THE TOTAL PERSPECTIVE – DECEMBER 2007

By Frank Burton

Science Fiction and History

I’ve always had a problem with alternative histories. When I say alternative histories, I’m talking about stories that offer a different version of historical events, posing the question, “What if things had worked out differently?” (The French use the term, uchronie, which translates as “a time that does not exist.”)

When I say I’ve got a problem with it, I actually have several problems.

My initial reaction is always the same: Yeah, but it didn’t happen, did it? For me, there’s no real comeback to this question. No matter how well-written, entertaining, or thought-provoking an alternative history may be, there’s no getting away from the fact that the story didn’t, and more to the point, will never happen.

The best speculative fiction takes aspects of the present and magnifies them into a future setting. In this respect, speculative fiction isn’t really about the future or the past. It’s what JG Ballard calls “the science fiction of the next five minutes.” Speculations about the past don’t always have much relevance to the present day, because you’re talking about events that never even took place.

I’m not missing the point, by the way. Alternative histories make us look at history in a different way, and can provide an insight into events of the past that a conventional historical novel wouldn’t. However, when I read a novel, I don’t want a history lesson. I’m not being anti-intellectual. What I’m saying is, history is interesting and challenging enough without science fiction novelists offering their slant. It’s been fictionalised enough by historians already.

Science fiction writers are not historians. While you don’t need to be a professor to talk about history, if you’re going to write a book on the subject, you’d better know what the hell you’re talking about. Trouble is, how does a novelist know that things would have worked out a particular way if X, Y or Z had or hadn’t happened? How does anyone know? Is it really that simple? Haven’t these people heard of chaos theory?

It’s not all bad, though, because my concerns only apply to speculative fiction. When it comes to fantasy, alternative history works incredibly well. Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a populist masterpiece, presenting a bizarre shaggy-dog story as though it were a piece of real history, complete with footnotes and fictionalised versions of historical figures. Glen David Gold pulls off a similar trick with Carter Beats the Devil (very bad joke there, sorry – it’s about a magician). Magic realism used to be the prized possession of the highbrow. Now it’s breaking into the mainstream, which can only be a good thing.

The exception to the rule when it comes to science fiction is Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. The novel is set in the aftermath of a version of the Second World War in which the Allies were defeated, and America is ruled jointly by Germany and Japan. Central to the story is The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a “novel within a novel,” which has been banned by the authorities for its depiction of a world in which the Nazis were defeated, forcing its author, Hawthorn Abdensen, into a reclusive existence in the “High Castle” of the title. Dick uses this ingenious device as a means of emphasising the vital importance of speculative fiction, as both a means of understanding society and as a force for hope. It’s not the best Philip K Dick book, but it may be his most important. My favourite thing about it is the cover to the Penguin Classics edition – a picture of the American flag with swastikas instead of stars. 

With this in mind, please ignore all of the above and read The Man in the High Castle. 

I’m off to find more excuses not to go Christmas shopping.

Go here to let Frank know if you agree with him or think he’s talking a load of alternative history, tell him about your favourite PKD novel or simply wish him a Happy Christmas.