Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) orcomic science fiction is asubgenre ofscience fiction orscience fantasy that exploits thescience fiction genre's conventions forcomedic effect.[1] The genre often mocks or satirizes standard science fiction conventions, concepts and tropes – such asalien invasion of Earth,interstellar travel, or futuristic technology. It can also satirize and criticize present-day society.[2]
An early example was thePete Manx series byHenry Kuttner andArthur K. Barnes (sometimes writing together and sometimes separately, under the house pen-name of Kelvin Kent). Published inThrilling Wonder Stories in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the series featured atime-traveling carnival barker who uses his con-man abilities to get out of trouble. Two later series cemented Kuttner's reputation as one of the most popular early writers of comic science fiction: theGallegher series (about a drunken inventor and his narcissisticrobot) and theHogben series (about a family of mutant hillbillies). The former appeared inAstounding Science Fiction in 1943 and 1948 and was collected in hardcover asRobots Have No Tails (Gnome, 1952), and the latter appeared inThrilling Wonder Stories in the late 1940s.
In the 1950s of the authors contributing to the sub-genre included:Alfred Bester,Harry Harrison,C. M. Kornbluth,Frederik Pohl, andRobert Sheckley.[3]
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[4][5][6] is a science fiction comedy series written byDouglas Adams. Originallya radio comedy broadcast onBBC Radio 4 in 1978, it later morphed into other formats, including stage shows, novels, comic books, a1981 TV series, a1984 computer game, and2005 feature film. A prominent series inBritish popular culture,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has become an international multi-media phenomenon; the novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005.[7][8]
Terry Pratchett's 1981 novelStrata also exemplifies the science fiction comedy genre.[9]
Pratchett was associated with irreverent and comic writing which is an established sub genre in science fiction - for exampleStrata (1982) a parody of Larry Niven'sRingworld[,] a classic science fiction series.
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