What is So Intriguing About Speculative Fiction?

The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, and Never Let Me Go are all novels that have grabbed the attention of readers around the world. They all fall under the genre of speculative fiction. But what is it about speculative fiction that readers just love? Our society today is fast paced. The common businessman or woman rushing through an airport or impatiently waiting for a Starbucks coffee is a familiar sight. Planners control our lives; technology has made us more impatient; our society has advanced. But even though we have come to this point in life, we still like to imagine another world, or what would have happened if history had changed its course.

In The Handmaid's Tale, history has changed course and birth rates have dropped, eventually leading to a society based on one thing: making children. Today, having children is a wonderful thing that is commonly celebrated around the world. But we never stop and think what it would be like if something could prevent a large percentage of the population from having children. This bizarre idea is explained in the novel, though. I find that the things we are most interested in are often the things we had never really thought about in depth before. These are the things that excite us in life. Imagination is a powerful thing. Speculative fiction takes advantage of our love to imagine, and uses it to imagine very different and often strange things.

One thing that speculative fiction reminds me of is a 'video game', or so I thought, called second life. In this game, you pretty much live in a cyber world, where you meet other people and can even make real money. We sometimes get so caught up in this alternate world, though, that it can start to become real for us. This so called addiction can be harmful. I have heard numerous stories of people who live in this video game, and think that it is real. Life can be hard, and an alternate reality can be an easy escape for some, but it shouldn't necessarily be the right one.

Speculative fiction might offer us a different view of the world, but it allows the reader to get caught up in the story, without them believing it to be real. Instead of a dangerous addiction being the result, we get to experience a world in some sort of a “safe mode”, a healthy way to exercise our imagination. In one way, I can connect this to the way that Offred finds her sources of freedom and expression. Constantly through the book Offred refers to writing and reading as her freedom: “Pen Is Envy… Just holding it is envy. I envy the Commander his pen” (196). She desperately wants to have the power that is beheld in his pen; a small and simple object that contains the will for her to keep going. Offred uses the pen as an expression of her imagination, like how some people use speculative fiction. Another reason why I believe people are so attracted to speculative fiction is because we are always wondering about the future. This can also be connected to The Handmaid’s Tale, in quite an opposite way where Offred is always looking back and referencing to her past. “I wanted to feel Luke lying beside me. I have them, these attacks of the past, like faintness, a wave sweeping over my head” (62). These constant looks into her past also help her get through life and give her some sort of hope, a hope for an escape one day. So in this way, she is looking into her past for the future.