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Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it",[2] a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you do not know what it is, but you know it when you see it.[3] Vladimir Nabokov argued that if we were rigorous with our definitions, Shakespeare's play The Tempest would have to be termed science fiction.[4] According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."[5] Rod Serling's definition is "fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible."[6] Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado—or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is", and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction."[7] Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures.[8] It is similar to, but differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated physical laws (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). The settings for science fiction are often contrary to those of consensus reality, but most science fiction relies on a considerable degree of suspension of disbelief, which is facilitated in the reader's mind by potential scientific explanations or solutions to various fictional elements. Science fiction elements include: A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record. A spatial setting or scenes in outer space (e.g. spaceflight), on other worlds, or on subterranean earth.[9] Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots and other types of characters arising from a future human evolution. Futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers.[10] Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for example time travel, wormholes, or faster-than-light travel or communication. New and different political or social systems, e.g. dystopian, post-scarcity, or post-apocalyptic.[11] Paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. History For more details on this topic, see History of science fiction. As a means of understanding the world through speculation and storytelling, science fiction has antecedents which go back to an era when the dividing line separating the mythological from the historical tends to become somewhat blurred, though precursors to science fiction as literature can be seen in Lucian's True History in the 2nd century,[12][13][14][15][16] some of the Arabian Nights tales,[17][18] The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in the 10th century[18] and Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus in the 13th century.[19] A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of modern science itself, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) was one of the first true science fantasy works,[20] together with Voltaire's Micromégas (1752) and Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1620–1630).[21] Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered the latter work the first science fiction story.[22][23] It depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earth's motion is seen from there. The Blazing World (1666), by English noblewoman Margaret Cavendish, has also been described as an early forerunner of science fiction.[24][25][26][27] Another example is Ludvig Holberg's novel Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741). Following the 18th-century development of the novel as a literary form, in the early 19th century, Mary Shelley's books Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man helped define the form of the science fiction novel, and Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction.[28][29] Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon.[30] More examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Black-and-white photo of a man with bushy black mustache and black hair with parting. H. G. Wells Then with the dawn of new technologies such as electricity, the telegraph, and new forms of powered transportation, writers including H. G. Wells and Jules Verne created a body of work that became popular across broad cross-sections of society.[31] Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898) describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry. It is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the term "scientific romance" was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott. The term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. Black-and-white photo of man in formal dress with unkempt hair, mustache and beard. Jules Verne In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine.[32] In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his three-decade-long series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars and featuring John Carter as the hero. The 1928 publication of Philip Nolan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419, in Amazing Stories was a landmark event. This story led to comic strips featuring Buck Rogers (1929), Brick Bradford (1933), and Flash Gordon (1934). The comic strips and derivative movie serials greatly popularized science fiction. In the late 1930s, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, and a critical mass of new writers emerged in New York City in a group called the Futurians, including Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, James Blish, Judith Merril, and others.[33] Other important writers during this period include E.E. (Doc) Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Olaf Stapledon, and A. E. van Vogt. Working outside the Campbell influence were Ray Bradbury and Stanisław Lem. Campbell's tenure at Astounding is considered to be the beginning of the Golden Age of science fiction, characterized by hard SF stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress.[32] This lasted until post-war technological advances, new magazines such as Galaxy, edited by H. L. Gold, and a new generation of writers began writing stories with less emphasis on the hard sciences and more on the social sciences. In the 1950s, the Beat generation included speculative writers such as William S. Burroughs. In the 1960s and early 1970s, writers like Frank Herbert, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison explored new trends, ideas, and writing styles, while a group of writers, mainly in Britain, became known as the New Wave for their embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously "literary" or artistic sensibility.