Category Archives: Science Fiction

Pat Grant’s “Blue” – A Reading Diary

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by Jo Hoffs
cartoon boy shown doing several steps of surfing

Pat Grant’s Blue is a graphic novel about surfing, about community, about migration and conservatism. First and foremost, it is a story about xenophobia, and about a blue alien race migrating to the fictional town of Bolton. We meet Christian, a Bolton citizen who starts off his story by complaining that the blue aliens “pretty much own the whole town now” (Grant 25). Christian is angry and frustrated – he wants everything to remain the way he knew it from his childhood, a time he spent surfing and having fun with his friends.

Once Christian starts telling the story of how he went looking for a corpse along the train tracks, I was immediately reminded of the novel The Body by Steven King – a similarity which was intended, as Pat Grant explains in an essay at the end. A huge theme in The Body is friendship and finding a sense of belonging somewhere. The four boys in The Body come from difficult family situations where they are either abused or neglected. During their adventure together, they find a sense of community and make some – not always positive – memories. In Blue the feeling of community and friendship also plays a part. Here, it is expressed through one of Pat Grant’s passions: Surfing. Christian, the protagonist of the story, like Geordie from The Body, tells the audience about his youth: A time where he often missed school to go surfing with two of his friends, “the only ones with families lousy enough to let them get away with it” (Grant 38). Christian still longs for this time, because it was a time when there were no blue people in Bolton yet. “You play spot the Aussie around here these days”, he tells the reader. As an introduction to his character, this is perfect because it immediately shows some of his main characteristics: He is a racist middle-aged man missing the days when he was not confronted by the existence of other cultures yet. At the time when Christian and his friends are looking for the body, the blue people have just arrived in Bolton, making it a huge topic of discussion among them. The first time they meet a blue person themselves the friends are already prejudiced wanting the immigrants to go back to “Oogety-Boong Land” (Grant 55).

from: Grant, Pat. Blue. Top Shelf, 2013.

The allegory of immigrants as a blue alien species in this graphic novel is interesting but at the same time confused me a bit. In my opinion, the political implications weren’t always clear, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing but in a story so heavily focused around a political issue, it weakens the material. On the one hand, the inhabitants of Bolton are biased against the immigrants for xenophobic reasons, as it becomes apparent on page 28, when racist slogans like “we grew here, you flew here” are shown. On the other hand, the blue aliens according to Christian do not take good care of the city, as there is garbage everywhere and the plants are dead (page 25). Without reading the author’s essay at the end, I would not have been sure if this story is actually pro-immigration.

When it comes to the visuals of the story, I like the drawing style and the use of the light blue color in contrast to the black, grey, and sometimes brown colors used for the Bolton natives. Sometimes there are dozens of panels on one page, which gets overwhelming to me personally if there are many word balloons to read (e.g., Grant 58). Another nice touch to the story was the Australian slang words in the dialogue. However, this also complicates the reading experience for those who are not familiar with Australian slang. Footnotes would have been helpful here.

While I enjoyed the story and its different themes – community, racism, generational conflicts, bullying – it left me a bit confused as to what to take away from the story. It feels to me like the author attempted to take the story into multiple interesting directions but failed to properly work out any of them. There is no character development on Christian’s part, no other characters to give some kind of a satisfying conclusion and especially, there is not much of a take-away from the story. Nevertheless, I would recommend this graphic novel, as I think it’s possible to have many different views on it and speaking from experience, every re-read helps you discover new aspects.

Works Cited

Grant, Pat. Blue. Top Shelf, 2013.

The Mysterious Success of Australian Sci-Fi Kids Shows

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Growing up watching Australian TV shows and movies, we – that is, my generation and before, who were watching a surprising amount of Australian content – unintentionally developed a picture of Australia. A lot of water, beaches and the sea, unusual animals like kangaroos and alligators, sunshine, and great weather. Essentially, a lot of landscapes and positive vibes. As Men at Work said it themselves, it is “the land down under”.

