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#HistFicThursdays - The Historical Fiction Community (and why I'm so glad I'm a part of it!)

 Today is the arrival of #HistFicMay, now in its third year. When I started it, I did it because I had really enjoyed meeting new writers through a similar #IndieApril list of prompts. I had a quick perusal to see if anyone had done a Historical Fiction one, saw they hadn't, and decided to set one up. It had the desired effect, and I have "met" (only online!) and discovered some wonderful writers and their books over the last couple of years. Community is a bigger thing than most writers realise. The more detached individuals may refer to community as networking, but the writing community is so much more than that. Don't get me wrong, I'm as introverted as they come, but without those people I have met during #HistFicMay or the online community of historical fiction writers, there are so many things I would never have known - sometimes even things which have led me to write certain scenes or books. I'm not saying you can't be a fabulous historical fiction ...
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#HistFicThursdays - Breaking the Mould: a (very short) argument for combining Historical and Science Fiction

The Gathering Storm
~ the galloping advancement of technology is nothing new

 I am privileged enough to be the editor for the Crowvus Hooded journal, which is now advancing into the realms of being a genre-specific anthology. This season's genre is Science Fiction.

What does this have to do with Historical Fiction..? Let me explain.

A small number of years ago, I read one publisher's definition of science fiction as being about as yet unobtained scientific knowledge set in the future. This, I decided, was rather more restrictive than Science Fiction should be. In fact, I love the premise of having Science Fiction set in the past, like Doctor Who or Chris de Burgh's classic A Spaceman Came Travelling.

If time travel became a reality, I suspect most of us would chose a point in history to visit rather than a time in the future. After all, that's why we wrap ourselves up in the historical tales anyway! Inserting a scientific advancement, something we have as yet not discovered, into a historical setting is an exciting prospect. History is full of unexplained mysteries. You do not need to look far to find tales absorbed into folklore simply because they were beyond the realm of believability.

Suppose the Green Children of Woolpit were really aliens, or the Round Table was a form of spaceship. Of course, science fiction is not only about space. Consider evolution, a new superior intelligence which is bred or manufactured, and humanity's combat against it. And what about witchcraft and alchemy? Was is really just hocus pocus, or undiscovered science?

I'd love to hear your local mysteries resolved and explained through undiscovered science. You'd be surprised just how readily science fiction can slot into history!

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