A-708: Spanial (Docked with Mundo Zargo Highport), Common Room

“Well, ‘realism’ is the Dominion’s, ah, ‘officially preferred‘ style of writing.  There are a bunch of ‘approved story formulas’ for writers to use when creating stories.  It’s called realism because the dominion likes stories that have a purpose and ‘serve society and the Dominion’, so the stories are ‘real things’ with ‘real use’.

“Naturalism is the stories that don’t follow one of the approved formulas.  There’s less of them about.  It’s much harder to get a work approved for broad distribution if it isn’t a realist work.”

He makes a face.

“Then there are the ‘banned works’ of course.”

He sounds a little pleased with himself, “I’ve read a couple, they’re alright.”