What is Science-Fiction?

I came across a blog post by Graham Storrs today which prompted a little bit of self evaluation. You can read the full post here.

He says: “…great science fiction involves stories about ourselves and what it means to be human, that confronts us with the question, “Is this really who we are?” It also presents plausible alternatives to the world we know, alternatives which compel the people in them to reveal their nature because of how they challenge us to adapt to them, and which compel the reader to ask that publisher’s question, “Is this really what we want for ourselves?’”

His post tackles the question of what constitutes great science fiction. In it, he states that he had been reading a blog post by Mike Brotherton, which presented yet another attempt to define science fiction, and that post spurred further thought and analysis on his part. Mike’s post is here.

In it, he claims: “There’s a school of thought that says that science fiction is just a label that marketers put on the spine of a book, regardless of what is inside, and that something I’d call science fiction gets put into a different section if the author is Stephen King, Michael Crichton, or Margaret Atwood.”

His definition of science fiction is this: “Science fiction is a kind of story in which science or technology plays a central role, both in terms of plot and theme, and the science or technology elements are beyond our current knowledge or capabilities (without violating what we already know), permitting the exploration of novel ideas and the reaction of humanity to them.”

I think I like Mike’s definition is more closely aligned with my own. Graham has a very broad view of the genre, one which could be spread far enough to include just about everything written. All books, from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to The Count of Monte Cristo are about “ourselves and what it means to be human.” Any book worth its salt will make the reader ask questions such as those he mentions.

For me, even though the human element is one of the most important pieces of a well-written science-fiction book, I think it is the crucial element in any book, and not what distinguishes science-fiction as a genre. The ingredient for me which means that a work lands in the sci-fi bin is the setting in which it is placed. That environment needs to be notably different from the world around us, and the difference caused by a level of technology which we have not (yet) achieved.

For example, I still feel like the early books in The Dragonriders of Pern series are works of fantasy. The people in the stories; Lessa, F’lar, Menolly, and even Ramoth and Mnementh; live a very low-tech life and the enemy they fight and the tools they use to fight them are equally rudimentary. Later books, though, have dramatically shifted the genre to be science fiction. It turns out that the ancestors of those people had colonized from Earth in great starships. The dragons were genetically modified from indigenous animals. A giant computer is discovered which helps them regain their lost level of technology.

That the later books change the history of the earlier books does not make the earlier books science fiction because the setting of the earlier books, the environment in which they live and work, has not changed.

Anyway, that’s what I think. Feel free to leave me a comment and disagree.