Anna Shabayev: "Dear Chuck Wendig: Oh the Horror"

Dear Chuck Wendig: Oh the Horror

By

Anna Shabayev

When confronted with strange new places or ideas, I think about interesting but fearful. I love it when in adventure fantasy books, such as The Hobbit, the party is traveling through the dark woods with a sense of danger but with eyes set on their goal. The woods are so strange that I would like to learn more about them, but at the same time I wish that the protagonist would quickly leave. For the sense of wonder and suspense in adventure, I like to refer to the beginning of a short film titled “Out of Sight,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxY-5-d9Uqo) which is about how a little blind girl loses her dog and explores a new environment. First, there comes the darkness and uncertainty of a new environment and the sense of being alone follows. However after this comes the curiosity to find out more. Beauty is found in these things, such as when the girl finds the metal bars to play music as she hits them. These elements of new environments and fear are used in other speculative fiction stories to get the readers’ attention.

But the best fears are the ones that aren’t described. The horrors never appear clearly and it is up for you to imagine what it is. One of my favorite examples out of the stories I read this year in my speculative fiction class was H.P. Lovecraft’s, “The Colour out of Space.” In this science fiction horror story, a meteor crashes next to a house which results in the surrounding land turning grey and being a luminescent color that the meteor was at night. The animals get sick and die, and eventually the people living next to where the meteor used to be got sick as well. However all of this happens without knowing what exactly this force is, except that it came from a meteor and is referred to as “the colour.” It is up to your own imagination on what hue the meteor is since the most description given is that “the colour… was almost impossible to describe; and it was only by analogy that they called it colour at all” (H.P Lovecraft’s, The Colour Out of Space). There is this universal fear of the unknown. In “The Colour out of Space,” for example, it is heard that the horse was struggling outside and then the sounds stop, but the reader never knows what happens. It is up to the reader to decide how the “the colour” attacks and acts. I personally find these horrors to be the most engaging, as I find that while descriptions of a creature may invoke horror, that horror is boundless if it is left to the imagination.

I believe that the tactic of fear is most interesting when used in stories that question the system and push the rules. Psychological thrillers focus on the unstable emotional states of characters which is often unsettling to the viewer. Psychological thrillers are more impactful when it is known that it is possible. For example, while an alien attacking your house is very unlikely, there are real life examples of people with mental disorders such as mania.  Examples of movies that I find interesting in that way include “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Gone Girl,” “Se7en,” “Shutter Island,” “Fight Club,” “Taxi Driver,” and “The Shining.” These characters bring sanity into question such as in Taxi Driver when through the main characters eyes, society is corrupt and must be fixed. I love these types of stories because I personally study a bit of psychology on my own time and I love to see how the writers develop their unstable characters. I tend to find these movies intellectual and mind provoking. 

Andrew Adams: (To Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas) "A Brief Summary of Science Fiction Publication History, or Why I Feel Connected to Radical Feminists, Incendiary Racists, and People Not Even Born Yet"

A Brief Summary of Science Fiction Publication History, or Why I feel Connected to Radical Feminists, Incendiary Racists, and People Not Even Born Yet

By Andrew Adams

                Short science fiction and fantasy is a form of media that is inherently entrenched in a metacognitive discussion of the community that publishes it. This may seem self-evident. You could easily claim that all media is tied to the community that publishes it. You’d be right! That said, short science fiction is uniquely involved simply because there is a higher magnitude of genre-specific discussion surrounding and involving short science fiction.

                This trend is easy to understand when you take a historical perspective. While science fiction has had a long and varied history — see Verne, Wells, and Shelley — it experienced a clear boom in 20th century America. This could be explained by a number of competing and intertwined hypotheses, but whatever the cause, two major eras arose that helped drive science fiction to become the powerhouse of literature that it is: the Pulp Era, beginning in 1926 when Hugo Gernsback founded Amazing Stories, and transitioning into the Golden Age of Science Fiction in 1937 when John Campbell gained control over Astounding Science Fiction and Fact. For more about the actual history of these eras, check out this super detailed entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

                There is something very important about these two transition dates: they are linked to magazines. Early science fiction was built on the backs of a dozen or so magazines that published science fiction. This was not a particularly innovative business model. There was a particular trait, though, about these science fiction magazines that was new. Gernsback, unlike any other American editor, began to publish in only one genre — science fiction. James Gunn, in his seminal anthology The Road to Science Fiction, called the fanbase that arose around Amazing an "enthusiastic ghetto." (You can totally read parts of it on Google Books, by the way. All hail Alphabet!) By engaging in this group through features like “Letters to the Editor,” Gernsback created a cohesive community of readers that were as engaged in the content of their stories as they were in the discussion of their stories. Perhaps most amazing of all is that this community never went away.

