Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Contemporary Fantasy and the Study of Social Sciences

This is topic Contemporary Fantasy and the Study of Social Sciences in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

Recently I have been thinking about some of my favourite books from the 19th century, and while a good portion of them are romances (in the classic definition; i.e. "The Three Musketeers" saga) several are contemporary fantasy (as opposed to sword and sorcery style fantasy).

Books such as "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde; "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson; and "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H.G. Wells.

These stories insert a speculative element for the purpose of exploring various aspects of the social sciences. For that reason they could probably be called science fiction.

So, do you think fiction that delvs into the social sciences fits better better with science fiction or contemporary fantasy? Does contemporary fantasy lend itself better to the study of man and his social interactions than does sci-fi? Are the social sciences still a good place to find fodder for speculative fiction, or are they more of a "mainstream" topic?

Just thought it might make for some interesting discussing.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Any fiction that doesn't address the social differences of being in a different setting would be a failure in my eyes.

In any good science fiction set in the future, there are differences in society and these differences will affect the characters and the plot.

In my fantasy stories, lets take elves who live for thousands of years, their social organizations are more rigid and at the same time more accepting of other social classes because of the lack of rapid change and building of familiarity. I have absolute theocracies, one with a benign leader, one with a selfish leader, and the social structures in each are vastly different though possessing the same outward structure.
I have an ancient roman society and a standard fantasy kingdom as well as an anarchal pirate city. Every country has its own social issues and social focuses.

Social studies in fiction are, to me, a good half of the creation process. It's a big part of what makes fantasy and science fiction interesting.

The social interaction in a thieves guild. Dealing with royalty who are only noble because of blood not actions, humans trying to impress elves with less than a century of life to do it...

Posted by rcorporon (Member # 2879) on :

I studied history throughout university, and a kind of an ameteur historian now, so almost all of my creative writing ties in factors that I pull from my knowledge of history. I think that real life is much more interesting than most of the stuff I have read, so if I can capture a grain of that and put it into my writing, I think that my writing will be better for it.

If I read a story and I say, wow, that soceity is dull, I'm not likely to continue to read it.

Ronnie

Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

I guess what made me think of these things was Christine's thread about stalling technology.

It seems that most sci-fi I come across is tech based. What about fiction that deals with non-tech, non-physics science?

Psychological science, medical science, social science, biology, chemistry, anthropology...

Most of these sciences tend to be found in fantasy and mainstream fiction (from my experience).

But not always. There was a really good psychology story in one of the spring issues of Analog (May or June, I think). And it could be argued that "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" as well as "The Island of Doctor Moreau" are more science fiction than fantasy (even though Dr. Jekyll fits the fantasy archetype for a wizard as does Dr. Moreau).

Am I missing a modern body of work that compares to some of these stories which seemed more common toward the end of the 19th century?

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

What about the Foundation series? Sure it was set in the future, but it was purely Social Science, no?

Posted by nimnix (Member # 2937) on :

Well, if you go by Amazon, Borders, or many readers, "science fiction" is written by science fiction authors.

Octavia Butler is considered a science fiction author, but some of the things I've seen from her seem to fall more on the fantasy side of the spectrum, or they can't be clearly defined as one or the other. She definitely deals with the social sciences in her work.

Ursula K. Le Guin also fits in this category I would imagine.

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

Margaret Atwood?

Posted by Gnomeinclaychair (Member # 2926) on :

I'm not sure how scientific publishers are being when they place a book into a certain subsection in a bookstore. The literary definitions of a genre and what happens on Border's bookshelves are often two different things.

There's some argument to be had against wondering what genre you're writing in and simply concentrating on presenting a good story.

One definition of Science Fiction is a speculation upon how a given technology will effect society. By that definition ALL Sci-Fi is also Social Science Fiction.

Posted by dreadlord (Member # 2913) on :

well, you all have a point, but the fact that you are missing, in my oppinion, is that everyone has their own oppinion. to someone, Paul Bunyan could be sci-fi, but to someone else, He could be fantasy.

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

I'd have to argue that Jeckyl and Hyde and Moreau were Science Fiction because they did try to use "science" to explain what happened. And if you look at that and say, "Hey, contemporary SF" then no, I don't think there's a lot of it. The closest I think would be Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, which dealt with the environment and was very near future SF. William Gibson's Idoru, which is father future, but still pretty near, deals with questions of what makes a person real.

I think that other stories do deal with the social sciences, but we might not recognize them because we're in the midst of the culture they explore. I'm not convinced that either Jekyll and Hyde or Moreau were written with the goal of exploring the social sciences. It seems more likely that they were written to be good tales and have lasted because they explore more than just a gonzo-neat idea.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

They didn't use today's science, or even the science of the time they were written. But both do use "science" imagined by the author, rather than magic. Even though we have trouble taking the depiction of "science" seriously, it is clearly a depiction of science rather than magic.