# Defining Science Fiction



## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 3, 2012)

I've been writing some stuff for my academic work lately which has had me reading and discussing how to define science fiction, and I thought this would be an interesting topic to bring up in a venue where there are actually quite a few people writing science fiction. What do you think makes a work a "science fiction" novel (as opposed to a fantasy novel, a horror novel, a "regular" novel, etc.)? What do you think about, for example, Cormac McCarthy's _The Road_? Is it SF or something else? Do you give much thought to the relationship between the world you live in and the world you're inventing?

I promise I'm not going to use your answers for anything other than maybe inspiration or food for thought - don't think I can put a message board on the bibliography.

Some definitions I've run across (I'm paraphrasing):
Darko Suvin: a work of "cognitive estrangement," where "estrangement" means defamiliarizing the world through use of a novum (or the innovation in the novel, the weapon or machine or whatever), and "cognitive" means the novum has to be plausibly explained (fantasy doesn't have this cognitive aspect and that's what differentiates it from SF)

James Gunn: a "literature of change" in which something in the novel's situation is a) different from the empirical world of the author and b) the characters have to respond to that difference to be successful

Barry Malzberg: a work in which technological change is deeply linked to cultural change

Damon Knight: "whatever we point to when we say it" (this definition I find accurate, but unhelpful)

Oh - and another question: do you see SF as an inherently political genre?


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## AJones (Oct 3, 2012)

Great question, and one that I was actually going to bring up here since I'm about to start posting a major work which doesn't easily fit the genre scifi until really the last fifth of the story. I don't think you're alone in trying to figure out how to define things, especially since the magnitude of information available nowadays has basically turned culture a-la-carte. It was so easy 30 years ago to look at someone who read Tolkien or the Gor series and label them a fantasy nerd, and a Herbert fan as scifi. But now that people are genre mashing everything from pride and prejudice and zombies and whatever steampunk fever dreams they come up with, its been tough for me to really define what I like and what I like to write. It also doesn't help to clarify things when the pillar of modern scifi Arthur C. Clarke said that any technology slightly more advanced would appear to be magic. Great, so even _he _went and blurred the line!

The Cinema Snob made a comment when he noticed how many trashy scifi movies there are in the public domain: "Because it's pretty easy to have two characters in a dark room talking about space, and call it 'scifi'". I always think of that when I go to a used book store. I am always blown away by the staggering amount of old scifi and fantasy books bearing Frank Frazetta-ish artwork and taglines about being part of sagas and trilogies. How are there so many of these titles? Is it really the literary equivalent of a 'dark room and talking about space'? Is that all the deeper the genre as a whole has been able to go?

I personally think your last two quotes are the best definitions. Good science fiction is about culture shaped by the plausible, and good fantasy is about culture shaped by the unknowable. It's always very interesting when they overlap (the _Dune_ series, again, comes to mind, as well as things like _Secret of NIHM_ or _Childhood's End_). But that is also a reason why I've been attracted to scifi - it's kinda the jazz of the literary field, in that it can do whatever it wants and pull anything under its label. Scifi romance, scifi drama, scifi horror, scifi mystery, ect. Sure, the other genres can mix-and-match too, but not with the same flare of creativity I've enjoyed with scifi (with the possible exception of mystery). 

When done well, a good story makes me look at my world now with new eyes, but a good scifi story makes me see the possible in everything. Wow, that was really cheesy, but this is getting long and I needed a place to stop! Cheers!


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## Jon M (Oct 3, 2012)

The relationship between society and technology, their influences upon each other, and the resulting consequences.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 4, 2012)

AJones: yeah, as you say, there's a ton of stuff out there that's labeled SF but which is really just a drama set in space. And it could probably just as easily be set on a cruise ship as a space ship much of the time. It's a worry I have with my WIP in fact, because a lot of the SF-ish stuff is kept in the background. And for that matter, sometimes I wonder if we should even call certain kinds of stories SF anymore, when they've been used so many times that there's nothing all that surprising about them. Post-apocalypse, space ships, whatever.


> When done well, a good story makes me look at my world now with new  eyes, but a good scifi story makes me see the possible in everything.  Wow, that was really cheesy


 Nah, it's good to be enthusiastic. 

JonM: While that's a good way of putting it (a lot like Malzberg and Gunn), and generally accurate, it leaves out a lot of works. Stuff like _The War of the Worlds,_ for example.

