science fiction – Ink-Stained Wretches

Do You Enjoy Speculative Fiction?

By N.M. Cedeño

Do you enjoy speculative fiction? Do you know what speculative fiction is?

The dictionary defines speculative fiction as “a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.” The genre is an umbrella under which lies science fiction, fantasy, and even some kinds of horror. From fairy tales to space operas, from paranormal stories to alternative histories, any kind of fiction containing imagined elements that exist outside of known reality can be classified as speculative fiction. Many well-known books and series fall into this category.

Works of dystopian fiction like Brave New World by Huxley, 1984 by Orwell, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are speculative fiction. The Hunger Games dystopian series is speculative fiction.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude, is speculative fiction.

Stephen King’s horror novel It and his time travel novel 11/22/63 are speculative fiction.

Star Wars, Buck Rogers, and other space operas are speculative fiction.

The Twilight romance series featuring werewolves and vampires is speculative fiction.

The Harry Potter fantasy series is speculative fiction.

The Martian, a work of hard science fiction by Andy Weir, is speculative fiction.

Janet Evanovich’s Lizzy and Diesel urban fantasy series is speculative fiction.

Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas paranormal thriller series is speculative fiction.

Wonder Woman and other superhero stories are speculative fiction.

Irish folk tales about leprechauns or banshees are speculative fiction.

Given all the stories and genres that can be classified as speculative fiction, it might be easier to ask what isn’t speculative fiction than to go through all the examples of what it is. If a work of fiction is entirely realistic in its setting and involves no magical, supernatural, futuristic, or other elements that don’t yet or might never exist, then it isn’t speculative fiction. A mystery, police drama, or romance set in the present day with no imaginary elements added would be categorized as realistic fiction. Horror, thriller, and suspense novels that feature only human evil or terrors that are based in the real world are realistic fiction. A historical drama that accurately reflects life in a given time period would also be realistic fiction.

Speculative fiction allows for flights of imagination, presenting other worlds, dream worlds, and future worlds rather than depicting the world how it is or was. Realistic fiction stays within the bounds of known reality.

As an author, some of my writing falls under the mantle of speculative fiction. My Bad Vibes Removal Services paranormal mysteries featuring Lea, a woman who can see and talk to ghosts, definitely fits into the category. My romantic suspense / mystery novel All in Her Head also features paranormal elements.

My novel For the Children’s Sake is a murder mystery featuring an imaginary medical condition where some people’s skin oils cause other people to go into anaphylactic shock and die. That imaginary condition makes the book speculative fiction, even though the rest of the book is based in reality.

Several of my short stories are classified as social science fiction, set in possible future worlds. For example, my short story entitled A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy is a private detective story set in a world with no privacy rights.

My latest release is also a work of science fiction. The Wrong Side of History is currently available in the October 2021 issue of After Dinner Conversation: Philosophy and Ethics Short Story Magazine. The Wrong Side of History is a tale of blackmail set in a world recovering from a near-extinction event and featuring a 130-year-old politician trying to keep his legacy intact in a world with values that differ widely from those considered acceptable in his youth.

So back to the original question. Do you enjoy speculative fiction?

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N. M. Cedeño is a short story writer and novelist living in Texas. She is currently working on a paranormal mystery series called Bad Vibes Removal Services. Ms. Cedeño is active in Sisters in Crime- Heart of Texas Chapter. Find out more at nmcedeno.com.

Ray Bradbury on Writing and Life

by Renee Kimball

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”

― Ray Bradbury

“. . . And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for reward back because it has favored us with animation…Secondly, writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course is that. Not to write, for many of us, is to die…”
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

In 1994 , Ray Bradbury published Zen in the Art of Writing; he was 74 years old. Bradbury began his writing life at twelve years of age and committed the rest of his life to writing one thousand words a day, if not more.

Only 176 pages, Zen is a succinct and instructive work. The book deftly uses autobiographical material to lay the groundwork as a guidebook for writers; but more, it is an instructional manual for creating a rich, productive, and happy life.

Finding Bradbury’s Zen was an unexpected pleasure. It is doubtful I would have known of it if it had only been available in hardback. Because the electronic edition just “happened” to come up on my E-reader, I downloaded and began reading. (Photo Courtesy of Amazon).

Zen’s language is reminiscent of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but that takes nothing away from his message. In an interview with Futurism Magazine five years before his death in 2012, Bradbury had reached a pinnacle of success known by “living authors.” Some critics have named him the “greatest science fiction author of all time” but he was more than a science fiction author; he was also a “humanist-philosopher” (Futurism).