[20] In the 1970s, writers like Larry Niven brought new life to hard science fiction.[34] Ursula K. Le Guin and others pioneered soft science fiction.[35] In the 1980s, cyberpunk authors like William Gibson turned away from the optimism and support for progress of traditional science fiction.[36] This dystopian vision of the near future is described in the work of Philip K. Dick, such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, which resulted in the films Blade Runner and Total Recall. The Star Wars franchise helped spark a new interest in space opera,[37] focusing more on story and character than on scientific accuracy. C. J. Cherryh's detailed explorations of alien life and complex scientific challenges influenced a generation of writers.[38] Emerging themes in the 1990s included environmental issues, the implications of the global Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as a post-Cold War interest in post-scarcity societies; Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age comprehensively explores these themes. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels brought the character-driven story back into prominence.[39] The television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) began a torrent of new SF shows, including three further Star Trek spin-off shows (Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise) and Babylon 5.[40][41] Stargate, a movie about an ancient portal to other gates across the galaxy, was released in 1994. Stargate SG-1, a TV series, premiered on July 27, 1997 and lasted 10 seasons with 214 episodes. Spin-offs include the animated television series Stargate Infinity, the TV series Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, and the direct-to-DVD films Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum. Stargate SG-1 surpassed The X-Files as the longest-running North American science fiction television series, a record later broken by Smallville.[42] Concern about the rapid pace of technological change crystallized around the concept of the technological singularity, popularized by Vernor Vinge's novel Marooned in Realtime and then taken up by other authors.[43] The term "sci-fi" Forrest J Ackerman used the term sci-fi (analogous to the then-trendy "hi-fi") at UCLA in 1954.[44] As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction.[45][46][47] By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction,[48] and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy". Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers".[49] David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre.[50] Innovation Science fiction has criticized developing and future technologies, but also initiates innovation and new technology. This topic has been more often discussed in literary and sociological than in scientific forums. Cinema and media theorist Vivian Sobchack examines the dialogue between science fiction films and the technological imagination. Technology impacts artists and how they portray their fictionalized subjects, but the fictional world gives back to science by broadening imagination. How William Shatner Changed the World is a documentary that gave a number of real-world examples of actualized technological imaginations. While more prevalent in the early years of science fiction with writers like Arthur C. Clarke, new authors still find ways to make currently impossible technologies seem closer to being realized.[51] Categories Hard SF Main article: Hard science fiction Arthur C. Clarke Hard science fiction, or "hard SF", is characterized by rigorous attention to accurate detail in the natural sciences, especially physics, astrophysics, and chemistry, or on accurately depicting worlds that more advanced technology may make possible. Some accurate predictions of the future come from the hard science fiction subgenre, but numerous inaccurate predictions have emerged as well.[citation needed] Some hard SF authors have distinguished themselves as working scientists, including Gregory Benford, Geoffrey A. Landis and David Brin,[52][53] while mathematician authors include Rudy Rucker and Vernor Vinge. Other noteworthy hard SF authors include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Hal Clement, Greg Bear, Larry Niven, Robert J. Sawyer, Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Sheffield, Ben Bova, Kim Stanley Robinson and Greg Egan. Soft and social SF Main article: Soft science fiction The description "soft" science fiction may describe works based on social sciences such as psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. Noteworthy writers in this category include Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick.[32][54] The term can describe stories focused primarily on character and emotion; SFWA Grand Master Ray Bradbury was an acknowledged master of this art.[55] The Eastern Bloc produced a large quantity of social science fiction, including works by Polish authors Stanislaw Lem and Janusz Zajdel, as well as Soviet authors such as the Strugatsky brothers, Kir Bulychov, Yevgeny Zamyatin and Ivan Yefremov.[56][57] Some writers blur the boundary between hard and soft science fiction.[58] Related to social SF and soft SF are utopian and dystopian stories; George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale are examples. Satirical novels with fantastic settings such as Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift may also be considered science fiction or speculative fiction. Subgenres This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2013) A division of science fiction into various subgenres can be problematic, because these subcategories are not simple pigeonholes. Some works may overlap two or more commonly defined genres, whereas others are beyond the generic boundaries, either outside or between categories. Moreover, the categories and genres used by mass markets and literary criticism differ considerably. Cyberpunk Main article: Cyberpunk The cyberpunk genre emerged in the early 1980s; combining cybernetics and punk,[59] the term was coined by author Bruce Bethke for his 1980 short story Cyberpunk.