The other way out: a creative and critical exploration of otherness, and the methods used in speculative fiction to construct “the Other”

The Other Way Out is a speculative fiction (SF) novella set on a distant, desert planet made habitable by large, city-spanning domes, with the bulk of the narrative taking place in the dome called Nion. A large-scale terrorist attack has destabilised Nion, dividing the dome into the occupation-controlled West and the lawless East, where various gangs vie for control of resources and markets. Ellie, a Britannian girl caught up in the attack and stuck in East Nion with her physically disabled father, has adjusted surprisingly well to her new life. But all denizens of the East must make some small moral sacrifices in order to get ahead, and Ellie is no exception. As the tenuous peace between the gangs begins to collapse, just how much Ellie is willing to sacrifice for personal advancement will be put to the test. The exegetical component is split into four chapters, with an over-arching theme of examining how Otherness is explored in SF. The first chapter sets the foundation for my exploration of the Other in SF, particularly in relation to the conceptualisation used by Patricia Kerslake, which is itself based upon Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. The second deals with the use of domes as a setting in other SF novels, examining how the inclusion of the dome itself can influence the narrative construction of a given text. The third chapter focuses on the interrelation between voice and focalising characters, with particular regard given to the disparately voiced characters of Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself. In the final chapter I examine the integration of fictional epigraphs into different SF texts and how the alternative narrative strands they create can influence how the primary narrative is read. Each chapter first examines these concepts in relation to how other authors have used them, and then explores how I have attempted to integrate these techniques and settings into my own creative work.