Bradbury’s career began as a short story writer during the 50s. He became a novelist, evolved into writing poems, as well as theatre and movie screenplays.

A collection of Bradbury’s short stories became the basis of his first novel, The Martian Chronicles. The Illustrated Man followed in 1951, and Fahrenheit 451 in 1954, both still read in high school English classes today. Bradbury is credited with bringing the science fiction genre into mainstream literature. The move to writing television screen plays was a natural progression. Gene Roddenberry, Bradbury’s friend and the creator of Star Trek, invited Bradbury to write for the popular show. Bradbury became the primary writer for the show for many years; the series became a monumental success, spawning sub-culture worship status still going today.

Engaging thoughts found in the slim volume of Zen:

The need to write every day. . .

“I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. . .An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet running in circles. . . Zen (p. ixx).

On writing with enthusiasm, and finding ideas:

“. . .If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.” (p.4).

. . .But I wanted to show what we all have in us, that it has always been there, and so few of us bother to notice. When people ask me where I get my ideas I laugh. How strange—we’re so busy looking out, to find ways and means, we forget to look in.” (p. 35.

Bradbury’s “formula for writing”. . .

“. . .So, simply then, here is my formula. . .

“What do you want more than anything else in the world? What do you love, or what do you hate?

“Find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all his heart. Give him running orders. Shoot him off. Then follow as fast as you can go. The character, in his great love, or hate, will rush you through to the end of the story. . .” (p. 6).

When he was twenty-two, after ten years of struggling, Bradley finally wrote what he believed was his first good short story, “The Lake.” He earned twenty dollars. For years afterwards, “The Lake” was continuously published in a variety of magazines; while he was surprised, Bradbury was infinitely pleased.

President George W. Bush, Ray Bradbury, and Laura Bush at Bradbury’s acceptance of the National Medal of Arts , 2004. Wikipedia.

When reading Zen, if you are a certain age, the reader can believe that being with Ray Bradbury would be comfortable, undemanding, enjoyable—he is the model for a “good friend.” Bradbury is the ultimate family man, devoted to his wife and four daughters. He had strong life-time friendships —not only in business, but in life. He writes about his gratefulness to his wife and his daughters and joy they brought him and the loving home they shared. He never shies away from sentimental feelings of family and friends that seem to escape modern writing, he acknowledges his missteps and successes with humor and truth.

Bradbuy’s Wisdom

“Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand. . .” (p. 36).

. . .

“You say you don’t understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day… (p. 37).”

. . . “Read those authors who write the way you hope to write, those who think the way you would like to think. . .” (p. 38).

“. . . The constant remains: the search, the finding, the admiration, the love, the honest response to materials at hand, no matter how shabby they one day seem, when looked back on…” (p. 41).

“. . . By living well, by observing as you live, by reading well and observing as you read, you have Your Most Original Self.” (p. 43).

In Zen, the reader will find a template for a full life, a joyful life. Bradbury did not just give advice, he lived what he told others to do: work with passion and creativity, write every day with enthusiasm, find joy in whatever you do, and nourish your inner self, your inner muse. Read everything, and experience the wonder of the people in your life, the world around you, and most importantly sprinkle everything you do and say with Love—success will follow.

“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

― Ray Bradbury

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REFERENCES

Bradbury, Ray. Zen in the Art of Writing.
Bradbury, Ray. 1990. Zen in the art of writing. Santa Barbara, Calif: Joshua Odell Editions, electronic publication 2012, Amazon.com Kindle Edition.

Ray Bradbury. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ray-Bradbury

Full Cycle Publications. Interview with Ray Bradbury. 07.20.2019. https://www.fullcyclepublications.com/interview-with-ray-bradbury/

Goodreads. Bradbury Quotes. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1630.Ray_Bradbury

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A former paralegal, Renee Kimball has a master’s degree in criminal justice. Among her interests are reading and writing. She is an active Animal Advocate and fosters both dogs and cats and works with various organizations to find them forever homes.

A Common Reader Looks at Women Writing Science Fiction

by Renee Kimball

In Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader, author Anne Fadiman explains the origin of the term, “common reader”—which Fadiman borrowed from Virginia Woolf’s story, The Common Reader, and Woolf had borrowed from Samuel Johnson’s Life of Gray (Preface).

“In The Common Reader– Virginia Woolf . . .wrote of “all those rooms, too humble to be called libraries, yet full of books, where the pursuit of reading is carried on by private people.” The common reader, she said “differs from the critic and the scholar. He is worse educated and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole.” This is the whole that I have attempted to create from the thousands of odds and ends that crowd my sagging bookshelves.” (Ex Libris, Preface).

