Transcript Image credit: Victor GAD Marija Dalbello Science fiction / Fantasy SF = Speculative fiction Rutgers School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies [email protected] http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~dalbello.

Image credit: Victor GAD
Marija Dalbello
Science fiction / Fantasy
SF = Speculative fiction
Rutgers
School of Communication, Information,
and Library Studies
[email protected]
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~dalbello
SF / Fantasy
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“Science fiction allows us to understand and experience
our past, present, and future in terms of an imagined
future.”
(Cramer 1994, in Herald 2000, 267)
“Science fiction is any story that argues the case for a
changed world that has not yet come into being.”
(Clute, in Herald 2006, 313)
SF / Fantasy
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“First, the creation of an
internally consistent secondary world (the“subcreation”) and
second, the use of Faerie (the use of magic and
enchantment). This world is accessed by the narrative skill of
the author and the imaginative willingness of the reader.”
[Tolkin’s definition of the fantasy genre elements]:
(Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories, in Herald 2006, 372)
“The Difficult truths can sometimes only be told through the
medium of fantasy.”
(Goldstein, in Herald 2000, 267)
World-building
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Science fiction = Extrapolative fiction
• abrupt transition from our world to the fantasy
world, often by scientific mechanisms that transport
us from our world to the fantasy world
Fantasy = Evocative fiction
• another world is presented clean and whole
• the place the reader lives in for the length of the
reading
• we learn not only about an alternative world but also
an entire and parallel world history, complete with its
myths and values, villains and heroes
SF
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The literature of “what if … ”
Fantasy, SF, horror closely linked (imagination; world-building)
1818 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (E.A. Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells 19th century)
SF term 1929 (by 1930s commonly accepted)
The Golden Age of science fiction (1930s-1940s) celebrates the world of (patriarchal) technological
modernity; focus on the mechanical, on how machines would change the world; technology is the
essence, the basis for characterization; the plot is subsidiary
1950s interest in alien contact (society began to wonder who’s out there; gives rise to BEM bugeyed monster stories)
1960s the “New Wave” - non-mechanical sciences (novels dealt with psychology sociology and
how humans relate to their world and to change, heralding a new wave of SF); 1970s feminist
utopian/dystopian narratives)
1980s+ Cyberpunk; technology is portrayed as being limited
1990s scientific advances in nanotechnology, AI, bioengineering became a visible force in the field
Fantasy
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The literature of “what if … ”
Most ancient of genres (combines tales of magic with adventure)
Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, Beowulf, fairy tales (Charles Perrault 17th cent. France; the Brothers
Grimm, 19th cent. Germany); 20th cent. Walt Disney and picture-book versions of fairy tales
Modern-day fantasy attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien (member of Inklings group that started in the 1930s
together with C.S. Lewis)
1960s and 1970s, fantasy started appearing in paperbacks
1992 -gained professional recognition when The Science Fiction Writers of America added ‘fantasy’
in the title of their organization (both genres of speculative fiction)
Fantasy fans considered least ageist of all readers; adult / YA reading converges