Science Fiction

I

Introduction

Science Fiction, the fictional treatment in print, films, television, or other media of the effects of science or future events on human beings. More precisely, science fiction deals with events that did not happen or have not yet happened; it considers these events rationally in terms both of explanation and of consequences; and it is concerned with the impact of change on people, often with its consequences for the human race. The most common subjects for science fiction are the future, travel through space or time, life on other planets, and crises created by technology or alien creatures and environments.

II

Progenitors

The subjects of science fiction have been touched upon by fantastic literature since ancient times. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic dealt with a search for ultimate knowledge and immortality, the Greek myths of Daedalus with the technology of flying, and the True History (c. ad 160) of Lucian of Samosata with a trip to the Moon. Imaginary voyages and tales of strange people in distant lands were common in Greek and Roman literature and found new expression in the 14th-century book of travels written in French by the pseudonymous Sir John Mandeville. Trips to the Moon were described in the 17th century by figures as diverse as the British prelate and historian Francis Godwin, the French writer Cyrano de Bergerac, and the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, among others. Another subject, the structure of better societies or better worlds, which goes back at least to the 4th century bc with Plato's The Republic, was reintroduced and given a generic name when Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia (1516). Stories of an imaginary voyage were usually written for satirical purposes; perhaps the finest example is Gulliver's Travels (1726) by the English satirist Jonathan Swift. But science fiction could not have existed in its present form without the recognition of social change at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (c. 1750). The Gothic novel of the 18th century culminated in Frankenstein (1818) by the British novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, a work permeated by a belief in the potential of science. Many authors of the 19th century, such as Edward Bellamy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mark Twain in the United States and Rudyard Kipling in England, worked in the science-fiction genre at one time or another. The first great specialist of science fiction, however, was the French author Jules Verne, who dealt with geology and cave exploration in Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), space travel in From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Off on a Comet (1877), and the submarine and underwater marvels in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

III

Science-Fiction Novels

Stories of lost races and unexplored corners of the world were popular in Victorian England. She and Allan Quartermain by H. Rider Haggard both appeared in 1887, and in 1912 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Lost World. The first major writer of science fiction in English, however, and the man who may be considered the founder of modern science fiction is H.G. Wells. More interested in biology and evolution than in the physical sciences and more concerned about the social consequences of invention than the accuracy of the invention itself, Wells, from 1894 on, wrote stories of science invested with irony and realistic conviction. His reputation grew rapidly after the publication of The Time Machine in 1895; this was followed by The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), and The First Men in the Moon (1901), before Wells turned to other forms of literature.

Other science-fiction novels were written by British authors during the first half of the 20th century. Noteworthy are the fancies of Matthew Phipps Shiel (The Purple Cloud, 1901), the cosmic panoramas of Olaf Stapledon (Last and First Men, 1930), and the allegories by the critic and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis (Out of the Silent Planet, 1938). The most important American writer in the field at this time was Jack London, whose contributions included The Iron Heel (1907) and The Scarlet Plague (1912). Many British authors of standard fiction wrote one or two striking novels of a socially prophetic nature. Particularly successful and influential were Brave New World (1932), by Aldous Huxley, and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), by George Orwell. One prolific writer of works dealing with both science fiction and science fact is Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End, 1953).

In the opinion of many critics, one of the most able American writers of mainstream science fiction, combining scientific extrapolation with narrative art, is Robert Heinlein (The Green Hills of Earth, 1951; Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961). Other widely known American science-fiction authors are Isaac Asimov (The Caves of Steel, 1953), who is also a prolific author of science surveys for the layperson, and Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles, 1950; Fahrenheit 451, 1953), who is considered more of a fantasy writer. Among the many other authors who have drawn critical acclaim are Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle, 1962) and Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969; The Dispossessed, 1974). Frank Herbert’s works are widely popular. His Dune Chronicles include Dune (1965), Children of Dune (1976), and God Emperor of Dune (1981). Michael Moorcock, author of the Elric of Melnibone series, beginning in 1972; Greg Bear (Eon, 1985); and Larry Niven (N-Space, 1990) should also be mentioned.

