Episode 138: The Science Fiction Genre
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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are excited to explore science fiction and some of the common elements of the genre.
We start by talking about speculative fiction and how science fiction fits within that overarching category. We touch on how it typically deals with some form of technology and often asks some big questions. Things like: Who are we? Where are we going? Where have we been? What are we capable of? What does the future hold?
The fascinating and awe-producing elements of science fiction can also allow us to explore and grapple with painful, heavy, and frightening things from within the range of human experience in a more distanced way and therefore in what feels like a safer space.
In this episode, we explore six common areas of story that fall under sci-fi:
Dark Futures
Aliens
Space
Monsters
Intelligent Machines / AI
Time Travel
These boiled down elements were taken from James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction exploration series. We also acknowledge that science fiction stories can include more than one of these elements or none, but this framework encapsulates a wide selection of the genre.
In our exploration, we include a lot of film examples. The reason is so that most people will have at least a passing familiarity with at least one or two of our examples for each area of storytelling we cover.
As we end this conversation, we give a brief preview for our next conversation where we’ll dig into the differences between Science Fiction and Fantasy, and talk about Magic Vs. Technology in story. Tune in next week!
We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!
Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore
Notes:
This conversation that explores some of the common elements of science fiction isn’t meant to be exhaustive. It’s a brief overview of the landscape of science fiction storytelling while acknowledging that the area is vast and overlaps with other areas of speculative fiction.
Here are some articles and videos that we found helpful in preparation for this conversation:
MasterClass Article “What Is Science Fiction Writing? Definition and Characteristics of Science Fiction Literature”
“Questions Science Fiction Asks us to Consider” by Chris Duesing
MasterClass Article “5 Tips for Writing a Science Fiction Novel”
EW Article - “Margaret Atwood: There's nothing in The Handmaid's Tale 'that didn't happen, somewhere'“ by Dan Heching
Le Guin, Ursula K.. (1980). Introduction. The left hand of darkness (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Posted on NYU.Edu Science Fiction - Theory and Commentary
Far Out Magazine Article - “How Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' questioned ethics and morality in the science-fiction genre” by Debadrita Sur
YouTube Video "The Tragedy of Droids in Star Wars" by Pop Culture Detective
YouTube Video “Data writes a small talk routine” Star Trek TNG
YouTube Video “How science fiction can help predict the future” by Roey Tzezana (Ted-Ed)
We touch on several of our previous podcast episodes. They are as follows:
Books and Movies Mentioned:
Flight of the Navigator – Directed by Randal Kleiser
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – Directed by Steven Spielberg
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Directed by Steven Spielberg
Independence Day – Directed by Roland Emmerich
Alien - Directed by Ridley Scott
Arrival – Directed by Denis Villeneuve
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
District 9 – Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Complete Box Set - Directed by George Lucas
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton
Godzilla, the Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975 (the Criterion Collection)
Pacific Rim – Directed by Guillermo del Toro
The Animatrix – Directed by Andrew R. Jones and Kôji Morimoto
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Blade Runner – Directed by Ridley Scott
Back to the Future – Directed by Robert Zemeckis
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Interstellar – Directed by Christopher Nolan
Tenet – Directed by Christopher Nolan
Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)