Science Fiction & Definitions
It’s come to my attention that, once again, there are mutterings around the internet about how science fiction absolutely has to be about SCIENCE, with the implication that anything that involves a bit of, shall we say, speculation, is not real science fiction. This is… disingenuous, I believe (they don’t call it “speculative fiction” for nothing), so here, have my two cents on the subject, totally off the cuff.
Sci-fi is a big tent. If you want to get all up on your high horse about how science fiction is about SCIENCE, okay, you’re talking about HARD science fiction, the realm of Niven and Asimov and all that. You’re not talking about Bradbury, or LeGuin, or Heinlein, or, y’know, 90% of the writers who are shelved with sci-fi and known for sci-fi. Even Asimov wasn’t always hard sci-fi by that definition – most of the stuff I’ve read of his is more like “mystery stories with robots and/or in space.” Granted, that’s probably because I lean toward stuff that doesn’t require a degree in engineering to appreciate. Time travel is not science, ergo Connie Willis’ many books are not “science fiction” by her categorization, but I’m pretty sure the record will show that the Hugo committee disagreed. A lot of truly classic science fiction, like Contact (I’m talking the book, I have not actually seen the movie), includes things that are not or cannot be explained entirely by science as we understand it. It is understood that at a certain point in science fiction, we sometimes go beyond what is absolutely known – otherwise Asimov’s I, Robot wouldn’t work, nor would the vast majority of everything else that is sci-fi, because the point is to take science as we understand it as a starting point.
Sci-fi TV is mostly space opera. So are a lot of sci-fi books. And if I ever write sci-fi, it’ll be that, too, because I don’t really have the chops to write what I consider the “real” stuff (in presumed opposition to space opera), ALTHOUGH I would argue that there’s some sexism inherent in saying that biological and anthropological sci-fi which bleeds into a bit of space opera at times (like Ursula LeGuin writes) is inherently less than the hard sci-fi based on engineering that is largely written by men.
And granted, when I say something is “classic sci-fi,” like I do with Moon and Europa Report and Interstellar, what I more or less mean is “this is like the stuff I read in old Analog collections when I was a kid.” I mean that it is full of awe and wonder at science and space and the enormity of the universe, that it has a lot of plot twists and turns that surprise you and make you reconsider your previous perspectives, and that the characters are mostly, if not all, scientists. But sci-fi is bigger than classic sci-fi. Sci-fi is bigger than hard sci-fi. Sci-fi is bigger, and that’s the whole fucking point. And I still say if your definition precludes the inclusion of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (last time I checked we could not actually build bodies out of dead people and then animate the body with electricity), the thing that started it all, then you are probably thinking of a definition of the genre that is so small that almost nothing that’s ever won a major award would fit into it.
