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Science fiction is today generally viewed as a member of the larger class speculative fiction, which class may be roughly defined as tales set in an environment wherein one or more rules--physical, legal, mental, or of any nature that materially affects the living of life--are significantly different from what is or has been anywhere in known history. The defining characteristic of science fiction within that class is that the posited differing rule or rules are either laws of nature or new technology or both: that is, those differing rules are to be accepted by the readers or audience as science or science-derived, even if that fictive science differs from what we presently believe. (In contrast, the chief other form of speculative fiction is fantasy, in which the differing rules are to be ascribed by the readers or audience to magic.)

The distinctions just noted are relatively modern. Authors such as Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, whose work is today clearly classed "science fiction", were considered in their time to be writing what was then (and not infrequently still is) called "fantastic fiction", a class essentially identical to the newer "speculative fiction"; but within that older designation, there was no real differentiation between what are today called "science fiction" and "fantasy". That distinction evolved in rough parallel with the emergence of science into the public consciousness as a matter of grave importance.

Science fiction is a form of literature especially well suited to the treatment of ideas, in that it allows authors to plausibly generate an exaggeration of circumstances that place characters in highly focussed situations not easily contrived in ordinary "mainstream" ("real-world") fiction--situations in which some particular aspect of the human condition may be thereby accented and brought to the forefront of the readers' or audience's attention. One classic way of expressing that freedom to contrive is the phrase "What if?" Science-fiction authors can ask then answer such questions: What if we all became twice as smart overnight? What if everyone were bisexual? What if we are not alone in the universe? What if we are? And so on.

Naturally, the freedom to contrive has a downside to correspond to its intellectual upside: inept or marketing-conscious authors can contrive implausible (or impossible) situations that focus not on the development of ideas but on sensationalism--on the window dressing, so to speak, rather than the view through the window. Such authors commonly take an ordinary tale, which might as well be set in ancient Rome or the early American West, and merely dress it out with "ray guns" instead of six-shooters or shortswords. Regrettably, sensationalism captures attention more readily than an interplay of ideas, and the general public, unacquainted with the field, tends to characterize it--stigmatize it might be more accurate--on the basis of its most lurid exemplars. Science fiction has thus come to be widely perceived as escapism or juvenilia (if those differ in the public mind).

Science fiction presents a curious paradox: on the one hand, it can deal with anything that the human mind can conceive within the minimal constraint of imagined natural law--but, on the other hand, it has a more or less set list, not small but not dauntingly large either, of conventional themes, sub-genres, and topics.

One might say in brief that science fiction is literature writ large.

Definitions
On the one hand, defining science fiction might seem a difficult task based on the apparent variety of definitions that have been proffered, including the famous observation by veteran science-fiction author and editor Damon Knight that "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it", which would seem to say that it is ineffable. On the other hand, some equally puissant talents seem to have had no great problems: the renowned Theodore Sturgeon put it simply and clearly when he opined that "a good science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content". The definition given previously is largely adapted from Sturgeon's, but comports with how many voices in the field have described it; those many framings of course differ in their superficies, but few if any are materially inconsistent with Sturgeon's.

Science fiction and fantasy
The science in a science-fiction tale can lie anywhere along a spectrum running between what we currently believe is so on out to the farthest reaches of the imagination. All that is required is that it indeed be science, that is, that it be the operation of laws: properties inherent in the universe, repeatable, invariant--in other words, susceptible to becoming known by exercise of the Scientific Method. When the science is at or near what we currently believe, the tale it powers can be called "hard" science fiction.

Often set in opposition to "hard science fiction" is what is sometimes called "science fantasy". Whether that opposition is proper or false turns on just what is meant by "science fantasy". If the term is taken to mean simply science fiction in which the science is far beyond or different from our current understandings, the term is a misnomer, for there is nothing inherently fantastic in the idea of nature's laws being rather different from what we currently perceive them to be, as is obvious on but a moment's consideration of how far our own understandings exceed and vary from what was firmly believed only, say, a century or so ago. There is, however, a form of what is more accurately classed true fantasy, save that the author has elected to wrap the magic up in the trappings of science, and that form can rightly be called "science fantasy"; in science fantasy, it is generally clear that the author does not take the science seriously and, more important, does not expect the readership or audience to believe in it either: it is merely a device to power the tale. Regrettably, the distinction between what might be called "extravagant" science fiction and "science fantasy" is not always made with care.

