Fantasy Fiction and Reality

Fantasy Fiction and Reality

by A G Rivett

Fantasy, Sci Fi and Speculative Fiction

Some see a disconnect between Fantasy Fiction and Reality. But is there, really? In a recent piece in The Author, Nadia Attia made good points about the importance of writing about the issues that press on us at the present time. However, she seemed to dismiss sci fi and fantasy as escapism, while admitting to writing speculative fiction herself. My own books of The Isle Fincara Trilogy have been variously described as speculative fiction, alternate history and portal fantasy. One genre merges into another.
Escapism? Or stepping back to see more clearly?
In reality, fantasy fiction and sci fi are no more escapist than any other genre. Sometimes we need to step back from our everyday world in order to see it more clearly. The sci-fi and fantasy I read, and try to write, does this. So I was pleased when a reviewer of my first book, The Seaborne, described it as one that “asks thought-provoking questions about what modern humans have given up in terms of community, faith and honor in favor of always grasping the new.” (Read the full Blue Ink Review.)

Fantasy fiction and reality – novels about people

One of my favourite writers, Ursula K le Guin, wrote both fantasy and sci-fi. However, she preferred to see these terms as labels attached to what she was really writing – novels about people. Her motivation is not the outer surfaces of strange planets and alternative worlds. Rather, it is the human response to the issues she saw pressing on us here and now.

Prophecy in The Dispossessed by Ursula K le Guin

In The Dispossessed, a future interplanetary ambassador from Terra (planet Earth) describes our planet as Le Guin imagines it may become: “My world is a ruin… We controlled neither appetite, nor violence; we did not adapt… There are no forests left on my Earth. The air is grey, the sky is grey. It is always hot… ”  The Dispossessed was published in 1974, showing how Le Guin saw the outworking of the climate challenge we are now facing decades before most people became aware of it. Through her fiction, she issues a warning. This is where sci-fi and reality come together.

Writing from the collective unconscious

When we write best, we are writing from the deep recesses of the collective unconscious. The most potent images of fantasy fiction emerge from this place and, in the hands of a good writer, emerge to intersect with our everyday reality. It is not too grandiose to say that we become the voice of humanity, speaking to humanity. Never can we fully express this, but sometimes, at our very best, we draw near.

Stopping the ‘small self’ from getting in the way

To do this, we have to stop the small self from getting in the way. In his book, On Mysticism, Simon Critchley describes writers who ‘decreate’ the self in writing. Critchley quotes this wonderful image in which Flannery O’Connor writes of glimpsing God: ‘you are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon.’ As with seeking to glimpse God, so with aspiring to good writing, says Critchley. The writer’s self is both in the way and trying to clear the way. An approach which works for me in such a dilemma is not to think of ‘decreation’ of self, but rather to see myself as an agent: a steward, serving  the purpose of the story.

Fantasy as prophecy – reflecting a deeper truth

If the purpose of a story is in line with the greatest good, then the story itself may be good. And then the writers of fantasy – or any other genre – are not the escapists. On the contrary: we are the realists – or try to be. Fantasy fiction powerfully relates to reality when it becomes prophecy, in the sense of telling the truth. The author’s job is to be the agent of the message. So good fantasy writing is not mere escapism. It’s a medium for reflecting reality.
 

A. G. Rivett is the author of The Isle Fincara Trilogy. The first two books, The Seaborne and The Priest’s Wife, have been published by Pantolwen Press. The third book, The Shareg, is in preparation, due to be launched in 2026.