Fact and Fiction

Once upon a time, in a verdant land riven with strife, a man sat down and wrote an epic tale that has since developed into legend.

Once upon a time, in a land half a world away, a man, driven by the need to succeed, sat and wrote astonishing plays, sonnets and poetry that are still performed today.

Once upon a time, a woman, frustrated by her husband’s… idiosyncrasies, sat and wrote of the monster inside.

And once upon a time, a man, living in a cruel and bitter world, sat down and wrote about what lived in that darkness.

Closer to our time, a man threw in his job with the stock exchange and wrote of fantastic things, never knowing, at the time, what he’d unleashed upon the world.

Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote of Arthur; Shakespeare wrote of love, betrayal, redemption, murder; Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, Bram Stoker wrote Dracula and Jules Verne wrote Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

These five authors are representations of epic fantasy, romance, murder and tragedies, psycho-thrillers, horror and… science fiction.

The most important thing that can be said of these authors is that inspired generations of writers. George Orwell, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Tolkien, Barbara Cartland, Dornford Yates, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgette Heyer, Dennis Wheatley, Anya Seaton, John Wyndham, Dion Fortune… the list is endless, for these authors inspired the new generations of writers, King, McCaffrey, Norton, White, Roberts, Weber, Hamilton, Laumer…, until here we are, today, with an industry Geoffrey would have goggled at and new authors coming into their own.

Thought, however, is a slowly evolving process. Yes, the first five are very well known, but what of those who immediately came after?

These writers of ‘fantastic’ fiction weren’t taken seriously until much later. Sure, they made a motza, but what use is reading about men going to the moon? Creating monsters? Or what lives in the dark and can feed on you? Or even what value forbidden love might be?

How about the Lunar landing in 1969? Genetic engineering? Spiritualist Churchs? Or breaking down the barriers of race, religion and creed? How about the inventions of the telephone, satellites, vaccines, not being ashamed of who you are, the acceptance of psychic abilities? Okay, the last is still not mainstream thought, but it might be… one day.

What all these writers have in common, whether it is recognised or not, is the progress the human race; they gave rise to curious scientists wondering if it were possible. And those scientists set about making fiction, fact.

The world of fiction has been responsible for an awful lot of inventions we have now. I'm not going to list them, jeez, it would take hours. The world of fiction has also been responsible for a lot bad things, too, and that would take an equal number of hours to list.

What is clear is that fiction has had a major influence in all aspects of life, from science, to medicine, to philosphy, to politcs, to family dynamics and faith. Anyone who denies this, never read a novel. Ever.

There is no end to what the human race can achieve, but the idea comes first.

As long as scientists have the visions of wondering how to create, our future is an exciting place; as long as writers have imagination, those visions can be fulfilled.

What price imagination? Why, anything we want it to be.