Quick: what was the first Science Fiction novel? I, Robot by Issac Asimov (1950)? The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)? Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864)?
The answer is “none of the above”– what is commonly agreed as the first Science Fiction novel was Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, written by Mary Shelly. Not quite what you’d think. Frankenstein, or, rather, Frankenstein’s monster, is a common figure around Halloween as the star of one of Universal’s classic monster movies. Frankenstein (1931) is a horror classic, and one of the first movies to be almost lying when it says “based on the novel by”. The novel is actually a lot darker, and more people die, but it also has a wildly different plot, so there’s that.
But still, since its inception, Science Fiction has been tied to horror and Gothic fiction. And historically, that makes sense– Science Fiction couldn’t really happen until science happened, and it also couldn’t really happen until the invention of the novel. Both of these things converged in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, during the Enlightenment. When you start learning the history of genres of literature, a lot of things begin to make sense.
Science Fiction is a very malleable genre. It goes with everything, like a good pair of jeans. Pair it with fantasy, and you have Star Wars. Pair it with historical fiction, and you have steampunk. Pair it with political thriller, and you have 1984, The Hunger Games, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451— basically any dystopian fiction. Pair it with horror..?
Much like a good pair of jeans, when paired, Science Fiction is more of a secondary genre. It lends its aesthetics and settings, sometimes a plot device or two, in order to service the main genre. Superhero fiction, for example, uses element of Science Fiction, but is mainly Action-Adventure. When Science Fiction takes the lead, however, that’s when things get interesting– especially when it comes to horror.
More →
11/20/2017
What is Worldbuilding?
valeriemclean1919 Arthurian Legend, Fantasy, JRR Tolkien, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Worldbuilding, Writing About Film, About Other Art, About TV, About Writing 0 Comments
So I recently got a Nintendo Switch, and with it the flagship release game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’ve been playing it a lot lately, but I haven’t really been doing much of the main quest. Or even too many of the side quests, for that matter. Mostly what I’ve been doing is plain exploring– unlocking shrines, activating towers, expanding the map. Breath of the Wild has one of the most free open worlds of the franchise since the original, and one of the largest maps of any game in any franchise. The map doesn’t feel empty, though, which can be a problem with an open world like that. Part of that is due to the sheer amount of stuff in the world, beyond the waypoints and major locations. All of this “extra” stuff that only seems to exist just to exist is a part of a necessary element of fiction and particularly speculative fiction called worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding exists in all kinds of fiction, not just speculative (Sci-Fi and Fantasy) fiction. Because all fiction is made up, the writer has to create a world where this fiction would make sense. Some of the greatest worldbuilders include Jane Austen and Charles Dickens– not because they were creating worlds whole-cloth, but because they captured the worlds that already existed and that they lived in like a time capsule. Some fiction even has that as its goal. Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame du Paris, better known in the Anglophone world as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was originally written to advocate for the restoration and preservation of the Notre Dame cathedral after decades of disuse and abuse. But there’s also the classic cases like J.R.R. Tolkien, the master worldbuilder, who at times seemed to write his Legendarium less to tell the stories of Middle Earth and more to justify all of the work he put in to building the languages of Middle Earth. There’s a reason that all modern Fantasy owes a debt to Tolkien– he practically prefabricated several generations worth of settings already.
But different types of fiction require different types and levels of worldbuilding. Some are more extensive than others, but when done very well, they all require the same level of commitment and effort.
More →