Reflection: What is Science Fiction?

Science fiction is a broad genre that pervades through most of modern media and culture. Born in the late 19th century and booming within a large portion of the 20th century, this relatively new form of artistic expression lacks the immediate recognition as art that other older genres posses. Simultaneously defined as a realm of great literary fiction and the current residence of bad TV B-movies, the genre struggles to find a definitive voice among the conflicting quality of works. While other genres posses the same quandary of works polar opposite in quality, they retain a certain immunity in the scholar's eye. The romantic genre is often stuck between the poorly written love novel and William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", but rarely is the genre written off completely in terms of an academic or literary study. However, academic banishment seems to be the pervasive case with science fiction, often lumped together with fantasy as drivel for unrealistic young men. Yet the fantastical imagery that influences scholars to dismiss the genre is the aspect of science fiction which makes it worth academic analysis. Science fiction has an inextricable link to humanity and the current human condition; it is a bridge between the fantastic and the real.

"My definition of fantasy is something which we would like to happen but it can't in the real world, and science fiction is something which we would like to happen and it probably will." - Arthur C. Clarke

In one of his final interviews before his death in 2008, Arthur C. Clarke explained to futurist Jose Cordeiro his conception of science fiction as a genre. In many ways, Clarke's definition strikes at the heart of what it means to write true science fiction. Clarke's statement also addresses directly the emerging meta-genre of "sci-fi/fantasy" that publishers have seen fit to promote. In the case of both science fiction and fantasy, Clarke underpins both genres with a desire to be something, or to witness some fantastical event. Yet his words "can't" and "can" cut the genres along a very distinct line. While the formation of the Fellowship in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings may represent a human desire (the joining of nations and wills against a greater evil), it is not something humanity can realistically grasp within its hands. Nine individuals cannot realistically battle against a purely evil army in hope of destroying a magical ring. Within this distinction lies the gap between the genres. Tolkien himself wrote that his Middle Earth was not to be an analogous work; it was to be a world in itself, internally consistent, meant to entertain the reader. In essence, fantasy represents an element of escapism; a retreat to a world unbound from natural laws.

Science fiction shares elements of removal from the realistic with fantasy, but it is hardly complete, and serves a vastly different purpose. The genre plucks at the fabric of reality, removing elements in some areas, adding elements to other areas. This modification may be gentle, or it can be extreme. While science fiction avoids pure escapism through the retention of large portions of the human universe, the genre consists of a wide gray-scale of modifications to the real universe. Science fiction closest to the real world is often considered "hard" science fiction, while stories far away from reality are sometimes referred to as "space opera" or "space fantasy". However, the maintenance of this link to human experience is the most pertinent element to academic study of the genre. The modification of the universe, and the removal from the realistic, serves to modify and add upon that link to humanity. Therefore, while no one reader can truly 100% identify with a character from science fiction, the presence of the modified universe, and its elements used to drive the story, enrich the readers experience beyond what any typical setting could express. In essence, science fiction better expresses its elements and themes better because of its modification of reality, and in some cases, is only able to express these elements and themes in a modified universe. Science fiction is present because it cannot be told in any other manner.