[60] The time frame is usually near-future and the settings are often dystopian in nature and characterized by misery. Common themes in cyberpunk include advances in information technology and especially the Internet, visually abstracted as cyberspace, artificial intelligence, and prosthetics and post-democratic societal control where corporations have more influence than governments. Nihilism, post-modernism, and film noir techniques are common elements, and the protagonists may be disaffected or reluctant anti-heroes. Noteworthy authors in this genre are William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, and Pat Cadigan. James O'Ehley has called the 1982 film Blade Runner a definitive example of the cyberpunk visual style.[61] Time travel Main article: Time travel in fiction Time travel stories have antecedents in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first major time travel novel was Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The most famous is H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, which uses a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively, while Twain's time traveler is struck in the head. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to such a vehicle. Back to the Future is one of the most popular franchises of this category. Stories of this type are complicated by logical problems such as the grandfather paradox.[62] Time travel continues to be a popular subject in modern science fiction, in print, movies, and television episodes of Stargate SG1 and the BBC television series Doctor Who. Alternate history Main article: Alternate history Alternate (or alternative) history stories are based on the premise that historical events might have turned out differently. These stories may use time travel to change the past, or may simply set a story in a universe with a different history from our own. Classics in the genre include Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore, in which the South wins the American Civil War, and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, in which Germany and Japan win World War II. The Sidewise Award acknowledges the best works in this subgenre; the name is taken from Murray Leinster's 1934 story Sidewise in Time. Harry Turtledove is one of the most prominent authors in the subgenre and is sometimes called the "master of alternate history".[63][64] Military SF Main article: Military science fiction Military science fiction is set in the context of conflict between national, interplanetary, or interstellar armed forces; the primary viewpoint characters are usually soldiers. Stories include detail about military technology, procedure, ritual, and history; military stories may use parallels with historical conflicts. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is an early example, along with the Dorsai novels of Gordon Dickson. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is a critique of the genre, a Vietnam-era response to the World War II–style stories of earlier authors.[65] Prominent military SF authors include John Ringo, David Drake, David Weber, Tom Kratman, Michael Z. Williamson, S. M. Stirling, John Carr, and Don Hawthorne. The publishing company Baen Books is known for cultivating several of these military science fiction authors.[66] Superhuman Superhuman stories deal with the emergence of humans who have abilities beyond the norm. This can stem either from natural causes such as in Olaf Stapledon's novel Odd John, Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human, and Philip Wylie's Gladiator, or be the result of scientific advances, such as the intentional augmentation in A. E. van Vogt's novel Slan. These stories usually focus on the alienation that these beings feel as well as society's reaction to them. These stories have played a role in the real life discussion of human enhancement. Frederik Pohl's Man Plus also belongs to this category. Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic Main article: Apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic fiction is concerned with the end of civilization through war (On the Beach), pandemic (The Last Man), astronomic impact (When Worlds Collide), ecological disaster (The Wind from Nowhere), or some other general disaster or with a world or civilization after such a disaster. Typical of the genre are George R. Stewart's novel Earth Abides and Pat Frank's novel Alas, Babylon. Apocalyptic fiction generally concerns the disaster itself and the direct aftermath, while post-apocalyptic fiction can deal with anything from the near aftermath (as in Cormac McCarthy's The Road) to 375 years in the future (as in By The Waters of Babylon) to hundreds or thousands of years in the future, as in Russell Hoban's novel Riddley Walker and Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Apocalyptic science-fiction is a popular genre in video games. The critically acclaimed role-playing action adventure video game series, Fallout, is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, where civilization is recovering from a nuclear war as survivors struggle to survive and seek to rebuild society. Space opera Main article: Space opera Space opera is adventure science fiction set mainly or entirely in outer space or on distant planets. The conflict is heroic, and typically on a large scale. The term "space opera" is sometimes used pejoratively, to describe improbable plots, absurd science, and cardboard characters. But it is also used nostalgically, and modern space opera may be an attempt to recapture the sense of wonder of the golden age of science fiction. The pioneer of this sub-genre is generally recognized to be Edward E. (Doc) Smith, with his Skylark and Lensman series. George Lucas's Star Wars series is among the most popular and famous franchises in cinematic space opera. It covers epic battles between good and evil throughout an entire galaxy. Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series, Peter F. Hamilton's Void, Night's Dawn, Pandora's Star series, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky are newer examples of this genre. A prime example of the space opera genre seen in video games is the Mass Effect series.