The Sleeper Awakes by H G Wells

How would you like to rule the world? Harry Secombe sang a song If I Ruled the World, which painted a rosy picture of peace and happiness. But how would you enforce it? How would you deal with those who didn’t want to be ruled by you?

H G Wells wrote a story about just such a problem, When the Sleeper Wakes, that was serialised between 1898 and 1899. It was rewritten as a novel, The Sleeper Awakes in1910. His view of the future is decidedly dystopian.

Head Hopping

I wrote last week about point of view (POV) and the problems it caused and solved. I decided to overcome the POV problems by using three different points of view, told by a narrator.

The important thing is to make it quite clear which point of view each section of the story is from. The sections have to be clearly delineated to avoid confusing the reader. But when you are writing, it is SO easy to hop heads without even noticing.

Rudyard Kipling’s Influence on Science Fiction

I was surprised to find it could be argued that Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) has exerted the most lasting influence on modern science fiction. Poul Anderson says, ‘His influence pervades modern science fiction and fantasy writing.’

Although his best-known work is not science fiction, Kipling wrote stories whose subject-matter is explicitly science-fictional. With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 AD portrays futuristic aviation in a journalistic present-tense. The Eye of Allah deals with the introduction of advanced technology into a medieval society that may not be ready for it.

Point of View

Point of view (POV) is the term for who is telling the story in a book. Most books are written in the third person, as an independent narrator, who may or may not reveal things that the characters in the book don’t know. This is the way I write.

The problem with this POV is that it’s possible to be distanced from the events you’re talking about, do too much ‘telling’ and not enough ‘showing’. Then your readers won’t connect with your characters, won’t care about them. You need to get inside your characters’ heads, show what they’re thinking and feeling.

Le Voyage dans la Lune Science Fiction Film

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. 

Erewhon by Samuel Butler (History of Science Fiction)

Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler which was first published anonymously in 1872. Erewhon is a fictional country discovered by the protagonist. Butler meant the title to be read as "nowhere" backwards even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, as it would have been pronounced in his day (and still is in some dialects of English).

The first few chapters of the novel dealing with the discovery of Erewhon are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep farmer for about four years (1860–64), and explored parts of the interior of the South Island.

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall by Edgar Allen Poe

This is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in the June 1835 issue of the monthly magazine Southern Literary Messenger, and intended by Poe to be a hoax. He is best known for stories of mystery and the macabre, and invented the detective fiction genre. Some of his stories, like this one, were part of the emerging science fiction genre.

Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic.