science fiction
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- Oregon State University - College of Liberal Arts - What is Science Fiction? | OSU Guide to Literary Terms
- LiveAbout - A Guide to the Intricacies of Science Fiction
- Literary Devices - Science Fiction
- BBC - What our science fiction says about us
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - History of SF
- Academia - Science Fiction as the Mythology of the Future
- Nature - Science fiction when the future is now
- Abbreviation:
- SF or sci-fi
What is science fiction?
Science fiction is a form offiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals.
Where was science fiction invented?
The emergence of science fiction became most evident in the West, where the social transformations caused by theIndustrial Revolution first led writers to extrapolate the future impact oftechnology. The clearest precursor, however, was the 17th-century authorCyrano de Bergerac, who wrote about a voyager’s trip to and expulsion from the Moon.
Where does science fiction get its name?
The termscience fiction was popularized, if not invented, in the 1920s by one of the genre’s principal advocates, the American publisherHugo Gernsback, for whom the Hugo Award for science fiction novels is named. Gernsback publishedAmazing Stories, the first in a series of magazines devoted solely to what he called “scientifiction.”
Why was science fiction popular in the 1950s?
Science fiction gained popularity in the 1950s because developments intechnology, such asnuclear energy and space exploration, coupled with the end ofWorld War II, ignited the public’s imagination surrounding ideas of space, dystopia, alternate futures, and militarization.
How is science fiction different from fantasy?
Science fiction differs fromfantasy in that science fiction employs questions of scientific andtechnological plausibility while fantasy typically does not.
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science fiction, a form offiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imaginedscience upon society or individuals. The termscience fiction was popularized, if not invented, in the 1920s by one of thegenre’s principal advocates, the American publisherHugo Gernsback. TheHugo Awards, given annually since 1953 by the World Science Fiction Society, are named after him. These achievement awards are given to the top SF writers, editors, illustrators,films, and fanzines.
(Read Britannica’s biography of Bruce Sterling, author of this entry.)
The world of science fiction
Science fiction is a moderngenre. Though writers in antiquity sometimes dealt with themes common to modern science fiction, their stories made no attempt at scientific and technological plausibility, the feature that distinguishes science fiction from earlier speculative writings and other contemporary speculativegenres such asfantasy and horror. The genre formally emerged in the West, where the social transformations wrought by theIndustrial Revolution first led writers andintellectuals toextrapolate the future impact oftechnology. By the beginning of the 20th century, an array of standard science fiction “sets” had developed around certain themes, among them space travel, robots, alien beings, and time travel (see belowMajor science fiction themes). The customary “theatrics” of science fiction include prophetic warnings, utopianaspirations, elaborate scenarios for entirely imaginary worlds, titanic disasters, strange voyages, and political agitation of many extremist flavours, presented in the form of sermons, meditations, satires,allegories, and parodies—exhibiting every conceivable attitude toward the process of techno-social change, fromcynical despair to cosmic bliss.
Science fiction writers often seek out new scientific and technical developments in order to prognosticate freely the techno-social changes that will shock the readers’ sense of cultural propriety and expand theirconsciousness. This approach was central to the work ofH.G. Wells, a founder of the genre and likely its greatest writer. Wells was anardent student of the 19th-century British scientistT.H. Huxley, whosevociferous championing ofCharles Darwin’s theory ofevolution earned him the epithet “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Wells’s literary career gives ample evidence of science fiction’s latent radicalism, itsaffinity for aggressivesatire and utopian political agendas, as well as its dire predictions of technological destruction.
This dark dystopian side can be seen especially in the work of T.H. Huxley’s grandson,Aldous Huxley, who was a social satirist, an advocate of psychedelic drugs, and theauthor of a dystopian classic,Brave New World (1932). The sense of dread was alsocultivated byH.P. Lovecraft, who invented the famousNecronomicon, an imaginary book of knowledge so ferocious that any scientist who dares to read itsuccumbs to madness. On a more personal level, the works ofPhilip K. Dick (often adapted for film) presentmetaphysicalconundrums about identity, humanity, and the nature of reality. Perhaps bleakest of all, the English philosopherOlaf Stapledon’s mind-stretching novels picture all of humanhistory as a frail, passing bubble in the cold galactic stream of space and time.
Stapledon’s views were rather specialized for the typical science fiction reader. When the genre began to gel in the early 20th century, it was generally disreputable, particularly in theUnited States, where it first catered to a juvenile audience. FollowingWorld War II, science fiction spread throughout the world from its epicentre in theUnited States, spurred on by ever more staggering scientific feats, from the development ofnuclear energy and atomic bombs to the advent of space travel, human visits to the Moon, and the real possibility of cloning human life.
By the 21st century, science fiction had become much more than a literary genre. Itsavid followers and practitionersconstituted a thriving worldwide subculture.Fans relished the seemingly endless variety of SF-related products and pastimes, includingbooks,movies,television shows, computer games,magazines, paintings,comics, and, increasingly, collectible figurines, Web sites, DVDs, and toy weaponry. They frequently held well-attended, well-organized conventions, at which costumes were worn, handicrafts sold, and folk songs sung.
The evolution of science fiction
Antecedents
Antecedents of science fiction can be found in the remote past. Among the earliest examples is the 2nd-century-ce Syrian-born Greek satiristLucian, who inTrips to the Moon describes sailing to the Moon. Such flights of fancy, or fantastic tales, provided a popular format in which to satirize government, society, and religion while evading libel suits, censorship, and persecution. The clearest forerunner of the genre, however, was the 17th-century swashbucklerCyrano de Bergerac, who wrote of a voyager to the Moon finding a utopian society of men free from war, disease, and hunger. (See belowUtopias and dystopias.) The voyager eats fruit from the biblical tree of knowledge and joins lunar society as a philosopher—that is, until he is expelled from the Moon forblasphemy. Following a short return to Earth, he travels to the Sun, where a society of birds puts him on trial for humanity’s crimes. In creating his diversion, Cyrano took it as his mission to make impossible things seem plausible. Although this and his other SF-like writings were published only posthumously and in various censored versions, Cyrano had a great influence on later satirists and social critics. Two works in particular—Jonathan Swift’sGulliver’s Travels (1726) andVoltaire’sMicromégas (1752)—show Cyrano’s mark with their weird monsters, gross inversions of normalcy, and similar harsh satire.
Anotherprecursor wasLouis-Sébastien Mercier’sL’An deux mille quatre cent quarante (c. 1771; “The Year 2440”;Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred), a work of French political speculation set in a 25th-century utopian society that worships science. While many writers had depicted some future utopian “Kingdom of God” or a utopian society in some mythical land, this was the first work to postulate a utopian society on Earth in the realizable future. The book was swiftly banned by the Frenchancien régime, which recognized that Mercier’s fantasy about “the future” was a thin disguise for his subversive revolutionarysentiments. Despite this official sanction—or perhaps because of it—Mercier’s book became an internationalbest seller. BothThomas Jefferson and George Washington owned copies.