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| Robert Heinlein |
Robert
Heinlein is generally credited with inventing the term “speculative fiction.”
He did this because some of his fiction did not fit neatly into existing
categories. The term is used today in varying ways. David Bowlin, editor of
Shadowkeep Magazine, penned this definition: “Speculative fiction is a world
that writers create, where anything can happen. It is a place beyond reality, a
place that could have been, or might have been, if only the rules of the
universe were altered just a bit. Speculative fiction goes beyond the horror of
everyday life and takes the reader (and writer) into a world of magic, fantasy,
and science. It is a world where you leave part of yourself behind when you return
to the universe as we know it, the so-called real world. Speculative fiction
defines the best in humanity: imagination, and the sharing of it with
others.”
That’s
as good a definition as I’ve ever read, but it leaves out a differentiation I
think is vital. In speculative fiction, at least as I understand the term, evil
does not rule. In my last blog, I talked about horror and how that genre, in its purest
form, presents evil as being stronger than good. Speculative fiction allows for the predominance
of good. In speculative fiction (as
distinguished from horror) there will be an ending in which the good will come
out on top. It may emerge bruised and bleeding. Its victory may be purchased
with blood and pain, but good will prevail. The monsters are subdued. Order is
restored. At the end of the story there is reconciliation.
Let
me give you an example. In 2010 I published a story called “Polarity” in an
anthology, Dark Things II, by the
now-defunct Pill Hill Press. A
prostitute, Millie, gets paid for standing naked during a ceremony. She isn’t
sure what is going on, but is happy to make money without having to give out sex. The
only thing that disturbs her is the girl the man calls “Carrie,” who looks
to be sixteen or so and who stands opposite her, also naked. She could be underage.
Millie,
who is unhappy about how her life has turned out, runs into Carrie, who is the
man’s daughter and a virgin who can fulfill a ceremonial role in her father’s satanic
rituals where he calls demonic curses on people. For protection, he uses a
spell that requires two women to flank him, one a virgin, and one a whore.
Carrie
serves her father only through fear. He has threatened to kill her mother and
brothers (who have deserted him and live elsewhere) if she doesn’t cooperate.
During the course of the conversation, Millie confides that she wants out of
the life she lives but doesn’t know if she’s smart enough to do anything else.
Carrie assured her she can. She also says she can overcome her father if she and
Millie reverse the “polarity” of the spell that protects him from the demons.
Carrie must lose her virginity; Millie must repudiate being a prostitute.
Easy
for Carrie, more difficult for Millie—but Millie tells her sister, who runs the
small brothel where she plies her trade, that she is quitting. Her sister is
scornful but has no choice if Millie wants to leave. She also talks to a clergyman and
makes a vow she will abandon her life of prostitution. At the next ceremony,
the father realizes, too late, that the spell he has relied on will not work
and is destroyed by the demons.
In
the follow-up to the story, Carrie is reunited with her family. Millie gets a
regular job and begins taking classes to become a nurse. She also is romanced by a
man she serviced once a week who hints he might want to marry her. In other
words, a happy ending.
Oscar
Wilde has a character in one of his plays quip, “The good ended happily, and
the bad unhappily. That is what fiction
means.” To me, at least, that is what speculative fiction means. Endings are
happy or are somewhat happy. They are at least hopeful. The demons will not return
and “get” Carrie and Millie. The Father will not come back to life and wreak
vengeance on them. In horror this would happen. Not in speculative fiction as I
understand it.
So
speculative fiction involves a view of the world where good prevails and is
stronger than evil. This is not a Pollyanna world. It is not a world of easy
answers. Yet it is a world where one might hope that the right can prevail and, as
Wilde said, the good end happily, the bad unhappily.
This
involves a certain concept of the universe and the nature of good and evil.
More on this in my next blog.
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