From my reading, this is sort of the problem - there's no single definition that doesn't leave out some works that are considered part of the SF canon. Like if you take Suvin's definition, you're ignoring someone like Anne McCaffrey, who's won all kinds of SF awards but whose best known work is a series with dragons. I guess you could argue dragons are being used as a technology, but they're not "plausible".


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## Man From Mars (Oct 4, 2012)

Well, I'm just going to preface this with I don't know for sure what I'm talking about, but I will put here what I've come to understand about the science fiction genre. Whether it's actually correct is another matter.

I think the "science" in science fiction basically deals with technology more advanced than our own. There is a siding scale of how well the technology is developed between science fantasy and hard science fiction. In science fantasy, the technology is simply there for plot convenience. Soft science fiction has technology explained just enough so that it doesn't break the audience's illusion of disbelief. Hard science fiction explains the technology in such detail that it takes real world theories and concepts and expands on them in the form of fiction.

As for culture defining science fiction, I think that's true most of the time, but I don't think it applies all the time.


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## Nickleby (Oct 4, 2012)

I'd say that scifi is a literature of ideas (not my term). If you have good ideas, you can get away with poor characters and poor plotting. In other genres, not so much.

For an example, Philip Jose Farmer's _Riverworld_ springs to mind. The basic idea is jaw-droppingly simple and yet cosmically audacious: the entirely of humankind is resurrected on the banks of one long river. Farmer plays out the implications of that in the first book, but there's not much more in the rest of the series. By the end, the story gets kind of silly. Still, it's one of those ideas where you say, "I wish I had thought of it first."

What you come away with from a scifi story is the idea. You remember the Monolith from _2001_, but you don't remember much about Bowman.


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## Kyle R (Oct 4, 2012)

I think of Science Fiction as a story where the main premise involves technology or organisms that do not yet exist in reality (or as I think of it: "Scientifically fictional").

And for the second question, I think SciFi can be used to make political commentary, sure! Personally, I would rather use it as a canvas upon which to make my characters arc. I'm more interested in individual change rather than societal or political things. Known authors like Vonnegut, Bradbury, and Crichton made a lot of criticism of culture and society in their SciFi stories, so yes, I'd say it can be political--they often created an alternate reality that served as a warning of what could go wrong if things don't change their current path.


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## Cran (Oct 4, 2012)

"I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that." - HAL. 

Most of the stories labelled science fiction over recent decades were not; 
they were space opera, speculative fiction, or future fantasy. 

At its roots, *science fiction stories explored the possible based upon 
the science of the day*. 

Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ was science fiction long before it was horror; 
it explored the implications from findings that electricity can stimulate 
nerves and muscles.

Cyrano de Bergerac arguably wrote science fiction when he wrote a tale 
exploring several methods of travelling to the Moon. The science of his day 
was incorrect - not understanding that a vacuum exists beyond the atmosphere 
- but one of those methods was so plausible it was the one used: Rockets. 
He didn't imagine rockets out of thin air; gunpowder rockets had been brought
into Europe from China.

The stories of HG Wells and Jules Verne were all based on extrapolations from
contemporary (or previously unexplored) discoveries and theories, and/or 
engineering feats. Clarke could write about a global satellite network because 
he worked on the over-the-horizon radar system.

Asimov envisaged a system almost exactly like the modern internet because of the 
revolution in electronics and computers (from valves and cables to diodes and 
circuit boards).  

I don't think science fiction (or science fiction writers) are any more or less political
than humans tend to be.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Oct 4, 2012)

I say take the words literally.  Science fiction is simply a story where the fictional aspect is due to science or technology of some sort.  I'm writing science fiction, and I call it that because the plot couldn't exist without the fictional technology I've introduce.


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## Jon M (Oct 4, 2012)

lasm said:


> JonM: While that's a good way of putting it (a lot like Malzberg and Gunn), and generally accurate, it leaves out a lot of works. Stuff like _The War of the Worlds,_ for example.


_War_ is essentially a tale of invasion, two societies / cultures (with different technologies) coming into conflict with each other and the result of that conflict. Seems to fit pretty neatly, I think.* But yes, I understand what you mean. I'm not sure there is a catch-all definition, and why should there be one, anyway?

