It has occurred to me that, when you list the common genres that fiction can be classified as, some of them are defined by what kind of plot they have (e.g. mystery/detective, romance, adventure) and some are defined by what kind of setting they have (e.g. western, sea story). I think when most people think of “science fiction” (this also applies to fantasy), they think of a particular kind (or kinds, Trinopus) of setting (e.g. outer space, The Future).
But some people (purists?) will insist that it’s not really science fiction unless science fictional elements are central to the plot. If you could tell basically the same story in a non-SF setting, it’s not “real” science fiction—it’s “science fantasy” or “space adventure” or some other label like that.
(I don’t remember On the Beach well enough to say how it fits into this classification, and haven’t read or seen Clockwork Orange.)
I’d say that A Clockwork Orange meets even the most exacting definition of “science fiction”, because a question of science (the possibility of deliberate, planned behavioral modification) is the central plot element.
It’s referenced in the title: an “orange” (biological) that is “clockwork” (mechanical, planned).
Isaac Asimov famously set out to write fair-play murder mysteries in a sci-fi setting: reasoning that, yes, you of course could make it pointless by having the sleuth whip out a never-before-mentioned device on the last page to solve the crime – but you could likewise craft a completely mundane story that ends with a clue that hadn’t been revealed to the reader, or a witness showing up out of nowhere to testify against someone who hadn’t yet appeared in the book, or whatever.
So he figured an author who sufficiently covers the futuristic elements can then do all the usual stuff: exploring the motives and alibis of various characters, tossing in red herrings to make innocents look guilty, having folks slip up with innocuous remarks that prove they lied about what they knew and when they knew it – only, y’know, with robots and rayguns and starships and so on.
But you could still do them as straightforward mysteries, was the idea.
(He’d even go the Columbo route, where sci-fi stuff factors into investigations that pretty much go nowhere – because, hey, if the reader can plainly see that there’s inconclusive evidence, then it’s fair for the detective to bluff people into revealing the truth, right? He’s working with the same information you have!)
How about this: A Clockwork Orange is Science Fiction because it extrapolates science (behavioural science) into the future in which the events take place. On The Beach is not Science Fiction because it takes place in the present day (when it was made) using existing technology, just like Fail Safe and The Bedford Incident.
Is The Hunt For Red October Science Fiction? It takes place in the present day, based upon the political situation when the book was written. (Real world events eclipsed the novel.) Red October was a Typhoon-class submarine, which exists, but it had a magnetohydrodynamic drive that exists, but would not work on a submarine. (In the novel it was a pump jet, which can give higher speeds before cavitation and it quieter than propellers.)
FWIW, the high school I went to had ‘themed’ English classes. Alas, Babylon was read in American Literature, but not in Science Fiction.
Certainly, there are some stories which wouldn’t be science fiction at all, except that the author shoehorned in a couple of minor aside references to SF tropes, presumably as a justification to getting them published in science fiction magazines. For instance, the short story “Gonna Roll the Bones” is set in a mining town with a number of gambling establishments, and that’s really all you need to know about the setting. The unusual occurrences in the story are all transparently magical, not scientific. But there’s a mention of spaceships flying overhead for no particular reason.
James Bond films are techno-thrillers, which is a sister genre to science fiction. As a rule of thumb, techno-thriller take place in the present day, and the protagonist is attempting to stop the application of a dangerous technology. If the status quo is returned to the original state by the end of the story, it is likely to be a techno-thriller.
Science fiction tends to explore the change, techno-thrillers tend to prevent the change.
I have some books from the '50s about manned space travel which were definitely science fiction, and marketed as such. With minor changes you could set these books for today - say involving commercial space flight - and they’d be contemporary fiction. Hell, make it about the first trip to the moon, a big sf theme, and it becomes historical fiction.
All the same setting.
Your examples indicate that there is no such thing as genre. Buddy movie? You can have a mystery buddy movie, a comic buddy movie or an action-adventure buddy movie. That is just a subset of all of these.
The back cover of the very first issue of Galaxy (1950) had two columns, one a Western story segment with six shooter and horses and a space opera segment with rockets and blasters - identical except for the setting and props. The headline was “you’ll never see this in Galaxy.” So hacks rewriting trite plots with blasters is nothing new.
it doesnt have to be star trek or star wars to be science ficitom. Planet of the apes had no technical gadgetry it is scienc efiction. so was omgega man. logans run is good science fction story first a sbook then movie with minimal gadgetry,
IIRC, someone once did a non-hacky story where (SPOILERS!) every sci-fi trope you’d expect plays out when technologically superior invaders show up in a fantastic ship that, okay, granted, wasn’t designed for precision flight within an atmosphere, but it of course gets the Empire’s troops in place to (a) shrug at primitive weapons that glance off their body armor before they (b) fire on the locals for the win.
We find out in the last sentence that it’s conquistadors killing Incans.
Oh, man, I loved the *Asimov’s Mysteries *collection. I still have the tattered paperback I bought at a Thrifty drugstore book rack in 1968. And my favorite story in the book was “Pate de Foie Gras,” where the fascinating biochemical investigation is full of those inconclusive blind alleys, and then the whole damn story ends with
no solution at all! Essentially, “beats the hell out of us, anyone out there got any ideas?” :smack:
Because “historical fiction” is a different genre, and gentlemen don’t trespass.
If it’s got a sailing ship and a sea captain and gunpowder cannons, it’s historical fiction. A similar story in a spaceship makes it science fiction. The deployment of nuclear weapons is what puts Bedford into sf. No Napoleonic Captain ever had the certainty of victory that the Captain of the Bedford had, but also the disincentive to deploy it. Even if you posited two Napoleonic ships in a heavy fog, you still fail to have the asymmetry of a submarine/destroyer standoff. (i.e., I argue that your story is not “the same exact story.”)
And, yeah, this sounds like I’m agreeing that it’s about “setting,” but that isn’t all there is to it. The Napoleonic story does not depend on “technology” in the same way…and only bad (or silly) sci fi depicts people in futuristic settings behaving as if they were in past historical epochs.
(Ming of Mongo is silly: he’s supposed to be the ruler of a technologically advanced world…but he behaves like an ignorant Babylonian despot.)
If so then that’s definitely where Red October belongs. Tom Clancy was commonly credited with creating the ‘techno-thriller’ genre (although he absolutely hated being credited for or being associated with this).
Ignoring ‘literature’, from a strictly movie-goer perspective, if this were the 90s and I was a video store owner there’s no way I’d put On the Beach under Sci-Fi. It would go under War/Drama. Clockwork Orange however would definitely go under Sci-Fi…
I respectfully disagree. (I guess my definition of SciFi is what might be the problem, here.)
It seems to me that the main plot point in the Bedford Incident is the Captain’s obsession with the Russian sub (proving… something…Proving he’s right, and the politicians wrong? Proving that he’s a good CO? Does Sidney Poitier’s presence distract him, or push him further? I don’t remember…), and maintaining his crew on the “ragged edge”, stress wise. (Ironically. He makes some comment about keeping his ship on a war footing to make sure his crew can actually handle wartime stress.)
The nuclear weapons are merely a plot device to represent a “line that must not be crossed”, and cannot be undone when crossed. Nothing else. There is nothing magical or wonderous about the presence of nukes that creates this line, and I think other plot devices could have been used to the same literary effect.
I can imagine a Napoleanic scenario where a Captain action’s end up committing his country to war, even to his ruination. (I have recently read novels that use similar language in that very setting. The point is/was being made about the Captain’s awesome responsibilities and singular authority at sea.)
