Post Cladis
2017 08 30 | journal
As a nerd child I loved hard sci-fi, but was never much into fantasy outside of the idea of it being costume drama (when it came to film or TV). Sword and sorcery was never my deal. I could never identify with any creature that was too non-human: no orcs, no trolls, no werewolves. I was far more Dune and Doctor Who than LoTR. To be honest with you, I found trying to read Tolkien a massive chore. He wasn’t a great writer; but I don’t think he was trying to be. It’s always been my understanding that he wrote the books because he’d invented the Elvish language Quenya, linguist that he was, and the books became his vehicle for showcasing it.
I was talking to someone today about all this, and what it is I do love these days - which is dystopian or speculative fiction. I have a fascination for how societies will try to reconstruct after a disaster - what social orders do they choose, what of the past do they eschew, what ways do they attempt to control and codify people. As a side to this, I like post-apocalyptic stuff as well. I think the reason why I enjoy the speculative fiction genre so much is because I find it all so very plausible - even the more far-fetched situations. I can see how we could end up creating some of the cultures I’ve seen in YA dystopia. I’ve read a lot of YA dystopia, because they’re the only ones really getting it directed at them. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all a message to the young to prepare for a less than savoury future. I haven’t seen any adult-directed dystopian/speculative fiction in the societal construct vein - outside of The Handmaid’s Tale, which I love, in all its forms - and as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t count Snowpiercer; it’s a piece of shit, and it’s been too long since I’ve seen A Boy and His Dog for me to opine on it. Snowpiercer’s (*) only saving grace was having John Hurt in the cast.
Also, I don’t identify at all with non-human creatures - not animals, nor elves. People are my favourite animals. If I had a spirit animal, it would probably be a human. (Although, according to some bullshit Native astrological thing I once read, it’s a bear.)
* And it occurs to me that I’m not sure how one would do a possessive with a title that’s in quotation marks. Does the ’s go inside the quotation marks, or outside? This would probably also be affected by whether you’re writing like a Brit or an American.
Addendum: I was told that if one can’t just rewrite the sentence to avoid it altogether, the possessive should go outside the quotation marks.