature distinguishes its fictional worlds to one degree to another from the world in which we actually live’.

Speculative fiction is a genre of science fiction and horror cross-over focusing on the horrors that technology can potentially cause. Urbanski (2007) states ‘speculative fiction has a long tradition of depicting both the wonder and the terror of science and technology’.  Speculative fiction is a reality of sorts, for example taking an actual historical event and putting a scenario of what could have happened to make it an apocalyptic aftermath. An example of this is the movie I am Legend where a cure for cancer is developed but ends up ‘zombieising’ its patients, this plays into events of genetic engineering as a technology that alarms the general populous as well as the wonder of the advancement of this knowledge.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) began his career as a science fiction writer in 1951 when he sold his first story, and until his death in 1982. He wrote over 30 novels, several which were not published in his lifetime. He also received awards for several of his works such as ‘The Man in the High Castle’.

The Man in the High Castle is set in an alternative world where the Axis powers won the Second World War. The story follows several characters through a world that is unlike ours, the Chinese ‘I Ching’ is an oracle predicting the future by the way the sticks land. Juliana Frink is one of the story’s main characters she reads a book called ‘The Grasshopper Lies Heavy’ which is a novel set in an alternative world where the Allies won the war. Brown (2001) states “Juliana Frink becomes obsessed with the vision of this other, better world”.

The Man in the High Castle can be seen as both science fiction and speculative fiction. It’s hard to narrow the book down to one of the two genres as it can fix equally as well in both; as alternative world falls under science fiction however it’s a dark world, our nightmares have come true, placing it over speculative fiction.   

 

(2012, October 10). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K. The Man in the High Castle (p.V-XII).

London: Penguin.

Dick, P.K (2001; 1962). The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin.

Roberts, A. (2000). Science Fiction . london : Routledge.

Urbanski, H. (2007). Plagues, apocalypses and bug-eyed monsters: how speculative fiction shows our nightmares. McFarland & Company.