“Today is declared an unscheduled holiday”

Hi Owl,

It really has been awhile. Sorry, everybody!

I really loved the segment of your story you shared with us yesterday, Owl. It was wonderfully written, and it brought up a lot of interesting concepts. I particularly liked the distinction made between artificial intelligence and simulated intelligence. You asked me a particularly hard question yesterday about what I like to see in science fiction, and I will do my best to give a partial answer today.

Science fiction is my all-time favorite genre to read and write, and it's the questions like the ones your story is starting to pose that make it so. In my mind, the best science fiction has always been that which uses the fictionalized scenarios in the story as a lens through which contemporary issues can be viewed. Generally, these pieces can be seen as sociopolitical commentary, or as imagined outcomes of certain real-world issues. In that regard, dystopic science fiction is a strong contender for my favorite sub-genre, as it lends itself particularly well to this sort of commentary, since it imagines the drastic extremes of social engineering gone wrong.  George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are perfect examples of this.

There's one thing that I really loathe about most writing advice, and that is that it presumes there are hard and fast rules that one must follow. For virtually any "rule" of writing you can find, there is at least one exception of something that breaks that rule, and does it well.That said, when attempting genre fiction, there are certain guidelines that are often followed. Very broadly speaking, fantasy creates a world that can never be, realistic fiction portrays variants of the world that is, and science fiction imagines a world that ours might one day become. In many ways science fiction is best outfitted to be the ideal mechanism for the hypothetical. Many story concepts start with a what if. Good science fiction is often the conclusion of those particularly elaborate or ambitious what if questions.

There are hundreds of aesthetic, philosophical, stylistic, and atmospheric elements that I can list that I like to see in science fiction. Without narrowing it down to subgenres I could talk for days on what factors I most like to see in science fiction. Try me sometime----I'll do it, really.

For now, though, I think it's time for another list. Since I talked earlier in this post about dystopian novels best demonstrating the speculative nature of science fiction, here's 5 of Raven's Favorite Dystopian Science Fiction Novels

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 
2. The Giver 
3. 1984
4. Brave New World
5. Feed

(Title quote courtesy of The Giver, Lois Lowry)