The forty-eight students (and one fellow faculty member) whose writing makes up the December 2014 block of postings are the proud and oft-befuddled members of my two Speculative Fiction Studies classes 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 uncounted 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 stories set within them. 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 -- and, in fact, they know that to a certain way of thinking, this is exactly the problem with genres and labels.
Their challenge, as a final assignment for the term and a final tribute to the sf/f reader culture, was to compose a blog post where they take on the question raised by a very important person (at least, to my mind): associate literary agent Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary, Inc.
I have the honor of being Bridget's client, so getting my students in touch with an avid reader of sf/f and who is also professional working in publishing seemed only natural. I asked her to compose a question to which she really wanted an articulate, well-read answer. Then, because I'm perhaps a bit of a sadist, I tasked my students with giving her just such an answer. Frankly, Bridget hit them with a real doozy, the water-cooler center of so much of fandom and its debates:
Since
science fiction can include wholly invented alien lifeforms, fantasy uses
scientific theories to explain story elements, and superheroes derive supernatural
powers from pseudoscientific origins, how can we draw the line between fantasy
and science fiction? What’s the value of making that distinction?
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.
Best regards,
Tracy Townsend
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