I am a Common Reader, one of those who collect books without purpose—other than I am curious, (or nosy). I am in love with books—and their secrets. I enjoy that challenge of finding a connection—there is always a surprise lurking between the pages.

While I am attracted to all things bookish, I am not alone. Online, hundreds of like-minded bookaholics come together, willing to share their enthusiasm for good books, new authors, and interesting finds—excellent company in this time of social distancing.

Which brings me to this post about women writing science fiction. These bookish groups, and their book prompts, often require reading science fiction—a genre I normally do not read. I struggle with understanding scientific concepts, other worlds, fantastical cultures with fantastical abilities, much less the ability to pronounce non-phonetic imaginary names and languages. I lack imagination for made up worlds, but I admire those who possess it.

And that is how I came to read and admire, not one, but two female science fiction authors—Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin. In fact, there are many, many more, but this post addresses only these two.

The science fiction genre is a multifaceted, scientifically imagined environment with fantastical cultures—environments created from almost unruly imaginations, producing amazingly satisfying results, including social and moral lessons. Yet Butler and Le Guin push the boundaries even more—they are rebel authors who use their platforms to fearlessly address social ills: injustice, slavery, discrimination, diversity, feminism, social unrest, and sexuality and much, much, more.

Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Butler. Licensed by Nikolas Coukouma under CC BY-SA 2.5. Via Wikipedia.

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

From Dawn, Book I of III, Lilith’s Brood:The Complete Xenogenesis Trilogy

“Down on Earth,” she said carefully, “there are no people left to draw lines on maps and say which sides of those lines are the right sides. There is no government left. No human government, anyway.”

. . .

“What is it?” she asked. “Flesh. More like mine than like yours. Different from mine, too, though. It’s … the ship.” “You’re kidding. Your ship is alive?”

. . .

“She had learned to keep her sanity by accepting things as she found them, adapting herself to new circumstances by putting aside the old ones whose memories might overwhelm her. . .”

Ursula K. Le Guin

“. . . Write what you know,” I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them.”

“But when people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always was a writer (tweet that, emphasis mine). I didn’t want to be a writer and lead the writer’s life and be glamorous and go to New York. I just wanted to do my job writing, and to do it really well.”

From The Left Hand of Darkness

“Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.”

. . .

“Though I had been nearly two years on Winter I was still far from being able to see the people of the planet through their own eyes. I tried to, but my efforts took the form of self-consciously seeing a Gethenian first as a man, then as a woman, forcing him into those categories so irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own. Thus as I sipped my smoking sour beer I thought that at table Estraven’s performance had been womanly, all charm and tact and lack of substance, specious and adroit. Was it in fact perhaps this soft supple femininity that I disliked and distrusted in him? For it was impossible to think of him as a woman, that dark, ironic, powerful presence near me in the firelit darkness, and yet whenever I thought of him as a man I felt a sense of falseness, of imposture: in him, or in my own attitude towards him? His voice was soft and rather resonant but not deep, scarcely a man’s voice, but scarcely a woman’s voice either…but what was it saying?”

Le Guin and Butler were fearless in their writing. LeGuin shook the science fiction world when she wrote about men’s role in parenting. In The Left Hand of Darkness, there are no women, no females, only one gender—male. Men go into “kemmer” when they become a female vessel and are then impregnated by another male. After they become pregnant and after delivery of their progeny, both men serve as parents. Male childcare and nurturing—a subject rarely discussed in 1969.

Butler forged ahead on similar lines, writing about slavery and sexual desire while portraying women in leadership roles, unafraid to demand respect and control. Butler’s aliens from other universes conquer earth and gain control through sexual conquest and mind control. She never shied away from using her writing as a means to remind us of the ills of slavery or subjugation of races while weaving these lessons into the tapestry of her stories. Butler was a leader of Afrofuturism and equality, believing “hierarchical” societies are a danger to society.

Both Le Guin and Butler are now deceased. Le Guin died in 2018, at 88 years of age, after leaving behind a voluminous legacy. Butler died in 2006, at 58 years of age, also leaving a voluminous legacy of work and papers. The list of Butler’s awards is too numerous to produce here; however, she won both the Hugo and Nebula awards twice. Le Guin won eight Hugo and six Nebula awards in addition to numerous others.

Both authors’ works will continue to be revered and read far into the future; it is also hoped other female science fiction writers will follow their example.

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Book covers courtesy of Amazon.com.

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