But I do think sci-fi is inherently political. Whenever there are societies, cultures -- groups of people living and associating together -- there will be laws, governments (even primitive), etc. determining how their people should behave and treat each other, and isn't that essentially politics? Whether the author chooses to address it is another matter. But I think it is always there in the background.

*worth mentioning that the number of sci-fi works I have read can be counted on one hand, and am therefore the opposite of an expert on these matters.


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## RichardScribe (Oct 4, 2012)

Nickleby said:


> What you come away with from a scifi story is the idea. You remember the Monolith from _2001_, but you don't remember much about Bowman.



Agreed


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 4, 2012)

> *Cran: *Most of the stories labelled science fiction over recent decades were not;
> they were space opera, speculative fiction, or future fantasy.
> 
> At its roots, *science fiction stories explored the possible based upon
> the science of the day*.


Yes, I think you're quite right about early SF being a speculative genre. So you'd say novels that are more interested in worldbuilding, what Man from Mars calls soft science fiction and science fantasy, are just not really SF?



> *Nickleby: *What you come away with from a scifi story is the idea. You remember the Monolith from _2001_, but you don't remember much about Bowman.


Depends on the person, I think. For me, I remember HAL. And not as an idea, but as a character. Seriously, the death of HAL makes me weepy every time.



> _*Jon M: *War_ is essentially a tale of invasion, two societies / cultures (with different technologies) coming into conflict with each other and the result of that conflict. Seems to fit pretty neatly, I think.* But yes, I understand what you mean. I'm not sure there is a catch-all definition, and why should there be one, anyway?


Yes, it is a story of invasion and of the confrontation between weaker and stronger military technologies. However I question it as a story of the effects of technology on culture because I don't think there are any described. We see the Martians decimating humans and then (spoilers! in case anyone hasn't read this book or any of its many derivatives) falling over dead from microbes, and the long-term effect on human culture is, IIRC, not an issue. Except maybe as regards humanity's centrality in the universe, when there are other intelligent beings - but that isn't a technology per se.



> But I do think sci-fi is inherently political. Whenever there are societies, cultures -- groups of people living and associating together -- there will be laws, governments (even primitive), etc. determining how their people should behave and treat each other, and isn't that essentially politics? Whether the author chooses to address it is another matter. But I think it is always there in the background.


I'd agree with you there; I don't think it's possible to invent a society or even to describe current society without taking a political position, whether consciously or unconsciously. Really I think all literature and art is political on some level, in the sense that it reflects, reproduces or responds to the power structure in which it exists. Can't not. The less conscious of that a work is, the more it will tend to simply reproduce.

I actually am way ignorant on SF after WWI, and anywhere but France and England, more or less. I'm sure some people here could absolutely school me on the topic. But I will spout off anyway.

In any case, no, I don't expect to arrive at a single satisfying definition; the fact that there isn't one is what makes it interesting to me as a topic of conversation. No right or wrong answer, really.


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## Cran (Oct 4, 2012)

lasm said:


> Yes, I think you're quite right about early SF being a speculative genre. So you'd say novels that are more interested in worldbuilding, what Man from Mars calls soft science fiction and science fantasy, are just not really SF?


Difficult to generalise, speculative fiction is; imagination clouds all*

And sometimes, it's a question of degree. 

How much or how central must the included science be to rate as science fiction?
_Firefly/Serenity_ was a highly entertaining western in space, but it did include 
speculations based on contemporary science.

_Independence Day_ could be described as another US retelling of _War of the Worlds_,
but using a computer virus instead of a biological one to turn the tide. 

_*with apologies to Yoda and George Lucas_



> Depends on the person, I think. For me, I remember HAL. And not as an idea, but as a character. Seriously, the death of HAL makes me weepy every time.


Of the two, HAL seems to have generated more references in later works than the monolith, although both have proved to be memorable. 




> Yes, it is a story of invasion and of the confrontation between weaker and stronger military technologies. However I question it as a story of the effects of technology on culture because I don't think there are any described. We see the Martians decimating humans and then (spoilers! in case anyone hasn't read this book or any of its many derivatives) falling over dead from microbes, and the long-term effect on human culture is, IIRC, not an issue. Except maybe as regards humanity's centrality in the universe, when there are other intelligent beings - but that isn't a technology per se.


