Science Fiction: A Definition

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Science Fiction A Definition

• Steve Wood
• TCCC

2
Genre Theory

• Genre means sort or type of work.
• Everyone would agree that science fiction, as
  well as fantasy and horror, is a genre. Most
  would also agree that it can be defined the same
  way a Supreme Court justice once defined
  pornography I cant define it, but I know it
  when I see it.

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Types of Genres

• Isomorphic genres are genres defined by some
  technical characteristic. For example, a sonnet
  is a poem of 14 lines with a certain rhyme
  scheme. A novel is a prose narrative of a
  certain length.
• Substantive genres are defined by their content.
  For example, a bildungsroman is a coming of age
  story. An elegy is a poem in honor of a dead
  person. An aubade is a poem about lovers parting
  at dawn.

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Types of Genres

• Isomorphic genres Science fiction occurs in such
  a variety of forms that it is clearly not an
  isomorphic genre.
  
• Substantive genres While there are certain
  subjects that are common in science fiction,
  there do not seem to be any that are essential.

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The Survey Says

• Lets see what some of the experts say.

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Kingsley Amis

• Science Fiction is that class of prose narrative
  treating of a situation that could not arise in
  the world we know, but which is hypothesized on
  the basis of some innovation in science or
  technology, or pseudo-technology, whether human
  or extra-terrestrial in origin. New Maps Of Hell
  (London, 1960)

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Isaac Asimov

• Modern science fiction is the only form of
  literature that consistently considers the nature
  of the changes that face us, the possible
  consequences, and the possible solutions.
• That branch of literature which is concerned
  with the impact of scientific advance upon human
  beings. (1952)

8
Gregory Benford

• SF is a controlled way to think and dream about
  the future. An integration of the mood and
  attitude of science (the objective universe) with
  the fears and hopes that spring from the
  unconscious. Anything that turns you and your
  social context, the social you, inside out.
  Nightmares and visions, always outlined by the
  barely possible.

9
John Brunner

• As its best, SF is the medium in which our
  miserable certainty that tomorrow will be
  different from today in ways we cant predict,
  can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and
  anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe.
  Poised between intransigent scepticism and
  uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the
  literature of the open mind.

10
Alvin Toffler

• By challenging anthropocentricism and temporal
  provincialism, science fiction throws open the
  whole of civilization and its premises to
  constructive criticism.

11
Orson Scott Card

• In his guide How to Write Science Fiction and
  Fantasy, Card points out four boundaries of the
  genre.

c. Henderson Photography
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Orson Scott Card

• SF is a publishing category.
• SF is a community of readers and writers.
• What SF writers write is SF.

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Orson Scott Card

• The Literature of the Strange
• All stories set in the future
• All stories set in the past that contradict known
  historical fact
  
• All stories set on other worlds
• All stories set on Earth, before recorded
  history
  
• All stories that contradict some law of nature

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Orson Scott Card

• Science Fiction vs. Fantasy
• If the story is set in a universe that follows
  the same rules as ours, its science fiction. If
  its set in a universe that doesnt follow our
  rules, its fantasy. Or in other worlds, science
  fiction is about what could be but isnt fantasy
  is about what couldnt be.

15
Frederik Pohl

• If anyone were to force me to make a thumbnail
  description of the differences between SF and
  fantasy, I think I would say that SF looks
  towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by
  and large, looks towards an imaginary past. Both
  can be entertaining. Both can possibly be,
  perhaps sometimes actually are, even inspiring.
  But as we can't change the past, and can't avoid
  changing the future, only one of them can be
  real. Pohlemic, SFC, May 1992

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John W. Campbell, Jr.

• The major distinction between fantasy and science
  fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses
  one, or a very, very few new postulates, and
  develops the rigidly consistent logical
  consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy
  makes its rules as it goes along...The basic
  nature of fantasy is "The only rule is, make up a
  new rule any time you need one!" The basic rule
  of science fiction is "Set up a basic
  proposition--then develop its consistent, logical
  consequences. Introduction, Analog 6, Garden
  City, New York, 1966

17
Lester Del Rey

• ... science fiction "is the myth-making principle
  of human nature today."

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Transactional Genres

• Following that definition, it is possible to
  classify science fiction, fantasy, and horror as
  transactional genres.
  
• Transactional genres are created in the
  interaction of the author, the text, and the
  reader.
  
• They are, in effect, operational definitions
  they tell us what a certain genre does, rather
  than what it is.