To infinity and beyond: A defence of science-fiction
One of the most neglected and scorned genres is science-fiction. As a genre that sets out to predict the future or at least to explore possible alternate worlds, it is usually dismissed as having little value. A typical dismissal would be to see sci-fi as idle speculation about space travel and aliens. In the world of literature, it is seen as lacking the 'seriousness' of other genres and aimed at impressionable and geeky teenage boys. In film, it is viewed as the ultimate vehicle for suspending disbelief in the minds of the viewer- in other words, light entertainment which doesn't address any weighty concerns and is meant to be forgotten the instant the end credits roll.
I've always thought that this view was very misguided. I've been a science-Fiction fan for many years, and it always suprises me how people dimiss everything it has to offer. Reading science-Fiction marks you out as some kind of crank or a nerd. The boldness of the genre in letting the imagination run riot is-bizzarely-held against it. And yet what is literature if not an appeal to the imagination? The fact that sci-fi frequently has very outlandisn plots should be celebrated. Whether the worlds it depicts will ever occur is really beside the point. All good literature does not have to be rooted in realism- there is nothing wrong with letting the imagination soar above it and wondering what could be or what could have been.
And it should be noted that sci-fi is generally not removed from real-life concerns. Margaret Atwood's classic book The Handmaid's Tale presents a post-apocalyptic world in which women are opressed and are not allowed to do anything except breed. It is a chilling book, but it is quite obviously very relevant to our world today considering the gender opression that still exists throughout the globe. Likewise Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451- about a world in which books are banned and firemen are deployed to burn them- falls into this category. Philip.K.Dick's A Scanner Darkly is a clever tale about what a drug-ravaged society would look like. Infact, many of Dick's stories resonate clearly today, including the dozens of short stories he wrote that were eerily accurate about the persistence of war and what it does to our psyche. There is also plenty of black humour in his work (Best exemplfied by his short story Fair game) and one cannot also fail to appreciate a similar dark humour in Bradbury's Farenheit 451 with its book-destroying firemen.
But one of the genre's greatest strengths is the ability to create very interesting and thought-provoking premises. For example, Philip.K.Dick's book The Man in the high castle imagines a world in which the Axis powers win the war and divide the world up into their own colonies, with the Germans continuing their genocidal campaign throughout the world. Carl Sagan's 'Contact' and Arthur Clarke's 2001: A space odyssey both provide intelligent depictions of what encounters with extra-terrestrial life would be like. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explored the intersection between scientific progress and ethics- a topic that is extremely relevant today. Many stories have used robots to explore what makes us human, and how artificial intelligence would fit into this framework (See Supertoys last all summer long , Do android dream of electric sheep or I, Robot) Writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, Aldous Huxley and Brian Aldiss have all shown the full potential of sci-fi in creating intriguing stories. How much more fascinating are the worlds of Bradbury's Farenheit 451 or Asimov's The God's themlseves compared to the limp mediocrity of 'The Da Vinci code'? Even ambitious failures like Heinlein's Stranger in a strange land offer plenty of food for thought- in this case, as an allegory of the second coming of jesus, combined with other themes.
Infact this is probably the main strength of sci-fi: it is one of the most thought-provoking of the literature genres. Long may it reign.
I've always thought that this view was very misguided. I've been a science-Fiction fan for many years, and it always suprises me how people dimiss everything it has to offer. Reading science-Fiction marks you out as some kind of crank or a nerd. The boldness of the genre in letting the imagination run riot is-bizzarely-held against it. And yet what is literature if not an appeal to the imagination? The fact that sci-fi frequently has very outlandisn plots should be celebrated. Whether the worlds it depicts will ever occur is really beside the point. All good literature does not have to be rooted in realism- there is nothing wrong with letting the imagination soar above it and wondering what could be or what could have been.
And it should be noted that sci-fi is generally not removed from real-life concerns. Margaret Atwood's classic book The Handmaid's Tale presents a post-apocalyptic world in which women are opressed and are not allowed to do anything except breed. It is a chilling book, but it is quite obviously very relevant to our world today considering the gender opression that still exists throughout the globe. Likewise Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451- about a world in which books are banned and firemen are deployed to burn them- falls into this category. Philip.K.Dick's A Scanner Darkly is a clever tale about what a drug-ravaged society would look like. Infact, many of Dick's stories resonate clearly today, including the dozens of short stories he wrote that were eerily accurate about the persistence of war and what it does to our psyche. There is also plenty of black humour in his work (Best exemplfied by his short story Fair game) and one cannot also fail to appreciate a similar dark humour in Bradbury's Farenheit 451 with its book-destroying firemen.
But one of the genre's greatest strengths is the ability to create very interesting and thought-provoking premises. For example, Philip.K.Dick's book The Man in the high castle imagines a world in which the Axis powers win the war and divide the world up into their own colonies, with the Germans continuing their genocidal campaign throughout the world. Carl Sagan's 'Contact' and Arthur Clarke's 2001: A space odyssey both provide intelligent depictions of what encounters with extra-terrestrial life would be like. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explored the intersection between scientific progress and ethics- a topic that is extremely relevant today. Many stories have used robots to explore what makes us human, and how artificial intelligence would fit into this framework (See Supertoys last all summer long , Do android dream of electric sheep or I, Robot) Writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, Aldous Huxley and Brian Aldiss have all shown the full potential of sci-fi in creating intriguing stories. How much more fascinating are the worlds of Bradbury's Farenheit 451 or Asimov's The God's themlseves compared to the limp mediocrity of 'The Da Vinci code'? Even ambitious failures like Heinlein's Stranger in a strange land offer plenty of food for thought- in this case, as an allegory of the second coming of jesus, combined with other themes.
Infact this is probably the main strength of sci-fi: it is one of the most thought-provoking of the literature genres. Long may it reign.
posted by Minzo at 7:38 AM
2 Comments:
Robert Heinlein. Full stop. :o)
That guy was hugely-deep. In my humble opinion, Sci-Fi never got past the height of, say The Green Hills of Earth. The pace, the emotion, the human-ness. I respect Asimov and all (Nightfall 2, ftw!), but Heinlein was the champ.
Honorary mention: Michael Crichton, for The Andromeda Strain.
Hey Bro,
I was very glad to see your new post. I look forward to these with genuine enthusiasm, being as they are of great value to me.
I mean, you were the one who got me to not dilly-dally and get to Philip K. Dick. It would've otherwise been aeons before I got round to those powerful works.
So this is my characteristically verbose way of saying “Dude, You Rock” and “So, Thank You”.
Await your next post.
Bazi
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