1. The work of Ursala K. Leguin and Philip K Dick

2. Science Fiction  Fantastic literature  portrays, in rational and realistic terms, future times and environments that are different from our own.  show awareness of the concerns of the times  provide implicit commentary on contemporary society  explores effects - material and psychological - that any new technologies may have upon it.

4. By Ursala K. Le Guin (1972)

5. Discussion Questions 1. Who is the narrator? 1. What are her feelings about Omelas, particularly about the misery of the child on which the happiness of the city depends? 2. Does the narrator sympathize with those who walk away? Or with those who remain? Or is she ambivalent? 3. Is Omelas described in sufficiet detail, or are there other things about the city you wish the author had included? 4. Is Omelas a utopia? Why or why not? 5. What is the conflict in the story? 6. Is this story still relevent today? 7. How does the narrator make up compliant in this child’s suffering? 8. Why do only a few actually leave? 9. If we haven’t figured it out already, how is this story allegorical? 1. Why is the genre of science fiction appropriate?

6. By Philip K Dick

7. “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts”  This story, first published in 1975, focuses on three Tempunaunts – time travelling astronauts – who are sent merely a few days into the future rather than 100 years. Dick said the following about writing this piece:  In this story I felt a vast weariness over the space program, which had thrilled us so at the start -- especially the first lunar landing -- and then had been forgotten and virtually shut down, a relic of history. I wondered, if time-travel became a 'program', would it suffer the same fate? Or was there an even worse possibility latent in it, within the very nature of the paradoxes of time-travel?space program 1. Have the following three goals in mind as you read. We will have a quiz tomorrow: 1. Basic plot understanding. Things are explained, it sometimes takes a bit of patience. 2. How is government portrayed? Specifically General Toad? 3. In what ways is this a criticism of the Space Race?