Braden Lauder: "Unnecessary Distinctions"

Unnecessary Distinctions

By

Braden Lauder

Science fiction and fantasy literature have many things in common, and are usually grouped together in the umbrella genre of Speculative Fiction. In general, we can visualize a sort of spectrum, with science fiction on one end and fantasy on the other. If we zoom further in on this spectrum, we can see the science fiction half divided into hard and soft, and the fantasy half divided into low and high. Somewhere between soft science fiction and low fantasy, we’re left with a bit of disputed gray area. In general, it’s fairly easy to determine whether a story is science fiction or fantasy and then further classify it as hard, soft, low, or high. As we move closer towards the center of the spectrum, that distinction becomes harder to recognize. However, I would argue that the distinction is not one that necessarily needs to be made. I think that if you’re going to read a book, you should read that book because you enjoy it, not because it falls into a certain category of literature. The same concept can be applied towards education: if there’s some vital lesson to be extracted from a story, time should be spent discussing that, not debating the genre.

            More often than not, this idea does not even need to be brought into question, because stories tend to gravitate towards a specific genre. It’s only when we come into contact with one of the few stories in the middle of our spectrum that we should do away with discussion over genre and focus on the more important aspects of the text.  This is not to say, however, that it would be impossible to decode the genre of these middle-spectrum stories. In fact, with enough thought with regards to both the story in question and the countless pieces on literary theory out there (shoutout to Martin, Hartwell, Le Guin, Delany, Cramer, and many more!), you could doubtlessly come to a conclusion sooner or later about the genre of the story. However, my argument here is that it would be more beneficial to unpack the story itself and what it represents, rather than do the same for its genre as a whole.

            Usually when we can easily classify a story by definitively placing it along the spectrum, we can do so because it was intentionally written in a way that highlights the inherent qualities of its genre. Conversely, if we come across a story towards the middle, it’s probably a safe bet to assume that the story is there because the author’s focus was not genre-specific, but rather set on something more important. For example, a high fantasy story that delves deep into the creation of a fantastical setting may not be able to go as deep into character development as a story set in our established universe might. Without the burden of creating an entire world, the author is free to use the story to easily discuss something else, such as maybe providing a unique perspective on human nature or offering a veiled opinion on a real-world issue through allegorical people and events. While these things are certainly still possible to do through a story that is polarized on the spectrum, it is considerably more difficult because so much effort must first go into establishing the story as a component of its genre, where as if it is left in the middle, the author can jump right in to the true meaning of the text.

            If we think about the umbrella of speculative fiction being accurately represented by a spectrum from hard science fiction all the way to high fantasy, we notice some distinct differences between those stories that fall on the ends of the spectrum and those that remain towards the center. Being so familiar with the incredibly metatextual genre, authors of speculative fiction are very conscious of where their stories will end up on this spectrum, and we can use that information to help us determine what is important in the text. Too often, readers get hung up on decoding the genre, because many people are uncomfortable being unable to define what they experience. As a result, these stories in the center often have their points missed because their readers are too busy trying to classify them. We should spend less time concerning ourselves with genre distinction and more time worrying about what we may have missed while we were debating whether a story was science fiction or fantasy.