Literature of Horror, Fantasy & Sci-Fi

The first thing you have to do this week is fill-in the online Course Evaluation for this course.  Please do this before coming to class.  For this week's assignment I would like you to write about the future instead of just read about it.  You are welcome to earn more points and on the Activity Page for this week, I have linked a few...

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This week I am asking you to listen to the original radio version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or alternatively, to some Firesign Theater, the masters of absurdist speculative audio. As with the other genres we have studied this semester, satiric uses of genre codes serve as excellent examples in which to see those codes more clearly.  We become more aware of...

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Photo of Margaret Atwood  by Rannie Turingan This week we are considering the way in which the mainstream of literary writing has embraced the impulse of speculative fiction and sometimes its genre codes and markers as well. Its the quality of writing that makes such works literary, but often these works provide many unexpected pleasures because they are free of the expectations associated...

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Steven Barnes, Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due, 2003      Imagining a future relies on understanding and making use of one's placement in the present. Although there have always been individual authors who picked away at the edges of the genre, or even sometimes at its center, from marginalized positions of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or residency in the third world, our...

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Syd Mead concept art for Bladerunner The recommended reading for this week is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, a classic of cyberpunk. Alternatively you might read Neuromancer by William Gibson or if you need something shorter, you might try Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic."  Cyperpunk ficition often takes place in "cyberspace," a term invented by Gibson. It also features characters whose bodies are modified or enhanced by...

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D.C. Comics Mulliverse By the 1960s, writers and fans of science fiction were getting a taste of legitimacy as the genre drew serious consideration from both social commentators and literary critics . Writers like Ray Bradbury, Isacc Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Kurt Vonnegut emerged from science fiction into the mainstream of literary conversation. Novels and stories became increasingly less about high adventure...

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Space Opera is the sub-genre of science fiction that was originally developed from the high adventure tales of the 19th century, especially the pulp western and sea story. Using the conventions of these genres transplanted into outer space settings, this form of science fiction dominated the types of stories published in pulp science fiction magazines of the 1930s and 1940s. Space Opera was...

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Amanda and Neil at RCAD 2013 This week we will discussing Contemporary Urban Fantasy and especially the genre work of Neil Gaiman. Before our Zoom session I am asking you to read a novel by Gaiman such as Ananzi Boys, American Gods, Stardust, Neverwhere or the short novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  Go to the Activity Page for more...

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 Post for the MidtermMidnight, Friday Oct. 23 is the deadline for posting all your work before Mid-term grades.  I will be reading your bogs and assigning letter grades this weekend.  Before Friday night, please post on anything you have read or viewed for this semester.  To complete your preparation for mid-term evaluation, please post as the most recent addition to your blog, a...

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Illustration of Harry Ron and Hermione by Mary Grand Pre This week we are considering the fantasy story directed to an audience of children or young adults as an instrument through which to teach personal and cultural values. These are narratives of application meant not just to entertain but to instruct and to enlighten. The epic tale of Harry Potter is certainly the most well known...

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Prof. Tolkien blows smoke rings Tolkien once defended fantasy literature from charges of being "escapist" by explaining that readers "escaped" into fantasy literature the way prisoners "escaped" from jail. Tolkien saw the genre we now call fantasy literature as a necessary antidote to modern life. Tolkien's own works were to help propel the genre of fantasy into wider acceptance and popularity. At the same time, they helped to freeze elements of the...

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This week we will be discussing the topic of witches and female archetypes in speculative fiction. The featured novel for this week is Akata Witch by Nigerian-American specualtive writer Nnedi Okorafor. This is a novel about kids learning magic in Nigeria. It is well-written and interesting on a number of levels. Aunt Mariah by Diana Wynne Jones is the alternate reading. This is...

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This week we will be discussing recent trends in the horror genre and among the most influential, in my view, is what some call the "New Weird."  The term evokes the old Weird Tales Magazine, a pulp magazine in which a range of stories appeared  dramatizing uncanny experience, tales of the monstrous, or experiences with the supernatural. There was an easy mixing of genre...

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This week we are considering the sub-genres of J-Horror and K-horror as well as supernatural tales from South Asian cinema. This is a type of storytelling often with its roots in traditional stories, especially "ghost stories." The novels and films featured this week often embody a sense of the emptiness of contemporary life, representing a world in which the protagonists are having a...

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Over the last hundred and fifty years the representation of the vampire has shifted from merciless monster of the evil dead, through suave continental lover, to troubled boyfriend from a dysfunctional family. What makes vampires so sexy? Is it because they want something more than sex? Has the vampire become the representation of a male who really understands women and will listen to what they want? What's with all the...

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The Monster Gazes Into a Pool from Lynd Ward's illustrations for Frankenstein Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is a text that is frequently used to start a discussion of speculative fiction. It is often pointed to as the first "science fiction" novel, a category that gets a name some hundred years after the book was published. It is also considered a significant work of "gothic"...

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