When we start talking about Australian speculative fiction, we realize that it covers a broad genre of books, movies, tv shows, and other media. Once we take a look back at our childhood, we can realize how Australian TV shows that fall into the category of speculative fiction have actually been a part of growing up. Children from various places and generations were able to take a glimpse at Australian science fiction tv shows and form their own opinion and picture of Australia.

By looking at kids tv shows such as Ocean Girl, H2O: Just Add Water, Wicked Science and The Elephant Princess we can acknowledge how much of an impact Australian science fiction and fantasy shows have had around the globe over decades. Different generations were able to watch various approaches of sci-fi characters and touch upon individual topics and stories.

Ocean Girl and H2O: Just Add Water were able to convey similar plots and themes to different generations. Cleo, Emma, Ricki, and Bella are the protagonists of H2O: Just Add Water and Neri, Jason, and Brett of Ocean Girl. The idea of mermaids, underwater civilizations and have been an ongoing myth for centuries such as the island of Atlantis. According to the myth, the island was submerged into the Atlantic Ocean for eternity. Thus, people from all ages – young to old – were all intrigued about stories of the unknown of the ocean and eager to watch mystic creatures such as mermaids and mermen. These two TV shows were able to incorporate these interesting myths and motifs in tv shows for kids to watch and teach them about these centuries’ old legends. The beautiful landscapes and the ocean were a bonus to the nice plot.

Wicked Science on the other hand was able to touch upon the topic of science. It’s a story about regular teenagers who turn into geniuses. An experiment which results in an accident turns the two high-school students Toby and Elizabeth from regular teenagers to kids with scientific superpowers. Whether to use them for good or for bad is up to their own decision. Thus, the tv show teaches kids a valuable lesson to use whichever power they might have for good. Simultaneously, we can follow these school kids along with their everyday life such as friendship problems, family issues and first love encounters.

Lastly, The Elephant Princess is a fantasy tv show about an average teenager, Alex, who one day finds out that she is not the person she always thought she was. It turns out she is the long-lost heir to the throne of a fictional Indian kingdom called Manjipoor. Alex’s life turns upside down and the viewers get to watch whether Alex will be able to master her life between saving the kingdom of Manjipoor and her regular life back home in the Australian suburbs.

All these TV shows were able to draw the interest of children from various places and backgrounds. The key element was the mix of the successful depiction of science fiction and fantasy motifs which were connected to the Australian culture and landscape. Once incorporated and displayed this way, the success was almost inevitable – and generations of children knew of Australian speculative fiction before they’d even heard the term! 

The Genres of Speculative Fiction – An Overview

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by Nadja Marek, Renee Czyganowski, Danny Tran, and Ann-Sophie Ludwig

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term that contains many different genres. Generally speaking, it deals with topics such as nature (or the supernatural) and alternate realities, either in the past or future. It tries to make sense of the world by combining history with the supernatural and imaginary. Genres that count as speculative fiction are fantasy, horror and science fiction. These can also be divided into more specific categories, for example stories that entail ghost stories, magic realism, utopian and dystopian or apocalyptic and post apocalyptic elements. In this blog post, we want to give you an overview of the different genres and their key aspects that distinguish one from another.

Fantasy and Magic Realism

The Fantasy genre commonly features supernatural elements and magic, things that obviously do not exist in our world. Creative freedom is intrinsically tied to this particular genre unlike any other. Unrestricted by physical laws, fantasy offers a glimpse of what life could be like, if there was a sense of underlying magic in our world. Coinciding with the name, the genre of magic realism combines notions of a real world with fantasy and magic. The literary aspect of magic realism gained traction in the 1930, when Venezuelan author Arturo Uslar-Pietri wrote a number of influential short stories, focusing on both mystery and the reality of life.  The overall setting is commonly grounded in a realistic but supernatural manner, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. Arguably the most defining characteristic of this particular genre is the aspect of relatability; the story must take place in a real world that the reader is familiar with or can easily identify themselves with. In the world of magic realism, magic is an element that most characters are accustomed to, showcasing how modern life could be like with a supernatural twist. The genre of magic realism is distinguishable from regular fantasy by taking into account realistic elements and especially the style of realism, as it would otherwise fall under the aforementioned genre. This amalgamation of both relatability and the fantastical offers a uniquely inclusive approach to storytelling, as it is easier to grasp onto things the reader is already familiar with. 