Wells looked at three things as far as science is concerned: 
the impact of microbes on life not previously exposed and immune (the contemporary science? 
Malaria deaths of imported workers on the Panama Canal); 
the weaponisation of radiation (the contemporary science? 
natural radioactivity and the work of Becquerel, the Curies and Rutherford); 
and the mechanisation of military forces (the contemporary science? 
engine-driven mobile land machines other than trains, which were limited to rails). 

The social aspect, yes, came from what happens when the more technological society 
moved into less developed areas, and there were centuries of history to draw from for that.


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## Wessik (Oct 4, 2012)

Definitions are actually quite easy to come by. The problem, however, arises when a label is given to some changing body of definitive work. If I may be allowed to use an example from biology, one might consider that what we call a chicken, after a thousand years will share practically no defining characteristics with a chicken.

In other words, the problem lies not with the definition, which is so often like a structure built upon some plot of land, but rather with the fact that the definee continues to morph and change, even though we wish it not to.

For example, Science fiction, as it was first coined, referred quite simply to fiction about outer space. Period. As the genre evolved, it came to also include subject matter like aliens, dystopia, utopia, techno-crime thrillers, political intrigue, etc, etc!

The end fate of the science fiction label will be the same as for all labels. It will continually expand and generalize, and eventually become not very useful. At which point any number of Sub-genres within science fiction will fulfill the ecological meme-niche that Sci-Fi itself once had. 

One can already see this process at work by looking at the merger of the two once distinct genres: "science fiction" and "fantasy".


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## Winston (Oct 4, 2012)

Like Cran said, stuff masquerading as Sci-Fi recently has been way more fiction than science.

Soft Science Fiction has invaded the genre like some invasive plant fungus that chokes off an otherwise healthy lake.  Muddy the waters with Fantasy Sci-Fi like "steampunk", and traditional 'hard sci-fi' is all but dead.

Space ships, interplanetary travel, aliens... no interest anymore.  Dystopian, apocalyptic thrillers are all the rage.  No one seems to have the urge to explore any longer.  Those future, dead worlds that everyone seems to enjoy may not be so much fiction after all.  Just the logical extension of a society that no longer looks up and outward, but down and inward.  Sad.


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## Wessik (Oct 4, 2012)

Now that I think about it, the current culture of paranoia regarding totalitarian governments and all heel breaking loose what have you, might be a strong candidate for the cause of contempoary sci-fi mores! In fact, the whole space exploration craze began to thrive within sci-fi at the same time that the U.S.A. and Soviet Union were themselves engaging in the space race. Perhaps Sci-Fi is nothing more than an extension and extrapolation of current fears and prejudices into the near or distant future?!


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## Cran (Oct 4, 2012)

The Golden Age of science fiction (commonly 1938 to 1946) - space stories and all - happened in the decade before the USA-Soviet space race had even begun, and ended about the same time as their arms race begun.

And popular space stories had begun even earlier - EE Doc Smith's first part of _The Skylark of Space_ was published in 1928. 

Asimov's galaxy-spanning _Foundation_ series began, like Smith's _Skylark_, as a series of short stories; the first was published in 1942. 

Clarke's _2001: A Space Odyssey_ was published as a novel in 1968, but it was built upon the short story, _The Sentinel of Eternity_, published in 1951.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 4, 2012)

Cran, you are right, there is extrapolation from contemporary technologies in _War of the Worlds, _what I was saying is that we don't see them having a profound effect on culture. So if we define SF as showing the interaction between tech and culture, then it might not qualify. 

But as people have been saying, maybe there really need to be multiple definitions (or no definition) and we just need to think of a sort agglomeration of subgenres. Or Damon Knight's "what we point to when we say it".

Wessik, I think SF does often reflect contemporary fears and prejudices. Actually, since we're hung up on Wells already, some people see _War of the Worlds_ as a grand analogy for British colonialism during the period and draw parallels between the Martian invasion and the British invasion of - is it Eastern Samoa? I think Wells actually mentions it somewhere in the early pages. Many of the books and films about going to Mars or the moon are seen as colonial narratives - the daring adventurers go, find a primitive native population to conquer, a lovely princess to make out with, etc.


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## Wessik (Oct 4, 2012)

Good points, all of you. Also, thank you as well, Cran! I am never so happy as when I am proven wrong!


