Luke Morrical: "Dear Chuck Wendig: Troubling, yet Interesting"

Troubling, yet Interesting

By Luke Morrical

Fiction and in particular speculative fiction, can have some elements which are both interesting and troubling. They are troubling and interesting because they portray a different and possibly worse version of what the world could be like such as Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, which explores the use of heavy censorship. On the other hand, these troubling and interesting elements do not have to come from works of speculative fiction they can be a part of the actual genre itself such as metatextuality.

One thing that scares me in my day-to-day life is that I will be surveilled by someone who does not know me and may want to use the information that they collect against me in some way. I’m really afraid of a surveillance state, which would have knowledge of everything about me like my favorite food, who I care about, and all of the small things that make me me. George Orwell seemed to have this same fear because he wrote 1984 in which Big Brother uses his constant surveillance of the entire population of a state to keep them in order and stifle their individual hopes and dreams. Even when someone like the protagonist tries to resist the control of Big Brother and have a mind of his own with private thoughts, he is captured and reprogramed to love Big Brother.

 Despite how scary a future in which you are under constant surveillance is it can be interesting because parallels between what we see in literature and what actually exist can be an exploration of certain path that the world could take and in some ways seems to be taking. Notable examples are the warrantless surveillance programs of the NSA, their attempts to circumvent all forms of encryption, and their attempts install back doors giving them access to many of the programs and applications that we use on a daily basis.

            Another interesting idea that is explored in speculative fiction is the possibility of far reaching human space travel and the technology used to achieve it such as the rockets, suspended animation, and space stations of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels. What makes all of these technologies and space travel interesting is that they are used to dispel the unknown and seem to be continuations of technology and mindsets that are present today. Therefore, parallels can be drawn between what actually exists and what exists in fiction.

However, there are some unsettling consequences that could come about as a result of human space travel. One example being the Buggers from Ender’s Game who are an alien race that  becomes a threat to the humans because humans, in their efforts to explore the universe, found the Buggers who they were not able to communicate with, so naturally conflict ensued.

            Aside from the actual content of stories, one interesting thing that occurs in speculative fiction is metatextuality. For instance, the use of faster than light travel by both the Star Trek franchise and the Star Wars franchise is a great example of proper metatextuality. In both of these franchises, the same technology is used in the same way along a myriad of other devices like phasers and blasters, aliens, and a sort of space government (the Empire and the Galactic Federation). What I find most interesting about metatextuality and in both Star Wars and Star Trek is that despite having many of the same elements, each of the franchises retains their own individuality and originality.

However, what I find troubling about speculative fiction being metatextual is the great possibility for abuse. No one would want to see the speculative fiction equivalent of what Vanilla Ice did to “Under Pressure” and how he basically ripped off the entire song. Metatextuality in speculative fiction should be more like “Can I Kick it?” by A Tribe Called Quest which samples Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and uses it in a more original way. This originality comes from putting more emphasis on the beats than the original version, using only a small part of “Walk on the Wild Side”, along with adding in some original transitions, and “Can I Kick it?” just sounds better than “Ice Ice Baby”. So what it really comes down to is that metatextual elements should be used, but in a way that embraces what they are sampling from and creates something new from it.