A Little Background on my Students' Posts

If you've made it this far, dear reader, you have the benefit of a little context for the many posts that follow this one, all of them discussing the distinctions (or, at times, indistinctions) of the "high" and "low" fantasy subgenre labels.

Here's the backstory for ya:

The twenty four students whose work features in the December 2013 block of postings make up the proud and oft-befuddled roster of my Speculative Fiction Studies class at The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.  All of them seniors, all of them self-professed lovers of sf/f or at least sufficiently curious about it to endure a semester of play in the genres, they spent eighteen weeks reading from H.G. Wells to William Gibson; from H.P. Lovecraft to James Tiptree; Jr., from Asimov to Zelazny and back to Beagle and Tolkien and countless points between.  They used their knowledge of STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) to identify ideas for their own hard or soft sf worlds and write them up.  They learned sf history from the Gernsback Ghetto's earliest days.  They read literary theory from Samuel R. Delany and Ursula Le Guin.  And yes, they do know that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The course ended with a chance for the students to choose from one of six high fantasy classics (Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter; Tolkien's The Hobbit; McKinley's The Blue Sword; LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea; Lewis' Till We Have Faces; and Beagle's The Last Unicorn), reading their text in a small group of their peers guided by their own sets of discussion questions and mutually-agreed-upon reading schedule.  Then they dove headlong into low fantasy by reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.  Their challenge, as a final assignment for the term and a final tribute to the sf/f reader culture, so alive and active online, was to compose a blog post where they take on the question of what defines "high" and "low" as labels for the conceits in fantasy literature.  They were encouraged to read some book and movie blogs, to get a sense of the tone and style bloggers use, and to figure out a way to make their own writing interesting, thoughtful, and web-friendly (while also keeping it mostly school-safe).  I think you'll find they've largely succeeded.

You may notice me commenting on their posts in critical fashion -- that's just part of my job, I'm afraid.  I encourage you to comment on their work as you see fit. . . but remember these are students, bright and well-intentioned, and they deserve our best treatment.

One final note:  I'd never have had the idea for this blog if Sarah LaPolla of Bradford Literary hadn't shown up on my Twitter feed one day with a memorable response to some of the entries showcased in Miss Snark's First Victim's 2013 Baker's Dozen.  It was too perfect and too prickly not to respond somehow. . .

Here it is, for your reading pleasure:

Sarah LaPolla ‏@sarahlapolla 3 Dec

Observation on #BakersDozen2013: Lots of "magical realism" with too much actual magic and not enough realism. Just call it low fantasy.

Rick Lipman ‏@rklipman 3 Dec

@sarahlapolla How do you define low fantasy?

Sarah LaPolla ‏@sarahlapolla 3 Dec

@rklipman It's like high fantasy, but slouched down in the seat, holding the steering wheel with one hand, and wearing sunglasses.

Best regards,
Tracy Townsend