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## Kyle R (Oct 5, 2012)

Cran said:


> The Golden Age of science fiction (commonly 1938 to 1946) - space stories and all - happened in the decade before the USA-Soviet space race had even begun, and ended about the same time as their arms race begun.
> 
> And popular space stories had begun even earlier - EE Doc Smith's first part of _The Skylark of Space_ was published in 1928.
> 
> ...



Ahem!

I have to chime in, in defense of my favorite childhood author and one of the reasons I began writing fiction in the first place, *Mr. H.G. Wells*, who wrote _The War of the Worlds_ and _The First Men in the Moon_ in the late *1800's*.

_The First Men in the Moon_ details the first ever space flight known to man, from the Earth to the Moon, in an anti-gravity sphere made by the quirky doctor and his beloved "Zuzoo, zuzoo~".

(You'd have to read it to know what I'm talking about. Both great fun novels to read, by the way!)


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## Cran (Oct 5, 2012)

*lasm* - I agree with you, and I don't think I've ever defined SF in any way related to impacts on culture, only as _extrapolations from the science of the day_. 

*Kyle* - my post was responding to the Golden Age reference (_the whole space exploration craze began to thrive within sci-fi_) which is commonly thought to have started in 1938, and one of the earliest in that phase was CS Lewis' Mars story _Out of the Silent Planet_; my earlier posts included beginnings and Wells. 

And I'm sorry, but as good as Wells was as a science fiction storyteller, he was not the first to write about traveling to the Moon. As I indicated before, that accolade goes to Cyrano de Bergerac. 



> Cyrano de Bergerac's works _L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (The Other World: or the States and Empires of the Moon)_ (published posthumously, *1657*) and _Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun)_ (*1662*) are classics of early modern science fiction.  In the former, *Cyrano travels to the moon using rockets* powered by  firecrackers and meets the inhabitants. The moon-men have four legs,  musical voices, and firearms that shoot game and cook it.


- Cyrano de Bergerac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Kyle R (Oct 5, 2012)

1600's? Wow! I have never heard of that author before now. Now my childhood hero is less sparkly. 

(Kidding! )

Thanks for that. I found it, too. The first fictional account (that I know of so far) of human space travel!

http://www.princeton.edu/~stengel/cyrano.html (The flight begins in Chapter II)


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## Cran (Oct 5, 2012)

Not too much sparkle lost; Wells remains a giant in science fiction history.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 5, 2012)

Cran said:


> *lasm* - I agree with you, and I don't think I've ever defined SF in any way related to impacts on culture, only as _extrapolations from the science of the day_.


Nope, that was Jon M, who was pointing to what I find one of the most interesting possibilities of science fiction - its reflection on the relationship between technology and culture - but not the only one.

I've been meaning to read the Bergerac for ages. Also Kepler wrote something called _Somnium_ about a visit to the moon around the same time. It seems like there are moments in history when SF just sort of happens, or becomes more important than at other moments. This feels like one to me. Maybe it's just the best way to process the huge changes tech has made over the past 20-30 years, and in fact to think about tech's impact on culture. We don't really know where we're going right now so SF is one way to examine the question.


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## namesake (Oct 5, 2012)

A broad definition I have found useful is as follows of what science fiction is even though I think it is simple: some sci-themes; man versus machine, man versus man and so forth. I had a lot of books collecting dust from the used books pile. A lot of them the books and guides were pretty bad but at least this helps give some insight about what science fiction themes that were popular. What I mean to say is what the editors of the used books of Asimov said and were guides I had at home had said. But imo the best science fiction definitions came from other books than the most well known that I would get. Some authors were more forthcoming in their explanation (from books I read and got from Amazon) and I think Colorado's post had good one since I have a definition of sci-fi that seems  closer to that I have thought of. Of course I have difficulty giving a good and well thought definition since books I have used don't put me at the helm of what to say on it. That is what I think of it as a definition.


I think flawed humans, is one way of looking at the definition in a short but quick analysis. A lot of the time this definition is not good enough. I think what is missing is science fiction is it is not very character based and so forth. It's the opposite of fantasy. It gets confused a lot of the time since sometimes this definition is probably useful to have on hand for the task. Say if you write a long work and need to make a choice.

