by Sarah Murray

Created on: January 27, 2009   Last Updated: January 07, 2011

Any discussion of science fiction must necessarily begin with some agreement about the term itself. At fist glance, SF might appear to invite a self-evident definition, as detective fiction is fiction about detectives and the art of solving crimes. Yet this is not the case, as is proved by the innumerable attempts that have been made to define it. When we approach the science fiction genre, we immediately find ourselves facing a kind of paradox, one akin to the problematic logic built into the form's combinatory designation that is, as science and fiction, as fact and fabrication. On close inspection SF turns out to be a highly self-conscious genre: that is, the way it has been defined has an unusually close relationship with the way it has been written. There have, over the years, been many attempts at a definition:

According to the science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz:

"Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the willing suspension of disbelief' on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy" (Seekers of Tomorrow, 1966).

In another useful formulation, Edmund Crispin defines a science fiction story as "one which presupposes a technology, or an effect of technology, or a disturbance in the natural order, such as humanity, up to the time of writing, has not in actual fact experienced" (Best Science Fiction Stories, 1955, p.7).

One of the broadest definitions is that of the writer Kingsley Amis in New Maps from Hell (1960). At the heart of his definition is the concept that science fiction is a kind of narrative derived from "some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology" (p.17).

In recent years, science fiction has become ever more difficult to pin down and define. Indeed, as one critic argues, "Science fiction is hard to define because it is the literature of change and it changes while you are trying to define it"(Tom Shippey, in The SF Book of Lists, 1982, p.258).

More cynical voices have claimed that "Science fiction is anything published as science fiction" and as such it can be recognised as a "publishing category" whose "application is subject to the whims of editors and publishers" (Norman Spinrad; John Clute and Peter Nichols, in The SF Book of Lists, p. 257).

Even if we accept any one of these definitions, there is still ample doubt concerning the

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