I still prefer “Speculative Fiction” as the name for this genre, it had the virtue of encompassing fantasy and other genres, just like the way they lump them all together in most British libraries and bookshops.  It never caught on though, hard to break tradition sometimes...

L E MODESITT Jnr,  WHAT IS THE FASCINATION?

I have just finished re-reading Modesitt  Recluse series, for the third time (sad ennit?)

  I cannot work out the fascination these books have for me. They are very repetitive, often written in quite poor English (even excluding where Modesitt mangles grammar in an attempt for an “ancient” tone) and it is evident that some never got anywhere near a proof reader.

  I think every novel mentions the “good white” and “hard yellow” cheese, bread is mostly either warm, moist and dark or stale, nothing in between. Crockery seems to be either “fine” or brown and chipped. In almost every Modesitt series (Recluse, Soprano Sorceress and Sceptre) there is a similar pattern; long involved journeys and triumph against seemingly impossible odds (usually with poor justification.)

  Some of his other books are so different, written in such good English I do begin to wonder whether Mr Modesitt is a) a very clever writer who can maintain greatly different styles with ease, or b) more than one person..

  But, even as a very critical reader I cannot deny that the Recluse series have even more of an attraction for me than Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series (which I have only re-read twice) - which is far, far better written.

  Whatever the reason Modesitt has found a commercial formula that has a very large following - can’t disagree with that, he is successful.

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 SCIENCE FICTION CHALLENGED

  A friend once challenged me that science fiction was purely escapist, had no relevance in the real world and was fit only for kids. Since we were well into the second bottle of wine I could do no more than rise to the defence of my favourite genre.

   Look at most other genres, it is only the very latest of westerns that reflect the world of  that period in America with any accuracy. The “black hat/white hat” stuff, the formalised duels at high noon and so forth are largely  romantic wishing, it was a hard and dirty time when life was cheap and most shootings were in the back.

   Romantic novels are just that - romantic.

   Historical novels may be based on historical events, but otherwise they are the product of the authors mind (and what better definition of fantasy is there?)

   So, sci-fi has elements of all the above; possibly (but more rarely as time goes on) it may be based on science. Or it may be a tale of a “social” nature, whether in the future of humanity, or that of an alien race.(though look close enough and you will find elements of human societies there.)

   Unlike some other genres science fiction cannot even pretend to portray real life, though it must draw from it. There will always be those people who immerse themselves so far into their own fantasies that they lose the defining line between reality and those fantasies.

   But by its very nature a sane person has to accept that the stories are no more than fabrications, you can’t believe them in the same way you might be able to believe “Nurses in Love” or “Destry does it Again”!

   A science fiction novel might well have very similar components in its plot to both the above, but in a context that has never happened. However one has to add that those events in the science fiction story might just happen, even if in some kind of analogue.