How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu - Part Three: Sci-Fi Elements

How High We Go in the Dark is most often categorized as a sci-fi novel because of the many sci-fi elements explored within it. However, this novel is not meant to be a hard sci-fi novel and those elements are not the focus of the story. Nagamatsu uses the advanced  technology of his chosen time period and some aspects of space to place his characters in unique situations. For example, in the story "Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You," the robot dog houses recordings of the main character's dead wife. He and his son are then able to cope with their grief and remember someone they've lost through the advanced technology. Another example would be in the story "A Gallery a Century, A Cry a Millennium" where a grandmother and her granddaughter are included in the mission to find another habitable planet. While they journey, the grandmother paints the walls of the ship with people they've lost and the home they left behind. Just as with all the stories in the book, the advance in technology has put the grandmother in this unique experience of leaving planet Earth, needing to provide the crew with something hopeful, and the grandmother is just the artist to do that.

The aspects of space in the story go beyond advanced technology and space exploration though. By the end of the book, we know that it was a world creator, an alien, that caused the plague in the first place. We are told how an alien created Earth and stayed to help with its progression, eventually falling in love and giving birth to the girl whose remains are discovered thousands of years later. This final chapter wraps up all the loose ends nicely, but also provides a way for the story to end where it began. Because this alien is immortal, she can give us the larger picture of what has been happening on Earth throughout thousands of years. With a novel written in stories, one of the biggest questions is how to end it. Nagamatsu chose the reunion approach where we, essentially, go back and revisit the past to see how far we've come to be in the present. The only character who has the ability to do this would be someone who has been around for the time period that the book covers.

Summary

Nagamatsu uses sci-fi elements to provide his characters with unique experiences where they cope with their grief and as a way to finish his novel in stories. When writing within the sci-fi genre, remember to consider the effect the sci-fi elements have on your characters and the story. There are many reasons to set your story in a future world rather than the present world. Perhaps it's to set your characters in situations that they otherwise wouldn't be in another world as Nagamatsu has done. Perhaps it's to explore what would happen if a certain circumstance became real. Perhaps it's simply to do cool stuff with your writing. Either way, as long as there is a purpose for the sci-fi elements, you'll find your story to have more meaning and your readers more engaged.