                This is the part of the grand story of science fiction where I come in. This is not to say that I come in when Gernsback first published Amazing, but that would be cool. No, this is where I come in because I am the beneficiary of this history of metastory analysis. My first exposure to science fiction was an old red book called “Hugo Winners.” It was (and still is?) a collection of short stories and novelletes, all of which won the Hugo Award. There are some really good stories in that book, ranging from the immensely soft science fiction of Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon” to the complicated and rarely questioned physics of Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star.” Perhaps my favorite part of that book, though, are the two introductions written by Isaac Asimov. In it, he up the context in which these stories were written. Without that background, there are so many elements likely to slip under the nose of the reader. Why did a story reference a character or species that was tangential at best? Oh, easy. It was published in a different issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Nods like that, necessary in periodical publications, make readers – myself no exception – feel at home in a community of similarly interested people. We get to be in an in-crowd that simply isn’t possible with novels published independently of other writers.

                So I’ve covered how short stories in sf originated as a necessary form of publication, how the community formed around that medium, and how I got hooked into that club of readers. That, though, is just the beginning. Science fiction publication continues in this wonderful tradition with magazines that are keeping up with changing media trends like Apex, Uncanny, and Tor.com. The tradition of making short science fiction more than just stories – I think the cornerstone of the sf community – is also being upheld. Uncanny, for example, publishes nonfiction on the subject of sf almost as frequently as they publish actual sf stories! What’s even better is that many of these nonfiction pieces (like this, this, this, and this) are dedicated to opening the doors to the sf community even wider. It’s this rich culture of inclusivity, history, and community that’s the reason I read short sf and honestly, why I think more people need to.

Anabel Rivera: "Dear Chuck Wendig: _Among Others_ and the Coming of Age Story"

Dear Chuck Wendig: Among Others and the Coming of Age Story

By

Anabel Rivera

Lately, I’ve been watching lots of coming of age movies. I like them because I know exactly what I’m getting: a protagonist who has to overcome issues involving discontent with their family or their dysfunctional peer group or the world in general. They’re sometimes mundane and sometimes petty; the repetitiveness can be lulling. The characters’ issues and the path they must take to solve them are clear.

But what happens when you take the standard coming of age story and add witches and wizards to the mix? You might end up with something like Harry Potter, Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, or Jo Walton’s Among Others. All have teenaged protagonists (for the most part…) that need to find their place in the world—with all the assistance and hindrance that can come with magic. Magic adds another dimension that would not be possible in your standard coming of age film. It delivers ambiguity and a necessity to step back from the organization of the world into another that can be completely nonsensical.

I took an immediate liking to Among Others, which follows the life of a fifteen year old daughter of an evil witch and a dysfunctional father named Morwenna Phelps through her life at a boarding school. She’s feels terribly lost without her dead twin sister Morganna, who was killed by their crazy mom. Mor (they’re both Mor, but I mean Morwenna) uses magic only when necessary to help herself, and the lonely book-lover conjures up a group of people of her own, a karass, to talk about her passion for books. However, because the magic in Mor’s world is extremely subtle and very hard to justify, she has trouble believing in her own magical power at first. She claims that most magic can be rationalized with coincidences, explaining that the summoning of a rose from midair could have just been dropped from an airplane into your hand at just the right moment. Crazy, huh?

Yet, I find myself thinking in a similar manner. I like order. I’m hard-wired to observe, analyze, and predict patterns. Ideas and thoughts need to be categorized, and all options should be considered. Always. I can take a small happening in my life and overthink it to the point where it blows completely out of proportion. Uncertainty troubles me more than anything; I fear the future and its ambiguity. That fear seems to be the essence of the coming of age story.