[citation needed] Space Western Main article: Space Western Space Western transposes themes of the American Western books and film to a backdrop of futuristic space frontiers. These stories typically involve colony worlds that have only recently been terraformed and/or settled serving as stand-ins for the backdrop of lawlessness and economic expansion that were predominant in the American west. Examples include the Sean Connery film Outland, Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky, the Firefly television series, and the film sequel Serenity by Joss Whedon, as well as the manga and anime series Trigun, Outlaw Star, and Cowboy Bebop. Other sub-genres [hide]This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013) This section requires expansion. (June 2008) Anthropological science fiction is a sub-genre that absorbs and discusses anthropology and the study of human kind. Examples include Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, and Neanderthal by John Darnton. Biopunk focuses on biotechnology and subversives. The main underlying theme within these stories is the attempt to change the human body and engineer humans for specific purposes through enhancements in genetic and molecular makeups. Many examples of this sub-genre include subjects such as human experimentation, the misuse of biotechnology and synthetic biotechnology. This sub-genre also includes works involving human cloning and how clones might exists within human society in the future. Some consider the first biopunk novel to be Mary Shelly's "Frankenstien" due to the way in which Dr. Frankenstien makes his monster. Comic science fiction is a sub-genre that exploits the genre's conventions for comic effect. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and personal power of men and women. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.[67] Joanna Russ's work, and some of Ursula K. Le Guin's work can be thus categorized. Steampunk is based on the idea of futuristic technology existing in the past, usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Popular examples include The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld, Bas-Lag series by China Miéville, as well as Girl Genius web comic by Phil and Kaja Foglio, although seeds of the genre may be seen in certain works of Michael Moorcock, Philip José Farmer and Steve Stiles, and in such games as Space: 1889 and Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures. Machines are most often powered by steam in this genre (hence the name). Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil is seen as inspiration for writers and artists of the steampunk sub-culture.[68][69][70] Dieselpunk takes over where Steampunk leaves off. These are stories that take over as we usher in the machine-heavy eras of WWI and WWII. The use of diesel-powered machines plays heavily. In this (like its steam counterpart), the focus is on the technology. Science-fiction poetry is poetry that has the characteristics or subject matter of science fiction. Science fiction poetry's main sources are the sciences and the literary movement of science fiction prose. An extended discussion of the field is given in Suzette Haden Elgin's The Science Fiction Poetry Handbook, where she compares and contrasts it to both mainstream poetry and to prose science fiction. The former, she maintains, uses figures of speech unencumbered by noncompliant details, whereas these details can be key elements in science-fiction poetry. Prose in science fiction has the time to develop a setting and a story, whereas a poem in the field is normally constrained by its short length to rely on some device to get a point across quickly. Elgin says that the effectiveness of this kind of poetry pivots around the correct use of presupposition.[71] The Science Fiction Association is an international organization of speculative poets,[72] which gives the annual Rhysling Awards for speculative poetry. An early example of science fiction in poetry is in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Locksley Hall, where he introduces a picture of the future with "When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see...." This poem was written in 1835, near the end of the first Industrial Revolution. Poetry was only sparingly published in traditional science-fiction outlets such as pulp magazines until the New Wave.[73] By the 1980s there were magazines specifically devoted to science-fiction poetry.[73] Related genres Speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror For more details on this topic, see speculative fiction. The broader category of speculative fiction[74] includes science fiction, fantasy, alternate histories (which may have no particular scientific or futuristic component), and even literary stories that contain fantastic elements, such as the work of Jorge Luis Borges or John Barth. For some editors, magic realism is considered to be within the broad definition of speculative fiction.[75] Fantasy Main article: Fantasy Fantasy is closely associated with science fiction, and a number of writers have worked in both genres, while writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Marion Zimmer Bradley have written works that appear to blur the boundary between the two related genres.[76] The authors' professional organization is called the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).[77] SF conventions routinely have programming on fantasy topics,[78][79][80] and fantasy authors such as J. K. Rowling have won the highest honor within the science fiction field, the Hugo Award.[81] In general, science fiction differs from fantasy in that the former concerns things that might someday be possible or that at least embody the pretense of realism. Supernaturalism, usually absent in science fiction, is the distinctive characteristic of fantasy literature. A dictionary definition referring to fantasy literature is "fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements." [82] Examples of fantasy supernaturalism include magic (spells, harm to opponents), magical places (Narnia, Oz, Middle Earth, Hogwarts), supernatural creatures (witches, vampires, orcs, trolls), supernatural transportation (flying broomsticks, ruby slippers, windows between worlds), and shapeshifting (beast into man, man into wolf or bear, lion into sheep). Such things are basic themes in fantasy.