My fellow Clarionite Damien wrote an article entitled "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to Be Gloomy, Does It?" about how lately science fiction has been trending towards a future of hopelessness rather than a future of full of hope.
In my opinion, the purpose of speculative fiction is to bring the reader to the edges of answering "what if?" which happens to be the core seed of most if not all fiction, speculative or otherwise. While immersed in the fantastical setting that is so different from the real world that we currently live in, the reader of speculative fiction must make connections to what is familiar in order to feel grounded.
Thus, in an unexpected manner, speculative fiction brings us to the boundaries of what it means to be human, and I believe there is great hope in that concept, even if the setting is not so bright.
In the past couple years, I've come to the conclusion that speculative fiction has much in common with multi-cultural literature in that both involve the depiction of settings and world views that are mostly foreign and unknown to the mainstream Western white audience, particularly America. I think the fragmentation of the American cultural identity is perhaps one of the core issues for why American speculative fiction concerning the future seems to trend towards chaos, since bringing many cultures together that refuse to be completely assimilated will assure multiple voices, multiple ways of living, multiple visions of what is correct and what is wrong. Such diversity can be threatening to those who are used to culturally homogeneous environments. Hence, the scary future.
Yet because I write for children, I refuse to think our future will be entirely without hope. Yes, there's global warming, overpopulation, and by the time I am of the age to retire, there will be no Social Security left for my generation and younger. But the human race will continue, and while we do there will be stories to pass on to the next generation, and isn't that in of itself a hopeful thought?
speculating for
our future might depress, but
I hope to digress!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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2 comments:
I blogged about dark characters (superheroes or otherwise) popping up recently and speculated that it was because of the dark times (economy/war/divided country). I hadn't thought about it in terms of the melting pot of America - that's another real possibility. Thanks for the thought to ponder.
I think I see a doctoral thesis in the offing here Jiang... 'Speculative Fiction and the Multi-Cultural Melting Pot' ?
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