I like Mor because we can see her come to terms with herself and her place in the world. Although the argument can be made that Among Others doesn’t follow the typical path of a coming of age story, it seems more like a formality of the definition, as we still see her going through many teenager-y things, like being excluded from groups at school and falling in love. Yet, the magic in her life adds a unique layer of uncertainty—not reassurance. She denies that her karass actually likes her, and seems to claim that her aunts are witches to explain her father’s drunkenness and manipulability.

While Mor goes through all of these troubles and the painful, awkward process of growing-up, she experiences what many of us long for in our day-to-day lives: adventure. She gets that not from her magic, which is what we might have expected, but from the books she reads. The fantastical worlds of books from The Lord of the Rings to The Wizard of Earthsea, and the creations of Zelazny and Tiptree. She finds solace in the books’ ability to explain things in her world that doesn’t make much sense, even less so than our world, due to the addition of inexplicable magic.

The comforting part of fiction, specifically sf, is that it can disguise a message within the context of a great world or plot line. A message hidden well within the intricacies of the story isn’t at all like forcing cough syrup down your throat.

I had an English teacher who claimed that “books were practice for life.” But it’s too overarching to say that it’s their sole purpose is merely practical. Books are meant to educate, entertain, and comfort. Fiction can blend that sense of adventure and novelty with a reassuring pat on the back that says, “See? Look how crazy this world was and how the character was able to overcome their troubles. For you, for sure, everything will be alright, too.”

Amber Acquaye: "Dear Chuck Wendig: Life is Scary"

Dear Chuck Wendig: Life is Scary

By Amber Acquaye

Deciding on what I am interested in is a daunting task that takes a lot of brain bower. It is like when I put a complicated function into my calculator and it has infinitely many solutions, causing its operating system to lag.  There are so many things that I have not been exposed to that may fascinate me. On a general level, I think that the subject, topics, and activities that I gravitate towards most have to do with mechanisms, the intricate ways that things interact and work alongside each other. This can be between the processes of cellular respiration in our bodies and how our perceptions of beauty based on shade develop from the time we are born. Specifically, I find anything having to do with the historical advancements and movements of racially black people fascinating. Having not learned much about my own history and culture at school outside of slavery and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whenever I have a chance to learn something about who I am I take advantage of it.

 In reference to the second portion of your  comment, I think that Ray Bradbury’s the Martian Chronicles was a piece that I was actually interested in out of my four years in high school because of the fact that it explored the complex relationship in between what we find fascinating but also fear. My roommate  always tells me that the Netflix movies that I recommend to her are boring. I can tolerate and enjoy movies that have slow plot development if they have strong character development as they show the intricacies of human relationships. On that same line, I enjoyed The Martian Chronicles because  entire novel wove threads between the exciting developments of “discovering” a new land and the complexities of our human capabilities for destruction.

             Deciding what troubles me is much easier than saying what I’m interested in. Perhaps it’s because I’m being a cynical second semester senior (almost), waiting for my college decisions to come in while simultaneously trembling with fear about the future.  When I was younger, the only thing that had the power to shake me to the core were tornadoes. I will never forget one fall day afterschool when I was chalk drawing on the driveway with my neighbor to the left, Keely, and across the street, Jourdan.  Before going to our respective homes after playing, we went into Keely’s house to grab  a cupcake. Over those few innocent seconds, the sky had flipped from a calm blue to a dark greenish turquoise foreboding scene. As Jourdan and I stepped back outside to go my house, my dramatic child brain remembers my mom screaming for us to run from inside the garage as the door was slowly closing. Jordan and I were sprinting, trying not to be sucked away by the wind. When we finally made it inside the house, we huddled in the basement praying our house didn’t get blown away.  I distinctly note that my cupcake was ruined as all the icing and red liquorice decoration had blown off. After that fateful evening, I was traumatized. Every time the tornado sirens went off, even for their first Tuesday of the month tests, I got a chilling anxiety wondering if it was the time I would finally fly away. I cannot articulate just how much I miss the days when the only things that I worried about were heavy winds, green skies, and ruined cupcakes. Now the stakes are too high. Now, everything that I do counts. I’m afraid of what is going to happen to my IMSA relationships when we all move across the country. I’m scared that I’m going to end up at a mediocre college after nearly breaking my back at IMSA to do go somewhere amazing. I feel like things that I have no control over mark this transition of my life. That uncertainty, the fickle state of my future is what terrifies me.

