Wattpad brings you a guest post from Nick Uskoski:
As I write Sigma/Star, my science-fiction story, I have come across one big problem people seem to have: its genre. I can’t tell you how many times someone has commented or looked at my work and said it looks so good and they find it really entertaining and enjoyed it but…it isn’t their type of thing. And by that they mean science-fiction. There is a general assumption made by just about everybody that science-fiction involves space, aliens, and the future (and I used to make that too!). The problem with all of this is that it is…well wrong.
As an easy example of how off quite a few people are on the concept of science-fiction, I have encountered numerous readers of the popular Hunger Games series who have no idea it would be classified under science-fiction. A story set in a dystopian future environment? The way to tell that it is science-fiction is simple: it creates a timeline that could exist, but does not, while featuring a special something called cognitive estrangement.
A fancy-sounding term, n’est-ce pas? The easier way to put it is that science-fiction presents some sort of situation or uses science and explanations to make you believe in the world. Once you have decided to put aside your disbelief that, for example, there really is a world in which young kids are rounded up and thrown into a televised gladiator event, then the actual magic begins. For you see, science-fiction is all a lie. In fact, good and proper science-fiction is usually more real than a detective novel or a romance. The secret behind these pretty images and fancy flying machines is actually commentary on the true world. Can The Hunger Games actually being making a statement about modern society or the oppression of the government or perhaps on society’s lust for reality television? What about A Canticle For Leibowitz, which expresses the fears of a generation past when dealing with the atomic bomb? Or how about Planet of the Apes, exploring the ideas of animal testing, what it means to be human, genetic manipulation, and evolution? Did you even know these books were about all these things or did that cognitive estrangement have you passing over it without realizing?
So even if there were aliens and laser beams in those stories and many others (which there aren’t) you now know that they are actually all standing in for something else. Somewhere in that book is the author’s view on an aspect of our world, and every time machine, and trans-dimensional communicator, and alien being, is actually standing in for something that we see and hear about every day.
Finally, if you find a book, any book, of any genre, that sounds interesting or looks intriguing or is engaging and enjoyable then read it! Who cares if it isn’t what you would normally read. There is no penalty on your reading record if you stop reading fantasy one day and pick up a romance novel. If it’s good, it’s good. And with science-fiction, you’re almost always going to find one you’ll like in that genre. It is such a vast and incredibly complex grouping of books that there is something in it for everyone. Do you know about soft science-fiction and hard? What about space opera?
Don’t be afraid to pick up a book just because it’s sitting in a section you think isn’t for you. Stories are stories. The best ones always combine a little bit of everything in them so if you think you’re locked into one genre, you’re mistaken. Read whatever seems interesting and forget those stigmas pop culture tacked onto the novel you’re holding. Just go for it!