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The Factionalization of Science Fiction
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13301 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
5,126 Words |
| Author
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George Hay
George Hay is council member of the Science Fiction Foundation
at North East London Polytechnic. |
Science fiction dramatizes scientific possibilities, and with both, linear development is merely a convention and not a necessary truth. For instance, Plutarch had no telescope when he surmised that the mountains of the Moon are higher than those of Earth, and we find in the early science fiction work Kepler's Dream (1634) an imaginative account of a Moon visit, complete with details of its body and inhabitants.
While this comment on post hoc reasoning should be kept in mind, in general science fiction follows a linear development. Such a development allows us to assume the view of leading British author Brian Aldiss that science fiction began with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and developed via Jules Verne in France, H.G. Wells in Great Britain, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Russia, and the United States under the influence of the great editors Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell. In the essay that follows, it should be remembered that few modern science fiction authors consider their work as being predictive, but rather extrapolative in nature. The original title of the 1940 Robert Heinlein novel, If This Goes On . . . . . aptly express this view.
With the "new wave" of science fiction writing in the 1960s, a demand for better characterization and improved style also emerged. Writers such as the American Ursula Le Guin responded to the demand. And there were always a few "old hands," such as Heinlein and Jack Williamson, who had always attended to characterization and freshness and credibility of plot. With the recent addition of a handful of new authors, this demand has more or less been met. Yet the genre currently suffers from the same disease that affects large-scale publishing in general: Publishing houses have made deliberate decisions to publish what appeals to and can be read by a public best described as semi-literate. But readers who cannot confront good writing are still less able to confront real science. This is not to say that hard-line science fiction does not continue to appear, but such books are not likely candidates for the best-seller list. As for hard science in short stores, it seems to be restricted almost entirely to the magazine Analog science Fiction/ Science Fact, a large percentage of whose readers are professionals--engineers, teachers, and the like. Although s scientifically valid and exciting science fiction stories are still being written, one has to look for them without being put off by the pallid limitations of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, optimistically labeled "science fiction."
Jules Verne prided himself on his scientific accuracy--he certainly hit the mark when he chose Cape
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