In other countries, science fiction also flourished, most notably in Eastern Europe and Russia. Karel Čapek, a Czech writer, introduced the word robot in his play R.U.R. (1921). Polish writer Stanislaw Lem used science-fiction settings to explore both scientific and philosophical concerns. His books include Solaris (1961; translated 1970) and Dzienniki gwiazdowe (1957; translated as two books: The Star Diaries, 1976, and Memoirs of a Space Traveller, 1982). In Russia, utopian fiction first appeared in the 1750s with the works of such authors as V. A. Levshin and M. D. Chulkov. Twentieth-century Russian science-fiction writers include Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who wrote in the 1920s of space exploration; Yevgeny Zamaytin, known for his anti-utopian novel We (1924; translated, 1925), which greatly influenced George Orwell; Aleksandr Belyaev, who wrote in the 1920s of biological influences on humans; Ivan Efremov, author of the utopian Tumannost' Andromedy (1956; Andromeda Nebula); and the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, prolific authors of the 1960s.

IV

Science-Fiction Magazines

The characteristically American type of science fiction was at first published almost entirely in magazines. The authors of magazine science fiction emphasized technical accuracy and plausibility above literary value and sometimes above characterization. The mass magazines that developed in the 1890s published many stories of science, and the pulp fiction magazines of the turn of the century included many stories of romance and wild adventure, such as those written by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Garrett P. Serviss. In 1926 Hugo Gernsback, a Luxembourg emigrant who became an American editor, publisher, inventor, and author, founded the first science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. He believed that fiction could be a medium for disseminating scientific information and creating scientists; he published and wrote stories with this purpose in mind. An example of his writing is Ralph 124C41+, first serialized in his popular science magazine Modern Electrics in 1911. Gernsback also created a name for the new form, “scientifiction”, which he changed in 1929, with the founding of Science Wonder Stories, to “science fiction”. In 1937, when John Wood Campbell, Jr., became editor of Astounding Stories, the magazine began to feature a new type of science fiction. As an author, especially when writing under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart, Campbell had already added mood and characterization to the technical and prophetic aspect of science fiction. As an editor, Campbell helped to encourage other writers to produce science fiction of literary merit and fostered what has since been called “the golden age” of science fiction.

Later magazines included Fantasy and Science Fiction, founded in 1949 by the American authors and editors Anthony Boucher and Jesse Francis McComas, and Galaxy Science Fiction, founded in 1950 by the American author and editor Horace Leonard Gold. In these magazines, emphasis shifted more towards literary, psychological, and sociological preoccupations, with some loss, however, of scientific content.

Beginning in the mid-1960s a new concern for humanistic values and experimental techniques emerged. Calling itself the “new wave”, it entered science fiction primarily through the English magazine New Worlds and was typified by the British writers Brian Aldiss and J. G. Ballard and the American writer Harlan Ellison. The new wave preferred to call what it wrote “speculative fiction”, as in, for example, The Infinity Box (1975) by Kate Wilhelm. Much of this type of fiction was published in anthologies of original work, in particular Ellison's anthologies beginning with Dangerous Visions (1967).

In the 1980s a new type of science-fiction writing, called cyberpunk literature, was developed. Cyberpunk authors portrayed decentralized societies dominated by technology and science. Their stories emphasized technological detail, and were characterized by intricate plots and a style that mirrored the confusing and dazzling worlds they represented. Cyberpunk literature first appeared as short stories published in magazines such as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction (founded 1977) and Omni (founded 1978). The first cyberpunk novel is considered to be Neuromancer (1984), by American writer William Gibson, who also wrote the cyberpunk novels Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), and Virtual Light (1993). Other cyberpunk writers include Bruce Sterling (Schismatrix, 1985; Islands in the Net, 1988); John Shirley (Eclipse, 1985); and Pat Cadigan (Fools, 1992).