Time to suspend our disbelief - Science Fiction and Fantasy
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I suppose it is no surprise that the popularity in Sci-Fi and Fantasy has grown substantially in recent years.
Fantasy in particular has become the go-to genre for the younger generation who grew up watching Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games and Twilight.
The current series’s by authors like Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros are more grown up with spicy storylines, faeries, dragons and loads of action and seem to feed into a generation who are looking for escape from the mundane, from life that is just a bit too ordinary or demanding.
Game of Thrones by GRR Martin has attracted a broader adult appeal – especially since the popularity of the TV programme – though the books are massive tomes and not for the faint hearted.
The appeal of Sci-Fi is a bit harder for me to understand though I have read, and enjoyed, multiple books which infiltrate into the genre for example The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Klara and the Sun by Kasuo Ishiguro - with The Ministry of Time by Kiliane Bradley 
on my TBR list (to be read). Maybe it is the labels that put me – and others- off, though the appeal seems to be broadening with shows like Star Wars, Dune and Stranger Things becoming more widely enjoyed. Futuristic concepts of advanced technology are becoming more tangible now with the rapid scientific advances - we can see this already with the use of AI and Virtual Reality making inroads and becoming the norm in mainstream life.
Sub genres including dystopian fiction/ speculative fiction as well as CliFi (climate related fiction) are also becoming more popular with older fiction such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell and The Handmaids Tale by Margaret
Atwood becoming scarily more relevant as predictions from the past do not seem as outlandish anymore.
The use of fiction to explore, expose and question society norms is not new and using other worldly settings provides the distance which allows the reader to be challenged without jeopardy.
Personally though I would still prefer to read something more enjoyable and less lightly to disturb the equilibrium of my own universe! With recent events both climactic and otherwise reflecting predictions from past writing, the warnings they offered have been largely ignored and I can quite understand the need to both be more aware of the dangers while at the same time wanting to hide in the comfort of a fictional world.
Readers of this blog will know of my partiality to books by Robert Harris and his book Second Sleep is one that I would recommend in this genre –try it and see what you think!
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