As we all know science fiction is based on imagined future scientific technological advances and major social or environmental changes, which is always portrayed by space or time travel and life on other planets. Speculative fiction is the term to describe literature that is highly ingenious, based in another reality and this includes science fiction.
Brown (2001) implies that The Man in The High Castle is recognised as science fiction, as attracts readers to think of being in a universe which the author has depicted of little people living small lives with honour and confusion of conflicting ideas which occur. ‘When we are not sure what the fate of individual characters...we a left wondering at the fate of the world as it gives us an appreciation of the fully developed characters who are created by events and occurrences’, (Brown 2001). This novel is a work of speculative fiction. Brown (2001) suggests that ‘Dick has set the stage in a sub–genre of science fiction little explored at the time he wrote the novel, of the Alternative World’.
What does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features of SF?
Brown (2001) describes science fiction to be one of Dick’s obsessions, as he is preoccupied with the concept that ‘the universe is only apparently real, an illusion behind which the truth might dwell’. Although many may agree or not, science fiction portrays the thought of different worlds and what our future may be. Dick based his characters on people he knew and versions of himself he wrote about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
Brown (2001) states ‘Dick suggests that the world presented in The Man in the High Castle is but an illusion, that other, better worlds might exist’. This identifies the themes and concerns of this novel, being the idea those other worlds exist, and that one’s own perception of this differs because of reality.
Good intial response, but I woiuld have liked to see these developed further - with references to/ extracts from the primary text to support the points raised.In your first response, are you suggesting that Dick was largely responsible for the speculative fiction genre?
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