Q2. What distinctions are there between alternate history, postmodern alternate history and uchronie genres?
Philip K. Dick’s (1962) The Man in the High Castle has proven to have a longstanding reputation as critically acclaimed piece of writing. Dick uses the prophetic Chinese Oracle I Ching or Book of Changes as part of his central plot device with which his characters interact to make choices throughout the story.
Critics have praised this work as exceptional example of the uchronie or alternate-history genre, however Mountfort, P (2016) argues differently, “The I Ching, I argue, is the device that, literally and figuratively, unifies the stylistic and philosophical dimensions of the novel, leaving us with a sophisticated postmodern fiction that explores the boundaries of text and world, their overlappings and multiplicities.”
Many academics have cited Dick’s (1962) work as being a formative example of alternative history, otherwise known as the French term “uchronie” whereby he takes on the notion of the Nazis winning WWII.
“William Joseph Collins, elaborates three subcategories of uchronie: “pure uchronia,” consisting of one alternative world; “plural uchronia,” in which this and an alternate world existing in parallel; and “infinite uchronia,” in which there are many, even infinite parallel worlds” cited in Mountfort, P. (2016)
“This notion of “critical disjunctions along the linear time line” is the stuff of the uchronie genre, but it is also a contingent function of the view of time implicit in the philosophy of oracular consultation, as per Everett and Halpern’s observation that “reliance on the I Ching introduces an element of chance, it suggests that alternative possibilities always exist, perhaps in different realities where other hexagrams were cast” cited in Mountfort, P. (2016)
In conclusion uchronie genres and alternative histories are similar. However when there are multiple outcomes of alternate stories Mountfort, P (2016) argues these moves into the realm of post-modern alternate history.
References
Mountfort, P. (2018) Science fictional doubles: Technologization of the doppelgänger and sinister science in serial science fiction TV, Journal of Science & Popular Culture. Volume 1 No.1 . Intellect Ltd
Mouuntfort, P. (2016) The I Ching and Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, The I Ching and the Man in The High Castle; Science Fiction Studies, Volume 43. pp.287-309.
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