[83] Literary critic Fredric Jameson has characterized the difference between the two genres by describing science fiction as turning "on a formal framework determined by concepts of the mode of production rather than those of religion" – that is, science fiction texts are bound by an inner logic based more on historical materialism than on magic or the forces of good and evil.[84] Some narratives are described as being essentially science fiction but "with fantasy elements". The term "science fantasy" is sometimes used to describe such material.[85] Science Fantasy Main article: Science Fantasy Science Fantasy is a genre where elements of science fiction and fantasy co-exist. Stories and franchises that display fictional science as well as supernatural elements, sorcery or/and other magical elements are considered science fantasy. Horror fiction Main article: Horror fiction Horror fiction is the literature of the unnatural and supernatural, with the aim of unsettling or frightening the reader, sometimes with graphic violence. Historically it has also been known as weird fiction. Although horror is not per se a branch of science fiction, some works of horror literature incorporates science fictional elements. One of the defining classical works of horror, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, is the first fully realized work of science fiction, where the manufacture of the monster is given a rigorous science-fictional grounding. The works of Edgar Allan Poe also helped define both the science fiction and the horror genres.[86] Today horror is one of the most popular categories of films.[87] Horror is often mistakenly categorized as science fiction at the point of distribution by libraries, video rental outlets, etc. For example, Syfy (distributed via cable and satellite television in the United States) currently devotes most its air time to horror films with very few science fiction titles.[citation needed] Mystery fiction Main article: Mystery fiction Works in which science and technology are a dominant theme, but based on current reality, may be considered mainstream fiction. Much of the thriller genre would be included, such as the novels of Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, or the James Bond films.[88] Modernist works from writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, and Stanisław Lem have focused on speculative or existential perspectives on contemporary reality and are on the borderline between SF and the mainstream.[89] According to Robert J. Sawyer, "Science fiction and mystery have a great deal in common. Both prize the intellectual process of puzzle solving, and both require stories to be plausible and hinge on the way things really do work."[90] Isaac Asimov, Walter Mosley, and other writers incorporate mystery elements in their science fiction, and vice versa. Distinct from the above, a full-fledged Science Fiction Mystery is one which is set in a completely different wold from ours, in which the circumstances and motives of the crime committed and the identity of the detective(s) seeking to solve it are of an essentially science fictional character. A prime example is Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" and its sequels, set in a world thousands of years in the future and presenting the Robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw. An allied genre is the Fantasy Mystery, a detective mystery set in a world of fantasy - such as the Lord Darcy mysteries taking place in a world where magic works, or "The Idylls of the Queen" set in the mythical King Arthur's court. Superhero fiction Main article: Superhero fiction Superhero fiction is a genre characterized by beings with much higher than usual capability and prowess, generally with a desire or need to help the citizens of their chosen country or world by using his or her powers to defeat natural or superpowered threats. A number of superhero fiction characters involve themselves (either intentionally or accidentally) with science fiction and fact, including advanced technologies, alien worlds, time travel, and interdimensional travel; but the standards of scientific plausibility are lower than with actual science fiction. Authors of this genre include Stan Lee (co-creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk); Marv Wolfman, the creator of Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics; Dean Wesley Smith (Smallville, Spider-Man, and X-Men novels) and Superman writers Roger Stern and Elliot S! Maggin. Fandom and community For more details on this topic, see Science fiction fandom. Science fiction fandom is the "community of the literature of ideas... the culture in which new ideas emerge and grow before being released into society at large".[91] Members of this community, "fans", are in contact with each other at conventions or clubs, through print or online fanzines, or on the Internet using web sites, mailing lists, and other resources. SF fandom emerged from the letters column in Amazing Stories magazine. Soon fans began writing letters to each other, and then grouping their comments together in informal publications that became known as fanzines.[92] Once they were in regular contact, fans wanted to meet each other, and they organized local clubs. In the 1930s, the first science fiction conventions gathered fans from a wider area.