The humorously fair game.

The short story Fair Game by Phillip K. Dick, shows an intellectual scientist named Douglas who is kidnapped by beings from another universe. I found the interaction between a man of scientific reasoning and the science fiction aspect of the story to be quite interesting. Though science and science fiction would seem to have similarities, they suggest basically the very opposite. Science is the reasoning that is proven by the real world theorems and laws, so we see Douglas attempting to find an answer to the abnormal science fiction occurrences he comes across. I enjoyed the way Douglas was able to walk away from scientific answers to accepting things for what they are; this captures the common interaction of humans with the fantastic depicted in literature, where the abnormal event is questioned and pondered upon before believing it is uncanny or the supernatural.

Dick exemplifies the processing of fantastical events that Todorov suggested, through Fair Game. Douglas is able to quickly accept the supernatural events, for he considers himself a man of science, who knows what he saw. He says that any other person would have gone insane, which is why he did not tell his wife. The overall tone of this story was quite light and humorous, especially in the end. I could not help but to think of the great difference this science fiction story had in comparison to The Haunting of Hill House, which is understandable for it is a Gothic piece. I find it very interesting that the stories about the supernatural can range between lighthearted humor and frighteningly creepy.