            Even though so many things in my life are unsure, from my interests to my future, I take comfort in knowing that I am only eighteen years old and have my entire life ahead of me to figure it out.

Alex Gong: "Everything (A Response to Chuck Wendig)"

Everything (A Response to Chuck Wendig)

By Alex Gong

Solipsism is the theory that oneself is all that can be known to exist.

Just like how the humans realized their “revived” loved ones were merely Martian pretenders in “The Third Expedition” of The Martian Chronicles, I cannot know if I am the only intelligent life and everyone else is merely highly advanced robots.

It is easy to subscribe to this theory when looking at the world full of atrocities such as murder, rape, and war. I can merely disconnect myself from their wrongdoings by saying that they’re not human and that I would not ever do something like that. Alternatively, I can subscribe to this theory and feel a lot better about myself when I look at the Ivy League students and Olympic medalists; I can say “nope” they’re just robots.

Even though there are benefits to believing in solipsism, most of us would not subscribe to the theory based on the connections we have made with other humans. Though we may scoff at solipsism, a little part of us is afraid that it might be true- that the only people we are only like is ourselves and that we are truly and utterly alone.

However, fiction, as a whole, creates a strong argument against this theory. How can robots have the same fears and interests as me? How can they create a piece of work that speaks to me so well? Maybe the robots are just that advanced.

Solipsism is an interesting yet scary theory for we have no idea if it’s fact for fiction. What it can tell us is that what scares and intrigues people at the same time is the unknowable. Nothing we know is truly certain. Thus, everything is scary yet intriguing. The wide range of what is available to us in fiction from broken families  to coming of age love stories to alien intelligence stories to magical monkey stories confirms that as humans, we’re pretty much simultaneously intrigued and terrified by everything. As a human being, I can confirm this. I’m scared of things like the future and new people but at the same time I’m intrigued by them.

 

As a result, writers write fiction and readers read fiction. Writers write fiction in the hopes that someone out there can relate and feel the same way about life as they do. Writers write fiction to introduce and expand upon new realities. They write their fiction to relate to others on an emotional level. Fiction is not only a form of entertainment; it’s also a connection.

According to Philip Martin in “Fantasy and Belief” in the genre of fantasy, we explore these fears and interests through imaginative worlds, “wand-waving magicians, talking animals and other odd creatures never seen before”. We create worlds of science fictions through “some extrapolated aspect of actual laws of the universe we live in” such as “spaces stations, Mars exploration, supercomputers, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, robotics.” It speaks great volumes to the creativity and great knowledge of humans that things which “were vaguely plausible, if far-fetched at the time…[have] come true”. Even though fantasy and science fiction have their differences, for science fiction is much more rational than fantasy, they both explore the dreams, beliefs and values of humans. Through our fears, feelings, and interests, we are able to relate to other human beings.

I believe what makes fiction and art as a whole so amazing is that even though we all have different tastes and prefer different styles, there is always going to be something out there that speaks to our soul. And that’s pretty mind blowing.

Alec Elston: "Dear Chuck Wendig: Beam Me to the Bridge . . . Over Troubled Waters"

Dear Chuck Wendig: Beam Me to the Bridge… Over Troubled Waters

by Alec Elston

            While procras- preparing to tackle the question what “bothers” me, I decided to do some empirical field research.  When asked at our mandatory 10 check what bothers them, 12 of my 24 dorm wing mates understandably responded with either “Donald Trump,” or something about him; 4 responses criticized being questioned and prolonging check; 3 spat back “your face” or some variant, 2 made exasperated comments about their workload, 2 responded with citations of inconsistencies in the twelfth episode of “Mike Tyson Mysteries”; and the last just sighed and quietly said “everything.” I’ll keep my eye out for a partridge in a pear tree.

            

An uncomfortable parallel, this isn’t the only poll Donald has been sweeping lately. The moneybag mogul has been leading the GOP primary polls for quite some time, and is likely to run for president as an independent if his seat gets taken. He’s made a name for himself by sensationalizing his viewpoints and taking radical stances on immigration, both of Muslims and Mexicans. His strictly anti-politically-correct policy has garnered him the undying support of the people who still think that not being able to use the n-word is oppressive.