Horror and Ghost Stories

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” (Lovecraft 1927) Horror is a genre that contains elements of the supernatural and unnatural which serve the purpose to scare and repulse the reader. Often, it uses themes such as death, decay, monsters and blood to create an uncanny atmosphere that is noticeable and distinguishes it from any other genre. Moreover, it combines eerie descriptions of nature and the unnatural to make the reader feel frightened. Themes, such as the uncanny valley or monster theory help to understand that fear comes from something unfamiliar and something unknown that cannot be trusted. Horror plays with these themes to intentionally confront the reader with dreadful and shocking images and situations. In modern media it established the sub category of art horror which entails the interplay between threat and disgust. 

When looking at the different types of horror it is important to look at the difference between psychological horror and supernatural horror. The former uses emotional and mental circumstances to unsettle the reader and picks up themes such as insanity, whereas the latter deals with monsters and the unknown, such as ghosts, to make the reader feel frightened. 

Ghost stories are a subcategory of the horror genre and deal with, like the name already states, the appearances of ghosts. “A Splinter of Darkness” by Isobelle Carmody is an example of a horror short story. It deals with the uncanny because the child Paul is visited by a girl that only comes out when his parents aren’t home and she is persuading him to do unspeakable things to free others of her kind. The story uses the element of the unknown and secrecy as a tool to create a scary environment.

Science Fiction, Utopian/Dystopian and (Post-)Apocalyptic Literature

The words science and fiction at first glance represent a paradox, two terms that have nothing in common. However, put together they represent the great world of science fiction. The science fiction genre depicts the imagination of what science and its methods could have been, could be able to do, or become. It concerns itself with the question: what if? What if there would be a world where no one has to die? What if our world would be destroyed due to a scientific error? What if nature would turn on the human race? Science fiction often shows an opposite view to the life that we are used to and when it does relate to the world as we know it, there is always a big change to it, the so-called novum. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (3rd edition) the transformation to the world can occur due to technological inventions but it can also “involve some mutation of known biological or physical reality, e.g. time travel, extraterrestrial invasion, ecological catastrophe.” Due to the immense amount of possibilities for transformation, the genre of science fiction includes a range of subgenres such as for example utopian, dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic writing. Utopia and Dystopia present two opposing worldviews. Where utopian fiction presents a kind of perfect world, dystopian fiction presents a flawed one. Often dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic fiction are knit together tightly as an imperfect world is often presented as the result of an apocalyptic event. An example for this would be Jeremy Szal’s short story “The Weight of Silence”, which is set in Australia and deals with the aftermath of an attack through spiders that overtook the country. It presents a time of war and crisis through a before unknown force and shows how the survivors try to cope in their changed world. 

Conclusion

In this blog post, we talked about different genres, such as “Fantasy and Magic Realism”, “Horror and Ghost stories”, and “Science Fiction and Utopian/Dystopian and (Post-)Apocalyptic literature”. But most of the time, stories are not written for a specific genre and categorizing them can be a bit tricky. A fantasy book can contain elements of horror stories or a dystopian short story can be considered a fantasy story as well. Stories are still divided into different genres to make it easier for the reader to find specific topics, but their content is still overlapping in genre. Therefore, we have the term speculative fiction which describes fiction that deals with elements that do not exist in reality.

Bibliography

  • Carmody, Isobelle. 1995. A Splinter of Darkness. In Gary Crew, Dark House, 219-236.
  • Lovecraft, H.P. 1973. Supernatural Horror in literature. Dover Publications Inc. 
  • Szal, Jeremy. “The Weight of Silence.” Pacific Monsters, edited by Margrét Helgadóttir, Fox Spirit Books, 2017, pp. 83-89.