[93] Conventions, clubs, and fanzines were the dominant form of fan activity, or "fanac", for decades, until the Internet facilitated communication among a much larger population of interested people. Awards For more details on this topic, see List of science fiction awards. Among the most respected awards for science fiction are the Hugo Award, presented by the World Science Fiction Society at Worldcon; the Nebula Award, presented by SFWA and voted on by the community of authors; and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for short fiction. One notable award for science fiction films is the Saturn Award. It is presented annually by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. There are national awards, like Canada's Prix Aurora Awards, regional awards, like the Endeavour Award presented at Orycon for works from the Pacific Northwest, special interest or subgenre awards like the Chesley Award for art or the World Fantasy Award for fantasy. Magazines may organize reader polls, notably the Locus Award. Conventions, clubs, and organizations For more details on this topic, see Science fiction conventions. Pamela Dean reading at Minicon Conventions (in fandom, shortened as "cons"), are held in cities around the world, catering to a local, regional, national, or international membership. General-interest conventions cover all aspects of science fiction, while others focus on a particular interest like media fandom, filking, etc. Most are organized by volunteers in non-profit groups, though most media-oriented events are organized by commercial promoters. The convention's activities are called the "program", which may include panel discussions, readings, autograph sessions, costume masquerades, and other events. Activities that occur throughout the convention are not part of the program; these commonly include a dealer's room, art show, and hospitality lounge (or "con suites").[94] Conventions may host award ceremonies; Worldcons present the Hugo Awards each year. SF societies, referred to as "clubs" except in formal contexts, form a year-round base of activities for science fiction fans. They may be associated with an ongoing science fiction convention, or have regular club meetings, or both. Most groups meet in libraries, schools and universities, community centers, pubs or restaurants, or the homes of individual members. Long-established groups like the New England Science Fiction Association and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society have clubhouses for meetings and storage of convention supplies and research materials.[95] The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) was founded by Damon Knight in 1965 as a non-profit organization to serve the community of professional science fiction authors,[77] 24 years after his essay "Unite or Fie!" had led to the organization of the National Fantasy Fan Federation. Fandom has helped incubate related groups, including media fandom,[96] the Society for Creative Anachronism,[97] gaming,[98] filking, and furry fandom.[99] Fanzines and online fandom For more details on this topic, see Science fiction fanzine. The first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, was published in 1930.[100] Fanzine printing methods have changed over the decades, from the hectograph, the mimeograph, and the ditto machine, to modern photocopying. Distribution volumes rarely justify the cost of commercial printing. Modern fanzines are printed on computer printers or at local copy shops, or they may only be sent as email. The best known fanzine (or "'zine") today is Ansible, edited by David Langford, winner of numerous Hugo awards. Other fanzines to win awards in recent years include File 770, Mimosa, and Plokta.[101] Artists working for fanzines have risen to prominence in the field, including Brad W. Foster, Teddy Harvia, and Joe Mayhew; the Hugos include a category for Best Fan Artists.[101] The earliest organized fandom online was the SF Lovers community, originally a mailing list in the late 1970s with a text archive file that was updated regularly.[102] In the 1980s, Usenet groups greatly expanded the circle of fans online. In the 1990s, the development of the World-Wide Web exploded the community of online fandom by orders of magnitude, with thousands and then literally millions of web sites devoted to science fiction and related genres for all media.[95] Most such sites are small, ephemeral, and/or very narrowly focused, though sites like SF Site offer a broad range of references and reviews about science fiction. Fan fiction For more details on this topic, see Fan fiction. Fan fiction, known to aficionados as "fanfic", is non-commercial fiction created by fans in the setting of an established book, film, video game, or television series.[103] This modern meaning of the term should not be confused with the traditional (pre-1970s) meaning of "fan fiction" within the community of fandom, where the term meant original or parody fiction written by fans and published in fanzines, often with members of fandom as characters therein. Examples of this would include the Goon Defective Agency stories, written starting in 1956 by Irish fan John Berry and published in his and Arthur Thomson's fanzine Retribution. In the last few years, sites have appeared such as Orion's Arm and Galaxiki, which encourage collaborative development of science fiction universes. In some cases, the copyright owners of the books, films, or television series have instructed their lawyers to issue "cease and desist" letters to fans. Science fiction studies For more details on this topic, see Science fiction studies. The study of science fiction, or science fiction studies, is the critical assessment, interpretation, and discussion of science fiction literature, film, new media, fandom, and fan fiction. Science fiction scholars take science fiction as an object of study in order to better understand it and its relationship to science, technology, politics, and culture-at-large. Science fiction studies has a long history dating back to the turn of the 20th century, but it was not until later that science fiction studies solidified as a discipline with the publication of the academic journals Extrapolation (1959), Foundation - The International Review of Science Fiction (1972), and Science Fiction Studies (1973), and the establishment of the oldest organizations devoted to the study of science fiction, the Science Fiction Research Association and the Science Fiction Foundation, in 1970. The field has grown considerably since the 1970s with the establishment of more journals, organizations, and conferences with ties to the science fiction scholarship community, and science fiction degree-granting programs such as those offered by the University of Liverpool and Kansas University. The National Science Foundation has conducted surveys of "Public Attitudes and Public Understanding" of "Science Fiction and Pseudoscience".