            Sensationalism in elections is an unavoidable strategy when everyone wants to win, this I understand. Using fear and hate, however, to divide the people of our nation- this I do not and will not understand.

            Science fiction and fantasy are amazing tools for deconstructing societal problems and taking them to their logical conclusions, in order to analyze the faults in any system. For example, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles uses Martians to comment on race relations, and Sofia Samatar uses selkies in her short story “Selkie Stories are for Losers” to characterize and help her demonstrate loss and abandonment. Likewise, speculative fiction can be used to examine the problems of today’s political environment. A two party system could be taken to the extreme- civil war, information battles for dirt to throw in the other candidate’s face, etc.

            I’m interested in the future of our political climate as well- there are some issues that republicans and democrats are beginning to agree about for the sake of creating actual change. School system reform, environmental action, healthcare reform- while all primarily partisan issues, there seems to be a wide influx of young people who believe in action. Although at times, the “action” oriented young adult groups take it too far, I’m extremely excited for fiction aimed at the societal change that young people can make.

            Science fiction is an amazing tool to inspire change, and even character building can accomplish a lot to better society. Characters who represent an accurate portrayal of minorities, to counteract Donald’s hate, can go a long way to address people’s perspectives. Too often, minority characters are vague stereotypes- “Glee” praised itself for its diversity, yet showed nothing but vapid stereotypical characters.

            I’m excited for the future of speculative fiction- the force that has been pushing the boundaries of diversity and social messages since its inception has been called to action again, to fight against racial claims that we haven’t heard since WWII, and I know it can be the hero we need again.

Abby Paul: "Dear Michi Trota: How Fiction is Real"

Dear Michi Trota: How Fiction is real

By Abby Paul

               

Readers like me look for themes that inspire. Sure, sometimes it’s refreshing when a story ends in complete loss like in the Engine at Heartspring’s Center, but I don’t seek out murder suicide endings in what I read. I appreciate themes like good vs. evil or knowledge vs. ignorance, because asserts that positive change is possible. So much of the world we live in is a gray area, full of worries. Genre fiction has a tendency of making things black and white, discerning right from wrong. The X-Men fight radicals and genocidists, saving lives and putting away villains. Genre fiction is often optimistic about the existence of light and love among darkness and hate. Every problem has some solution and the world can be kept in balance. I enjoy themes of optimism, overcoming, and resilience for their relevance to issues in my life. I may not have journeyed across dangerous lands to fight a treasure hoarding dragon, but like Bilbo I can feel exasperated working toward a nearly impossible goal. Genre fiction can sweep you away from reality and give you a fast adventure, but drawing connections between two worlds with a message relates with readers.

Relevance is like medicine you hide in yogurt to trick your cat. When I pick up a book I am looking for another world, not an anecdote that will tell me how to live my life. “Oh boy the character in my book has a math test too! Will his studying pay off? Oh the suspense!” said no one ever. But medicine stays with you, it makes you feel better, and it pays off in the long run. At a first glance the best fiction is far removed from reality, filled with superpowers, space travel and antique police boxes that few teenagers have ever seen in real life. Then you see real lives: relatable people with relatable trials among aliens and robots. And it makes you think.  You grow attached to the characters, take interest in their lives, and empathize with their struggles. I look for stories that engage readers without straightforward relevance to my life. Indeed, the best characters have their white whales and backstories. In written genre fiction we often have the advantage of getting inside the protagonist’s head. For example, in Neverwhere, we see Richard’s transition more clearly from missing home to embracing London below, because we know some of his thoughts. Little ironies and jokes bring a sense of genuineness to their person. Similarly I appreciate worlds built similar to the real world, not in that they have the same rules as reality, but in that they merely have rules. In genre fiction like Doctor Who, the rules of the world are stretched and bent, but never broken. Paradoxes are always a limiting factor in that world. There is a necessity to be able to make sense of the fictional world to understand the plight of the characters within.

In conclusion my preferred genre fiction doesn’t have to be sugar coated, without loss or labor, because from fiction I learned light does not exist without darkness and character does not exist without trials. When authors interweave relevant themes into fantastic stories, they interest and engage the reader. The heart of the story should speak to the hearts of the readers.