Last weekend, I was a guest on an Estonian radio programme that focuses on pop culture (if you speak Estonian, you can check it out here). We talked about the blog, reading, movies and life in general and it was a much less painful experience than I expected. If I could somehow make my voice sound like it’s coming from an actual human, I might even (re)listen to that conversation myself.

However, radio shows seem to be much like meeting one’s ex: all the best lines will come to you too late. Especially on genre fiction, I feel that I didn’t do the topic justice (although to be fair, there wasn’t much time to go into depth with anything). On one hand, I find it ridiculous that in 2018 we are still having a conversation about whether science fiction and fantasy constitute worthy reading material. On the other, we are still talking about women being routinely harassed and abused and black teenagers being shot because they are black, so here we are.

Before I move on to my personal reasons for reading SFF, let me make my position crystal clear: to prejudge books based solely on their genre is idiotic. I will focus here on science fiction and fantasy, as these are the genres of speculative fiction I read most, but the principle is universal. It is ingenious – and, I would argue, sinister – how the (literary) establishment keeps labelling, policing and degrading the use of the speculative. If texts stray from literary realism, they are automatically relegated into SUBgenres and not taken seriously. Some of the oldest stories in the world are labelled fairy tales and reduced to something only meant for children – often after “cleaning them up”. If the books are so good that their literary merit simply cannot be denied, the genre is magically (pun intended) forgotten and the book transforms into a classic that has transcended its shameful genre origins – even though that is what gives the book its power. I used the examples of Atwood and Orwell to illustrate this – widespread – practice, but there is a more clear-cut example: fantasy vs magic realism. By any definition, Marquez and Carter write fantasy, but this is of course not what they are called. Or The Master and Margarita? The Picture of Dorian Gray? Gulliver’s Travels?

Now that we have this cleared up, let’s talk my personal love for SFF. It is always difficult to speak about it in a structured way, as there are many angles to this, most of them intertwined, but I’ve given it a go and lined up my reasons:

1. The imagination. Fiction in general means the stories are made up and I cannot fathom why it’s acceptable to imagine a person who doesn’t exist, but not a planet or a species of small furry animal. To me, speculative genres are in a way the purest form of literature, as you can tell a story without being constrained by the world you happen to live in. I relish that sense of freedom and simply enjoy how different and rich the imaginations of people can be. No matter how much I love realistic fiction, our reading experiences would be so much poorer if we only had that.

2. The building. I guess this is a subset of the first point, but while imagination is a more universal category, detailed worldbuilding tends to be a very specific SFF/speculative pleasure. Geography, languages, magic systems, guns, planets, space ships, gadgets are all elements that are often described in great detail (not always, mind you) and sometimes for no other reason that they are cool. That is fine by me. I love some of these things more than others: I adore a good map, love Iain M. Banks’s lazy guns and ship names, while sometimes wishing Brandon Sanderson could be a little bit less forthcoming with all the intricacies of allomancy. SFF readers, as any readers, have different preferences.

3. The science. I like science and I have an especially soft spot for astrophysics, quantum mechanics and higher mathematics. This is not to say I understand it all, but I enjoy it and science fiction presents it in a way that is often (not always) more digestible than books about science as such. One can claim that SF will not teach you real science, but that of course depends. The first time I heard about Schrödinger’s Cat was in Hyperion, there is hardly an SF text that doesn’t grapple with the issue of speed of light and books like The Three Body problem take the science part of the SF very seriously. Computer science and tech isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but Hannu Rajaniemi, Ann Leckie and Yoon Ha Lee, among others, have shown me how fascinating it can be.

4. The politics. It’s not just hard science, though. If you have any interest in how societies work, science fiction and fantasy are amazing at constructing possible set-ups, examining different elements, power structures and dynamics. It is no coincidence that speculative fiction is often best known for dystopias, as it is uniquely well equipped to address a topic like that. But not only that, it is also great at examining concepts like gender, class, tradition, race, etc. The Left Hand of Darkness is probably the best known example of how to challenge our view of a social construct (in this case gender), but there are many, many others.

