Hi Blog world. I put this thing up and then started to ignore it. I need to find a way to discipline myself into writing on a fairly regular basis. So, I’m going to try writing on the subject about which I do the most thinking: science fiction. For my first installment, I’m going to talk about defining the genre. Later on I’ll probably go into the literature a bit more, and deal with some of the more interesting ideas and issues it raises. Hopefully.
How do we start to define a literature as rich and varied as science fiction? There is no easy answer to this question. Longtime readers usually have the ability to tell you if something is sci-fi once they’ve read it, but this hardly seems sufficient. Neither does the conception that specific story elements necessarily define the genre. Not all sci-fi is about aliens, ray guns, and robots. Equally useless is the idea that science fiction can be defined as a genre that predicts future technologies or that it relies for its definition on some sort of technological or scientific expertise on the part of the author. This is just a list of definition I have heard in conversations, and is by no means exhaustive. However, I think it is representative of many peoples’ notions concerning the genre as a whole. So, people have ideas that I think are wrong; what about a definition already?
I must admit to you right now that I don’t think I have a very clear definition of science fiction, but I do have a few ideas that may help us think about what to include in the genre and what to exclude. The first is a pragmatic one. I forget which sci-fi author it was, but one of them said, “Science fiction is whatever you point to and say ‘That’s science fiction.’” Though such an inclusive answer may not be satisfying, it certainly has merit. Readers of the genre, as I mentioned above, have an intuitive notion of what belongs and what doesn’t. While such individual perceptions may be extremely diverse, I think it’s possible to use the science fiction community’s intuitions to achieve some sort of consensus. If the Hugo or Nebula awards consider a book, it’s obviously sci-fi, right? Admittedly, the readers and authors have been conditioned by previous readers and authors to think that certain types of stories belong, and certain types don’t. Still, I think that this inclusive and intuitive approach is a good starting point because it is based on the self-perceptions of a literary community that has been around for quite some time. If they can’t tell us what sci-fi is, who can?
Another useful idea is that of the novum. Unfortunately, I forgot which literary scholar coined this term. I will try to find out though. A novum is, as the name suggests, something new. According to this idea, science fiction can be defined by its use of technologies, creatures, social problems, political situations etc. that do not now exist. Add an alien, and you have sci-fi. Talking robots? Yup, that’s in. Faster than light space travel? Ok, we’ve got sci-fi. You get the picture. While this idea helps science fiction define itself against literary fiction, it fails completely in differentiating sci-fi from fantasy and other forms of speculative fiction. However, combine the novum with the above-mentioned pragmatic approach, and I think we are starting to develop a decent definition.
An additional idea, one similar to the novum, is that of cognitive estrangement. Again, I can’t remember whose idea this is, and so I can’t reference his work. What an awful historian I am. Cognitive estrangement is the process in which you come to understand that the story you are reading cannot, or is not meant to, take place in the real world that you inhabit. I find this a more useful notion than that of the novum because it rules out some of the stranger pieces of literary fiction, like
Fight Club, for example. It also allows us to leave historical fiction out, while still including stories about alternative histories. While the events depicted in historical fiction most likely never occurred, the setting is clearly meant to be well within the real world. Cognitive estrangement does quite a bit to sharpen our definition of science fiction in opposition to other literatures. Its weakness, however, still lies in the fact that it can also be used to define fantasy. So, let’s deal with that now.
The line between fantasy and science fiction seems always to have been permeable. Even longtime readers of both genres have a hard time placing some stories within one or the other category. This surely has something to do with the silliness involved in defining genres at all (Yes, I said it. This whole post is kinda silly). It also has to do with the shared history of the two genres. Both readers and writers flip back and forth all the time and certain novels (such as
American Gods) can end up in either section at bookstores. Some people just count the two together and call it a day. I, however, want to make a distinction.
I propose that the difference between science fiction and fantasy is that sci-fi tends to attempt to explain its novums (nova? novae?) with science that is at least plausible given what we know at the time of writing, while fantasy tends to accept its novums at face value without attempting to justify them. Faster than light travel aside, I think this definition holds up in a great number of cases. I understand that it is also just plain wrong in many cases as well. It does, though, allow us to justify the word ‘science’ without resort to reliance on technological storylines, and so I will continue to use it.
In the end, what we have is still an undefined genre. We seem to be left with a definition like: “literature that’s got weird stuff in it, but it’s kinda explained, and the fans know what it is.” If you think that means I’ve wasted your time, then you should have stopped reading a few paragraphs ago. I hope, though, that this discussion adds something to somebody’s conception of what exactly constitutes science fiction. Just don’t hate on my lack of solid conclusions.
Next time I will be discussing a more reflections about the genre by some of its authors, and maybe some other stuff. Thanks for reading. Ciao.
