What
is Science Fiction?:
Formal Definitions of Science Fiction
| Following is a sample of the many attempts that have been made to create a formal definition of science fiction: | ||
| Theodore Sturgeon, author: |
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| "'A good science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its science content'" (as quoted in Atheling, More Issues, 12). | ||
| Robert A. Heinlein, author: | ||
| Science fiction is "realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method" (quoted by Knight in Bishop, Nebula Awards 25, 3). | ||
| Brian W. Aldiss, author and critic: | ||
| "Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode" (Trillion Year Spree, 26). | ||
| Sam Moskowitz, fan and biographer: | ||
| "Science fiction is a brand 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" (Explorers of the Infinite, 11). | ||
| Judith Merril, author, editor, and critic: | ||
| "I use the term 'speculative fiction' here specifically to describe the mode which makes use of the traditional 'scientific method' (observation, hypothesis, experimentation) to examine some postulated approximation of reality, by introducing a given set of changes--imaginary or inventive--into the common background of 'known facts,' creating an environment in which the responses and perceptions of the characters will reveal something about the inventions, the characters, or both" (60). | ||
| Richard Hodgens, critic: | ||
| "Science fiction involves extrapolated or fictitious science or fictitious use of scientific possibilities, or it may be simply fiction that takes place in the future or introduces some radical assumption about the present or the past" (as quoted by Sobchak 19). | ||
| Finally, read a poem by Walt Whitman that to me embodies the sense of wonder generated by good science fiction. | ||
| Next Page: A Sense of Wonder | ||
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| Science
Fiction © 2002 Agatha Taormina Last Revised: August 19, 2004 |