The four main themes of sci-fi...?

Cafe Society
1

Deep apologies in advance for hopeless vagueness.

I once saw a TV interview with someone who was obviously a published science-fiction writer. Can’t remember her name, sorry. She was a great interviewee, and she was summarising the four main themes or ideas in science-fiction. I can remember three of the four:

  1. “What if…”
  2. “If only…”
  3. “If this goes on…”

And my question is, can anyone tell me what the fourth is/was? Or identify this female author?

I know it’s a long shot, but I thought I’d ask anyway just in case it happens to be a familiar quote to sci-fi aficionados.

2

Robert Heinlein is the author who often proclaimed that the three themes you mentioned were the basis of all sf. Others have expanded these from time to time, but I don’t remember any specifics.

3

Well, technically, you could sum it all up under “what if…”, couldn’t you? I mean, “what if…this goes on?” I think that saying there are onlt three, or four themes is kinda silly, cause they are too broad.

4

I have a couple of nominees for important sci-fi themes…

  1. “Wow, things are really getting weird.”
  2. “You are far to simple a creature to recognize or understand the underlying social theory I’m covertly expounding.”
5

How about:

  1. The machines are out to destroy us but the human spirit will overcome, and

… actually, that seems to pretty much cover the entire genre.

6

How about “Fish out of Water” triggered by either:

(a) Alien on Earth, objectively observing humans.
(b) Time travel, person from present in past, or past to present.
© Crocodile Dundee in New York - not S.F., but the same idea.

7

I thought it was something like:

“We come to them.”
“They come to us.”
“They’ve always been here.”

And that was it.

8

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Frank Herbert’s Dune summed up so succintly! :smiley:

9

He was exactly who I had in mind. :slight_smile:

10

WAG - Ursula le Guin?

11

Sounds like something Judith Merrill would say. She wrote under her name (and I think under the name Cyril Kornbluth), and was an editor as well.

12

I was thinking:

  1. What does it mean to be human?
  2. How will we deal with technology and/or other forms of sentient life?
13

Barbarian–Cyril Kornbluth was a completely different person from Judith Merrill. However, they did write a novel together, under the pen-name “Cyril Judd.”

14

I think, were he still alive, Cyril M. Kornbluth would be pissed if Judith Merrill were to be writing under his name.

Kornbluth wrote a lot of good SF, both alone and in collaboration with Frederick Pohl. You can find a lot of his good shorter stuff in the collection The Best of Cyril M. Kornbluth (out of print, unfortunately). Kornbluth and Pohl’s The Space Merchantsp is an sf classic.

15

As Neptune lets on with the Crocodile Dundee remark, some apparent Science/Speculative Fiction themes are really extensions of plain old Fiction themes, such as “contrast between different ways of being” and “social manifesto disguised as adventure”. Then it would be the "if"s that mark specifically the genre.

Though now I’m wondering if we all have agreement on what we mean by “themes” . . . or if we’re mixing it with arguments, plots or some other such literary term. Hmm…

16

The top 10 themes of Sci Fi:

  1. Oh No! Facist aliens are taking/have taken over the world!
  2. Help! My AI is out of control!
  3. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if we went to a different time
  4. When I grow up, I want to be a star pilot!
  5. Look how screwed up our society will become!
  6. If we all split up, we should find that alien a lot faster…
  7. You’re my best friend K’Ghzxzt 206
  8. So…if I invert the poly-quantum disrupter while…
  9. Why can’t we all just get along?
  10. I bet those would explode real purty.
17

Just to get all the nits picked, Judith Merrill and Cyril Kornbluth wrote two novels together as Cyril Judd, Outpost Mars and Gunner Cade, both 1952. They were the first two novels for each.

18

And don’t forget:

“In a world, where…”

19

Another nit: these are the themes of SF-FANTASY, and don’t include such SF as much of Michael Crichton and J.G. Ballard, for example.

20

Here are some more:

  1. Man should not tamper with Nature, else Nature shall open up a can of whoopass upon him.

  2. All the world’s religions were started by benevolent aliens whose message was misinterpreted by stupid humans.

  3. The Axis won World War II!

  4. I went back in time and carelessly dropped a gum wrapper, and when I got back to my time, the earth was ruled by salamanders.

  5. The Axis won World War II!

  6. The only person who can save the galaxy from ultimate evil is a whiny farmboy.

  7. Vorga, I kill you filthy!