Week Seven - Science Fiction I

Sorry guys got a little bit behind, my laptop wouldn't let me open pop genres my pop up block blocked it so annoying! any way first question up:

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? which is the Man in the high Castle?

First off what does each of the two mean? Science fiction means literary fantasy involving the imagined impact of science on society and speculative fiction basically includes all kinds of fiction, more highly imaginative fiction, as Urbanski (2007) and Card (1990) state that it "incorporates both science fiction and fantasy categories".

The man in the high castle could come under either science fiction or speculative fiction, but personally from reading this i would class it more towards the speculative fiction. Why i think this is because this story focuses on history as it's about the Americans loosing WW2 to the German and Japanese, I've picked up on the history as a main point towards my decision of what fiction this is because as Nic said that the story is set in the present time and science fiction is mainly set in the future, which is very true. I didn't go with science fiction because in The Man in the high castle wasn't really my idea of science fiction as Phillip K Dick just speculates what would happen, i don't know how to word what i am trying to get at! maybe this was just a different approach to science fiction as at the start it says "like all good science fiction, was less prescriptive of was too come, than descriptive of the present" (Brown, 2001).

Next question;


According to Mountfort (2006), what role does the I ching have as an organisational device in the structure of high castle.

At the very start Mountfort quotes a quote from Dick regarding the I ching, " I've used it to develop the direction of a novel". (Mountfort, 2006). The I ching is referenced throughout quite a bit, Dick himself states that " the I Ching itself as having a sense of written High Castle" (Mountfort, (2006). I Ching is described by Mountfort by the “show the physical seams of the construction of Dick’s novel, constitute its central organisational device, and function as his meta-narrative.” (Mountfort 2006).

There are 10 main parts that the I Ching is used in High Culture. " The oracle readings Dick inserts at these critical junctures in the novel may appear to uninitiated readers as a little more than a prominent and picturesque subtext" ( Mountfort, 2006). Because of the I ching's role in making Dicks work, as the reader you can be more interested.

References

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin.

Dick, P.K. (2001; 1962). The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin.

Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.