Science Fiction

Friday the 11th June was our SPECULATIVE SCIENCE FICTION meeting. We will NOT be discussing the merits and demerits of the ‘space cowboys’ Dan Dare genre. Instead, from ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ onwards, there has always been an interest in exploring alien and exotic ideas and cultures, sometimes shocking, but unafraid to cause controversy. Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” was met with alarm and downright disgust when it was published in 1932.

Science Fiction can be said to be “a barometer of our hopes and fears for humanity”. So should we push ‘speculative science fiction’ like Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-four” to one side and stick to ‘proper literature’?