Good technology in fiction is as an idea that can be used to help make a metaphor of something grand of the human condition I have found to be useful and helps give another definition. The human condition has many definitions. Though I do admit this is just only a technique I made up from some creative writing efforts. I do like to explore using the strategy from time to time. Though I think it has helped me with my creative writing efforts


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## Nickleby (Oct 5, 2012)

To muddy the waters, I'll toss out another definition. SF is about things that don't exist but are possible, as opposed to fantasy, which is about things that don't exist and aren't possible. Straight fiction, in this paradigm, is about things that do exist. You can't get much broader than that. It's when you start to narrow them down that you can quibble.


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## Cran (Oct 5, 2012)

lasm said:


> Nope, that was Jon M, who was pointing to what I find one of the most interesting possibilities of science fiction - its reflection on the relationship between technology and culture - but not the only one.


 I was responding to this:


> Cran, you are right, there is extrapolation from contemporary technologies in _War of the Worlds, _what  I was saying is that we don't see them having a profound effect on  culture. So if we define SF as showing the interaction between tech and  culture, then it might not qualify.


-
which seemed to be directed to me. And my response is that effect on culture is not relevant to whether a story is science fiction or not. If a science fiction story delves into social responses or interactions, that's fine, but it is not a requirement.


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## namesake (Oct 5, 2012)

I think there are decent arguments though to be made on what it can be said to be. That is my own personal viewpoint though. The more defintions the better imo though since the viewpoint depends a lot on what people think can help them in making a good analysis.


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## Terry D (Oct 5, 2012)

The true popularity of science fiction began in the late 20s with the 'pulp-era' of cheap, mass produced magazines.  Leading that charge was the man who actually gave the genre its name, Hugo Gernsback publisher of _Amazing Stories _(founded in 1926).  Gernsback called the genre he loved, "scientifiction".  And I'm old enough to remember when no 'real' science fiction fan would be caught dead calling the genre sci-fi--it was always sf to the initiated [-X


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## namesake (Oct 5, 2012)

That is a fair opinion. 

I just guess I like to call it sci-fi even though some people are bigger fans than I am currently.


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## Terry D (Oct 5, 2012)

namesake said:


> That is a fair opinion.
> 
> I just guess I like to call it sci-fi even though some people are bigger fans than I am currently.



The term sci-fi doesn't hold the stigma it did 30 years ago.  I just brought up the topic out of a sense of nostalgia.


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## Comrade Yuri (Oct 5, 2012)

Wow, great topic and discussion! A few quick thoughts.

I'd say "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy is post apocalyptic fiction — a genre of it's own. The apocalypse affects society and people, down to the most fundamental levels of daily life. As one navigates through their normal routine, one must deal with "it," (the apocalypse), every day. It's a game changer. By this measure, I consider both "Mad Max," and "I am Legend" as post apocalyptic media (shortened to PA media by some genre lovers). 

I think we may use the same token for science fiction: Science and technology have affected people and society profoundly, and each day of life requires that the characters deal with "it," and its ramifications. "Brave New World" is a great example. The entire fabric of society was rewoven by eugenics and social stratification. 

As others have suggested, some works are not science fiction, despite having space ships and ray guns. Why? Because not much else has changed. People and societies still function much like they did before. 

So, I'd say that science fiction requires technology to exert a profound influence on people and society. Lives are different, on a fundamental level, from what we know today. Every day, people must deal with "it," whatever that might be. We're not talking about just doing things faster, more efficiently, or whatever, we're talking about one or more "game changers."


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## Cran (Oct 5, 2012)

Terry D said:


> The true popularity of science fiction began in the late 20s with the 'pulp-era' of cheap, mass produced magazines.  Leading that charge was the man who actually gave the genre its name, Hugo Gernsback publisher of _Amazing Stories _(founded in 1926).  Gernsback called the genre he loved, "scientifiction".  And I'm old enough to remember when no 'real' science fiction fan would be caught dead calling the genre sci-fi--it was always sf to the initiated [-X


Sadly, Amazing Stories struggled under Gernsback - until he went bankrupt in 1929* after only three years - despite his setting of the philosophy of science fiction and its link to science fact; something only appreciated by scientists and writers. Most readers wanted monsters to kill, damsels to rescue, and shining knights in space suits - Camelot Revisited.

The 1920s should have been a pinnacle decade for science fiction - names like HG Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Carel Kapek, Edmond Hamilton, Olaf Stapeldon, Hugo Gernsback, and John W Campbell (as authors); all legends and mentors to the generation who followed, but not broadly appreciated at that time when "pulp" was a euphemism for "trash".  