5. The progress. One reason I find SFF especially interesting these days is that it doesn’t only examine, it also inspires. These genres don’t necessarily have the best reputation when it comes to ideology, with their heritage of conservatism, nostalgia and right-wing sympathies. This has changed in recent decades and it’s about time – we need progressive SFF very badly. The ways of living in these books may not be “real”, but they can help us envisage how to live in our own world. My personal favourite in this respect is Iain M. Banks’s enlightened, post-scarcity, technologically advanced, extremely tolerant Culture universe. It is not a utopia and these books usually aren’t, what is empowering to see are things we only shyly aspire to represented as the norm or some deeply ingrained habits/traditions casually disrupted. You can almost feel your synapses rearrange themselves when you take in Kim Stanly Robinson’s gender evolution or Bujold’s uterine replicators, or environmental awareness and income equality shown as something matter-of-fact. While we need to analyse our problems and dissect them in detail, it can also be rather dispiriting and it’s not enough. One has to imagine a future one wants to make possible.

6. The diversity. Related to the previous point is another aspect where the genre has grown a lot recently and will need to keep growing. It’s the diversity of settings, peoples and cultures. One of the big ironies of SFF used to be that while you could – in theory – imagine anything, somehow people ended up imagining medieval European inns with buxom waitresses and fearless white male spaceship pilots. Complete coincidence, of course, no structural bias here (I’m being sarcastic). This is, fortunately, changing. There is both fantasy and SF inspired by Arab culture, Africa, Japan and China, India and East Asia, Russia, you name it. N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, JY Yang, Zen Cho are only the first writers who come to mind and people like Robert Jackson Bennett, Elizabeth Bear and Katherine Arden have written excellent books that show a world not based only on their own heritage. While I love my Tolkiens and Asimovs, this new richness makes me overwhelmingly happy. And while you can of course say that all these cultures can easily be represented in literary fiction, you don’t necessarily need genre for that, I think SFF in particular has the ability to turn the tables and create hopeful, wonderful narratives that heal and empower. Black Panther (although better known in its film version, it started as a comic book) is an excellent example of that.

7. The (intelligent) fun. When we defend genre fiction, we usually tend to point to the more literary end of it, to prove its merits. I certainly do it and I do believe it proves rather conclusively that it’s not the genre or the form that is important, but the content. However, there is much to be said for books that are more traditional genre fare, with lasers and runaway princesses and elves and robots. Good entertainment is a very important category and some of my all-time favourite books belong here. They are very much genre (by today’s classifications), but in addition to being simply fun, gripping reads they do have other things to offer. Anything from the Lord of the Rings to The Fifth Season, from Dune to Ancillary Justice, from Gaiman to Mieville falls into this category.

8. The (less intelligent) fun. Books fulfil different functions and because reading is the main way I consume culture, for me the spectrum is especially wide. I go to books for information and enlightenment, catharsis, emotional growth, wisdom, wish-fulfilment and just escapism and distraction. When I’ve worked several months without weekends or just pulled a 36-hour working “day”, slept two hours and started again (both true stories from the recent past), what I need is not a deep exploration of a dystopian society. A young adult novel about a girl discovering her magic powers, however? Perfect. To be frank, when I need something relaxing but also motivating, I find the less innovative fantasy books often the best fit and more useful than any self-help. These books almost inevitably include passages about getting physically fit and exhausting oneself trying to govern a country in turmoil – very much my kind of lifestyle and work inspiration.

While I believe there is something for everyone in SFF, I also completely understand people who do not read these genres. If they feel no attraction to speculative texts despite being well aware of the potential strengths, there is zero point in forcing oneself. What I have a problem with is snobbery, narrow-mindedness and contempt without any – or very little – knowledge. There is a universe of difference between not enjoying something and not enjoying something and declaring it worthless.

PS Most of the books on the picture I love, a couple I like or think are important for some reason. Keep in mind that it’s heavily biased towards my recent reading, as most of my old loves are in Tallinn.