Many people have tried to explain what science fiction is. These explanations are so varied that any attempts to understand them yield confused and contradictory results. Any definition must describe the essential elements in simple understandable terms, while at the same time distinguishing the genre from other forms of literature and art.

Some attempts are too simplistic. Science fiction has been defined as the genre of "What if". Well, so is every other fiction. What if a gunfight took place in a western town? "Speculative literature" doesn't help us. Fiction writers speculate all the time, writing about events, people, and places that by definition are not true; made up.

Some definitions are entirely too vague and broad. Science fiction is "explorative fiction about the past, present and future human condition, dealing with values, beliefs, conflicts ad nauseam". What is left for other fictionists to write about.

Actually an understanding of science fiction is relatively simple. The key word is "science". Science fiction can not exist without a foundation of scientifically acquired knowledge. Science fiction is the literature (films, TV programs, comics, etc included) of extrapolating and speculating about the impact of possible scientific advances on human beings.

Another defining feature is that science fiction is a relatively new genre and must be based on modern science as we know it. This modern science is only about 400 years old at best. Up to the 1500's, the world was bound by "proto science" which was blatantly wrong and warped by religious and philosophical beliefs, e.g. Ptolemaic astronomy that held that the Earth was at the centre of the universe, and by a mixture of occultism, e.g. alchemy. It was not until the Renaissance and the growing Age of Reason that personalities like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Galvani, Priestly, and many others began to develop a body of knowledge that we would recognize as modern science.

Science fiction, per se, lagged behind this development of knowledge as it was slow to form and become popularized.

I tend to agree with Brian Aldiss in his book "Trillion Year Spree" (1988 edition) that the first piece of science fiction was "Frankenstein" written by Mary Shelly in 1818. Apparently Shelley had seen or heard of an experiment conducted by Luigi Galvani in which he made the legs of a dead frog kick with the application of an electric prod. It is easy to imagine how

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Understanding what science fiction really is?
We want to hear your view. Write now!