Started in the 1920s, yes, but not really popular until the 1930s. 
One big difference: In the 1930s Depression, something ten years old was still fresh; 
in the 2000s Recession, something made the year before was old. 

_*Yes, many many people went bankrupt in 1929; the trend in such times, however is for entertainment to flourish.  _


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 5, 2012)

It is a really great discussion and I appreciate all the thoughtful responses. I get my head stuck in theory books and it's good for me to pull it out and see what writers think.

_The Road_ is strange and fantastic in its overall neglect of the whole world-building thing, I think. It seems like what McCarthy does is basically just set that aside - it's been done, we can all imagine it, no need to reinvent the wheel. So he just gives us the characters in the situation and kinda punches us in the gut with them. It's much more compelling to me than if he explained exactly what happened (of course, if he'd done it probably he would have done it well, so who knows). Inspirational to someone who is halfassed about those things anyway. Is it SF? I dunno. Probably not. I guess I just like it.


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## Comrade Yuri (Oct 5, 2012)

lasm said:


> It is a really great discussion and I appreciate all the thoughtful responses. I get my head stuck in theory books and it's good for me to pull it out and see what writers think.
> 
> _The Road_ is strange and fantastic in its overall neglect of the whole world-building thing, I think. It seems like what McCarthy does is basically just set that aside - it's been done, we can all imagine it, no need to reinvent the wheel. So he just gives us the characters in the situation and kinda punches us in the gut with them. It's much more compelling to me than if he explained exactly what happened (of course, if he'd done it probably he would have done it well, so who knows). Inspirational to someone who is halfassed about those things anyway. Is it SF? I dunno. Probably not. I guess I just like it.



I love the book. It's one of my all time favorites; certainly in my top five. McCarthy defies convention throughout the whole piece, from cover to cover. No quotes for dialogue, rarely indicates who's talking, doesn't use names, and expects us to focus enough while reading to keep stuff straight in our heads. The book shouldn't have succeeded, but it did. Somehow, it all works together to create a truly memorable read. 

The part with the mother was agonizing. In the short time we had with her, based mainly on recollection, she comes across as so very real, and quite desperate. 

One of my favorite quotes comes from The Road. It goes something like this: 

Listen to me, he said. When your dreams are of some world that never was, or some world that will never be, and for that moment you're happy again — that's when you know you've given up...


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## Kyle R (Oct 6, 2012)

lasm said:


> _The Road_ . . . . Is it SF? I dunno.



I'd call it "Dystopian Fiction" which, in my opinion, deserves to be its own genre, if it isn't already. :-k


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## MJ Preston (Oct 6, 2012)

The book I am writing has been dubbed a science fiction by my mentor, although I don't think of it as Science Fiction. My science knowledge is way too wonky and I leave the art of explaining true science to those who have a better grasp of the subject matter than I. That is perhaps why I like the horror genre, I get to spend my time story telling rather than fact checking that some geek is going to call me onto the carpet because my explanation of the time/space/continuim<-- is that even a real word, falls flat on it's face.

Writing outside of my comfort zone feels very uncomfortable indeed. Reading a  true science fiction novel that is heavy on science is for me like reading a manual for rewiring a house. My eyes begin to glaze over and I begin thinking about picking up something else. I am a simple man with simple needs and I read for pleasure. For those who find magic in the words of Sagan or Asimov I wish you well.


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## Cran (Oct 6, 2012)

KyleColorado said:


> I'd call it "Dystopian Fiction" which, in my opinion, deserves to be its own genre, if it isn't already. :-k



Agreed.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Oct 6, 2012)

> *Cran: *The 1920s should have been a pinnacle decade for science fiction - names  like HG Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs,  Carel Kapek, Edmond Hamilton, Olaf Stapeldon, Hugo Gernsback, and John W  Campbell (as authors); all legends and mentors to the generation who  followed, but not broadly appreciated at that time when "pulp" was a  euphemism for "trash".


I wonder if the lack of appreciation at the time had something to do with WWI - before that, seems like it was such an exuberant time, there were all these new inventions. But the war (at least in France, I don't know about England as much) really showed, first off, that Germany had way better military tech, and second, its destructive potential. 