[104] They write that "Interest in science fiction may affect the way people think about or relate to science....one study found a strong relationship between preference for science fiction novels and support for the space program...The same study also found that students who read science fiction are much more likely than other students to believe that contacting extraterrestrial civilizations is both possible and desirable (Bainbridge 1982).[105] As serious literature Mary Shelley wrote a number of science fiction novels including Frankenstein, and is treated as a major Romantic writer.[106] A number of science fiction works have received critical acclaim including Childhood's End and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the inspiration for the movie Blade Runner). A number of respected writers of mainstream literature have written science fiction, including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing wrote a series of SF novels, Canopus in Argos, and nearly all of Kurt Vonnegut's works contain science fiction premises or themes. The scholar Tom Shippey asks a perennial question of science fiction: "What is its relationship to fantasy fiction, is its readership still dominated by male adolescents, is it a taste which will appeal to the mature but non-eccentric literary mind?"[107] In her much reprinted essay "Science Fiction and Mrs Brown,"[108] the science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin has approached an answer by first citing the essay written by the English author Virginia Woolf entitled Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown in which she states: I believe that all novels, ... deal with character, and that it is to express character – not to preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise they would not be novelists, but poets, historians, or pamphleteers. Le Guin argues that these criteria may be successfully applied to works of science fiction and so answers in the affirmative her rhetorical question posed at the beginning of her essay: "Can a science fiction writer write a novel?" Tom Shippey[107] in his essay does not dispute this answer but identifies and discusses the essential differences that exists between a science fiction novel and one written outside the field. To this end, he compares George Orwell's Coming Up for Air with Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants and concludes that the basic building block and distinguishing feature of a science fiction novel is the presence of the novum, a term Darko Suvin adapts from Ernst Bloch and defines as "a discrete piece of information recognizable as not-true, but also as not-unlike-true, not-flatly- (and in the current state of knowledge) impossible".[109] In science fiction the style of writing is often relatively clear and straightforward compared to classical literature. Orson Scott Card, an author of both science fiction and non-SF fiction, has postulated that in science fiction the message and intellectual significance of the work is contained within the story itself and, therefore, there need not be stylistic gimmicks or literary games; but that some writers and critics confuse clarity of language with lack of artistic merit. In Card's words: ...a great many writers and critics have based their entire careers on the premise that anything that the general public can understand without mediation is worthless drivel. [...] If everybody came to agree that stories should be told this clearly, the professors of literature would be out of job, and the writers of obscure, encoded fiction would be, not honored, but pitied for their impenetrability.[110] Science fiction author and physicist Gregory Benford has declared that: "SF is perhaps the defining genre of the twentieth century, although its conquering armies are still camped outside the Rome of the literary citadels."[111] This sense of exclusion was articulated by Jonathan Lethem in an essay published in the Village Voice entitled "Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction."[112] Lethem suggests that the point in 1973 when Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow was nominated for the Nebula Award, and was passed over in favor of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, stands as "a hidden tombstone marking the death of the hope that SF was about to merge with the mainstream." Among the responses to Lethem was one from the editor of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction who asked: "When is it [the SF genre] ever going to realize it can't win the game of trying to impress the mainstream?"[113] On this point the journalist and author David Barnett has remarked:[114] The ongoing, endless war between "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction has well-defined lines in the sand. Genre's foot soldiers think that literary fiction is a collection of meaningless but prettily drawn pictures of the human condition. The literary guard consider genre fiction to be crass, commercial, whizz-bang potboilers. Or so it goes. Barnett, in an earlier essay had pointed to a new development in this "endless war":[115] What do novels about a journey across post-apocalyptic America, a clone waitress rebelling against a future society, a world-girdling pipe of special gas keeping mutant creatures at bay, a plan to rid a colonizable new world of dinosaurs, and genetic engineering in a collapsed civilization have in common? They are all most definitely not science fiction. Literary readers will probably recognize The Road by Cormac McCarthy, one of the sections of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood from their descriptions above. All of these novels use the tropes of what most people recognize as science fiction, but their authors or publishers have taken great pains to ensure that they are not categorized as such. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas".[1] Authors commonly use science fiction as a framework to explore politics, identity, desire, morality, social structure, and other literary themes. |
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