Week 7

What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?

According to Brown (2001)when speaking about typical themes of Science Fiction (SF) and Dick's early works. “At first glance, Dick’s early novels conformed to type:He used popular leitmotifs of SF- precognition, ray-guns” This outlines the typical science fiction world of aliens and far off foreign worlds. Speculative fiction seems to deal with already concrete understandings from the real world and offers a ficticious version of these understandings by asking what if. I would say man in the high castle is speculative fiction based on the idea that it takes the world we live in regularly but puts us in the situation where the Nazis won the war, speculating "what would it have been like if Germany won the war?".

Reference

Brown, E. (2001).Introduction. In Dick, P.K.,The Man in the High Castle
(p.6). London: Penguin.