And like you said, money. Hard to get excited about things when you're broke. The optimism in some earlier SF (thinking of Verne) might have seemed naive in retrospect.


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## Kevin (Oct 6, 2012)

lasm said:


> I wonder if the lack of appreciation at the time had something to do with WWI - before that, seems like it was such an exuberant time, there were all these new inventions. But the war (at least in France, I don't know about England as much) really showed, first off, that Germany had way better military tech, and second, its destructive potential.
> 
> And like you said, money. Hard to get excited about things when you're broke. The optimism in some earlier SF (thinking of Verne) might have seemed naive in retrospect.


 I'm guessing, but I suspect it was thought of as a 'useless waste of time and the realm of the odd, self-indulgent'.


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## The Jaded (Oct 6, 2012)

Firstly, I am not an expert, I have had a single solitary college-level class on this topic (specifically, on Science Fiction as literature.) Science fiction happens to be, for the most part, where my writing lives as well. So I figure that my two cents might help, but don't take my opinion to be anything but opinion.

Firstly, I have noticed something being said that isn't quite accurate in my view, said over and over again in this thread - there is a desire to split sub-categories of science fiction off and treat them as if they aren't SF. Here are some examples.



lasm said:


> AJones: yeah, as you say, there's a ton of stuff out there that's labeled SF but which is really just a drama set in space. And it could probably just as easily be set on a cruise ship as a space ship much of the time. It's a worry I have with my WIP in fact, because a lot of the SF-ish stuff is kept in the background. And for that matter, sometimes I wonder if we should even call certain kinds of stories SF anymore, when they've been used so many times that there's nothing all that surprising about them. Post-apocalypse, space ships, whatever.





Cran said:


> Most of the stories labelled science fiction over recent decades were not;  they were space opera, speculative fiction, or future fantasy.



Space opera, "space drama", future fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, post-apolcalyptic fiction, dystopian fiction, alternate history, and dozens more, these are all subcategories, where science fiction is the greater super-category. But what lasm is also pointing out is a second classification inside the genre - "strong" science fiction versus "weak" science fiction. "Strong" SF is focused more directly on the SF aspects of the story, and "Weak" SF seems to be what lasm describes, it focuses more on the human (or at least the relatable) aspects of the story, and the Sci-fi "red meat" (Flying cars, spaceships, tame exoplanetary dragons, whatever) is put in the background. I use "strong" and "weak" because "hard" and "soft" mean something else entirely in this context, not because one is better - in fact, most of what I write is "weak" science fiction by this distinction.

Science Fiction is a very general category, but the best way to define it, in my mind, is as follows.

_*"What if?" *defines the mindset behind science fiction stories most completely - all, at their heart, are analyzing one or more "What if?" questions. A science fiction story gets its basis from the writer speculating answers to these questions. Sometimes these questions are in the foreground, easy to see, and the plot is a vehicle to observe them, and sometimes they are used as a backdrop for a more standard plot recipe._


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## Cran (Oct 6, 2012)

The Jaded said:


> Science Fiction is a very general category, but the best way to define it, in my mind, is as follows.
> 
> _*"What if?" *defines the mindset behind science fiction stories most completely - all, at their heart, are analyzing one or more "What if?" questions. A science fiction story gets its basis from the writer speculating answers to these questions. Sometimes these questions are in the foreground, easy to see, and the plot is a vehicle to observe them, and sometimes they are used as a backdrop for a more standard plot recipe._


Sorry, but *"What if?"* is the mindset behind _all_ fiction. 

Further, simply using the old standard props (space, aliens, future settings) 
doesn't make something science fiction, any more than applying alliteration 
makes something poetic literature. 

Science fiction was defined nearly a century ago; trying to redefine it to fit
the diversity of spin-offs is like trying to redefine relativity to fit _Futurama_.

If you don't know or don't care about the science in your stories, that's fine;
there are great stories that entertain without any reference to the science of the day.
But why try to claim a mantle you have no interest in? 

Take the science out of science fiction, and you have fiction - 
why be disappointed with that?


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## Kevin (Oct 6, 2012)

It's fiction involviing inventions that don't yet exist.


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## Kyle R (Oct 6, 2012)

Kevin said:


> It's fiction involviing inventions that don't yet exist.



Or organisms!

[video=youtube;xNLtPLFECNw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLtPLFECNw[/video]

The water creature from _The Abyss_.


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