Week 10 - The Fiction of Ideas

This section of sci-fi is what personally interests me the most. This section is about sci-fi writers who started writing less about large, space epics that took place on fantastical worlds but instead focused more on social and political topics and using sci-fi stories as their way to approach these topics. Soon, the more paranoid and dystopian side of literature started kicking in, thanks to the likes of Phillip K. Dick.

Fahrenheit 451 is a great example of this. The film is about an American society in which reading books is banned, and that local firemen are in charge of burning them all. The reasoning is most likely in part because the "higher ups" of this society don't want people to question their authority, which some of the books they're burning could be doing just that. It's all about social order and structure and trying to maintain what they think is right for the better good. 

The short story Aye and Gomorrah is another example of this. The story is about people called Spacers, who are people who have to be neutered at puberty so that they can work in space without being hurt from the radiation. They are respected by the people, but they end up feeling lonely because they are unable to have sex. There are people, called frelks, who do want to be with these Spacers, but because of this, they are looked down upon. When this was originally written, it was in the '60's, when homosexuality wasn't accepted in society. These frelks stand in as homosexuals, being shamed for loving those they have no control over.