Putting the "I" in "SciFi": First-Person POV in SF Novels, 1953-2019

by Raymond K Rugg

The genres of fantasy and science fiction have long embraced the first-person narrative as a story-telling tool. From the Victorian period through the age of pulp-fiction magazines and into the present, speculative fiction authors have often employed writing in the first person as a way to help draw their readers into a story that is, by definition, further removed from reality than is mainstream, non-speculative fiction. This publication, originally presented at the New England Popular Culture Annual Conference in 2019, explores the use of first-person POV in long form SF by tracking the novels nominated for Hugo and Nebula honors, from the inception of the awards through the present.

13 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 23, 2020

About the author

Raymond K. Rugg holds a master's degree in elementary education and is currently working toward his educational specialist degree in reading. He writes nonfiction articles and reviews and regularly presents at regional, national and international academic conferences (often on the subject of identity in genre literature). He also writes genre fiction and poetry under the name RK Rugg, and MG/YA literature under the name Sage Rooker. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an Asimov's Readers' Favorites finalist.