Okay: I’ve sent the following off to Sci-Fi weekly’s letters section because people get really caught up in the physical attributes of a story and not what the story is about. (a serious case of being unable to see the forest for the trees). I post it here and on my never visited blog because:
1.) I felt a need to vent.
2.) I think the idea makes for interesting debate.
So, here goes:
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction
I’ve noticed a curious phenomena lately. There is a great cry about what is Science Fiction and what isn’t. For example, Star Wars and Star Trek have been referred to widely as Science Fiction. Firefly/Serenity and Cowboy Bebop have been decried as “NOT!” Science Fiction. Some people call “John Carter Warlord of Mars” Science Fiction, but I don’t think anyone can make a serious case for that. So, where does this leave us in the world of SF, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction in general?
I guess my first question is, “When did the definition of Science Fiction narrow to that which is speculatively possible in light of current given facts about the universe?” “We can’t include ESP in a Science Fiction work – that’s not SF!” goes the cry. But then that eliminates Asimov’s wonderful and groundbreaking Foundation Trilogy–which has at it’s heart a pseudo-math that can predict future developments and a mind controlling mutant–from our works of classic Science Fiction. So, is it SF or is it Speculative Fiction? More accurately, is it Science Fantasy?
My second question is, “Why does it matter what you call it as long as it is good entertainment?” All entertainment begs you to suspend belief to some degree. You have to accept that everyone agrees it is a good idea to split up and explore the house wherein individuals are being picked off while alone. We accept that a creature can survive in normal earth atmosphere and lives off human flesh even though it has acidic blood. There are probably no end to scientific arguments that the latter is silly and the former is foolish, but each advances the plot and deepens mood, and helps tell a (hopefully) compelling story about the people in that situation.
If you don’t like something because it offends your highly discerning scientific knowledge base, and it disgusts you that others are too stupid to realize the inherent fallacies of the fiction’s premise, then please, don’t feel a need to educate us on how stupid we are for enjoying it anyway. Being bitten by a radioactive/genetically modified spider isn’t going to result in cool powers and the ability to do neat things like swing through the skyscrapers of New York on a thin web, but it doesn’t make the idea any less fun for a great number of us.
Recently a group of scientists managed to put a group of atoms into a “Cat State” the state of being two diametrically opposed things at one time–in this case spinning clockwise and counter-clockwise simultaneously. This is very cool, very edgy science that has gone from theory to fact. However, it is important to remember that not all theory goes on to become fact. In this way ERB’s Mars series (based on some scientific thinking at the time) was “Science Fiction” now it is Science Fantasy. Nearly every novel and movie depicting space travel has large spacious rooms with “Earth normal” gravity as they tool through space at speeds we can’t approach now (and have many differing theories on how that can or can’t be accomplished). This is the equivalent of a New York coffee house waiter living in a 3,000 sq. ft. loft. All of our current ideas on creating portable gravity fields are rooted in theory that requires impractical, at best, and likely impossibly scaled equipment to make it feasible. In short, it is fantasy to imagine a ship with normal gravity in which to walk. Does knowing this “ruin” the story? I somehow doubt it.
Ultimately Science Fiction can’t be about gadgets and hard core science, it must be about people. Fantasy can’t be about dragons and magic, it must be about people. We write fiction not about things, but about that which makes us human. I so often feel I’m beating this horse to death, but no matter how many times I say it, there’s always someone caught up in the stuff and not the people in a story. Sometimes examining things in an impossible venue can help us see more clearly that which is “real” and “human” and to some extent engage and enlighten us about ourselves as a culture and a people.
What is Science Fiction? What is Fantasy? What is Science Fantasy and Speculative Fiction? They are attempts to examine the human race from a unique and hopefully visionary perspective. They are NOT any attempt to create a world that might one day be possible to experience or where we might go technologically as a culture (though some are more probable and possible than others). They are about who we are as a culture and a as a people. They are about being human in extraordinary circumstances, (even if we are aliens, elves, or sentient robots).