The issue is complicated by the degree to which various readers will or will not accept some fictive science, a point well demonstrated in a classic observation by famed science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". It is, of course, nothing of the sort (it may be indistinguishable to those with little or no knowledge of it, but its practitioners assuredly know whether they are scientists or juju men); but the undying popularity of the phrase manifests the difficulties.

A more subtle problem than distinguishing science fiction from fantasy is distinguishing fantasy from science fiction. Many tales in which what is called--and considered by the readership or audience to be--"magic" in fact involve the use of some force by perfectly "regular" (rule-following) procedures. Simple logic, however, shows that when the principles of some phenomenon can be discovered by the Scientific Method, and that when that phenomenon can reliably be regulated by anyone by blind application of those governing principles, then whether the force is electricity managed by circuitry or "magic" managed by waving some implement about in a certain way or speaking some certain set of words, that phenomenon is an aspect of science. Perhaps the clearest example is the deliberately exaggerated set of comic tales co-authored by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp, collected as The Incompleat Enchanter (later expanded by them and others to to The Compleat Enchanter); in those tales, the protagonists--who are scientists--enter other universes and there achieve mighty "magical" effects by a "scientific" application of the "laws of magic", and indeed make reference to such things as "magico-static charges" (manifestly paralleling electrostatic charges, a real phenomenon). Few take those tales to be "science fiction", yet that is expressly what they are: simply science being practiced in places where the underlying laws of nature happen to be very different. A perhaps surprising fraction of what is normally classed fantasy will, on examination, be seen to be--if strict logic be followed out--science fiction. But few if any would accept those tales as science fiction, which says much about the criteria used to subdivide speculative fiction, and suggests that perhaps the coverall phrase "fantastic fiction" ought not to have been so quickly abandoned.

Not a few observers have remarked that at bottom the distinction between "science fiction" and "fantasy" is more a publishing-industry convenience than a critical assessment. That derives from the fact that there is--at least nowadays--a definite "feel" to science fiction and a rather different one to fantasy fiction, and that regular purchasers of the one are often not much interested in the other. And that clear differentiation derives, in turn, from the unfortunate fact that much of both science fiction and fantasy is today quite formulaic. (In fantasy-literature discussion, the term "EFP"--Extruded Fantasy Product--is now a commonplace.) It behooves publishers (as well as producers of other media) to make clear to regular customers what sort of thing they are likely to get when they buy. Correspondingly, works in which it is unclear whether the phenomena encountered are "scientific" or "magical"--often the most interesting from a critical standpoint--tend to confuse consumers used to formulaic work, and thus tend to not sell well (clearly a positive-feedback cycle).

A yet further complication is that the general public tends not to have a strong grasp of science, or--especially significant--even of what actually constitutes "science". The line between the "scientific" and the "fantastic" is thus a blurred one to many not familiar with speculative fiction, and perhaps to not a few who are. It is perhaps noteworthy that the matter of discriminating between science fiction and fantasy looms much larger to those who consume the works than to those who create them; many authors work extensively in both arenas, and several of recognized ability cross from one form to the other even within the same world-setting. (C. S. Lewis, for example, remarked that "I took a hero once to Mars in a space-ship, but when I knew better I had angels convey him to Venus." M. John Harrison, in his Viriconium cycle, begins in the first book by depicting a world falling well within science fiction, then in later books brings in gods.

Science fiction and mainstream literature
If the differing rules that set a tale apart from "realistic" or "mainstream" fiction are of natural law or technology derived therefrom, there is little difficulty is assigning that tale to science fiction. But when the differing rule is not something physically impossible by natural law, or not yet achieved by technology, the assigning becomes much less straightforward.

Modern literature now abounds with tales in which few readers will recognize anything like the world they know and know of; and, since in many of those there is nothing like "magic", the question arises as to whether they are science fiction. The threshold question, however, is whether a given tale is even truly speculative fiction at all.

If the society, the person, the technology, and the scientific knowledge base in the story are all drawn from observed reality, without much detail about the scientific aspects, the story may be classed as mainstream, contemporary fiction rather than as science fiction, like Marooned by Martin Caidin, or virtually all the novels by Tom Clancy. If the characters' thoughts and feelings about the laws of the universe, time, reality, and human invention are unusual and tend toward existential re-interpretation of life's meaning in relation to the technological world, then it may be classed a modernist work of literature that overlaps with the themes of science fiction. Examples include Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, William Burroughs's Nova Express, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, and much of the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, and Stanis?aw Lem.

Speculative fiction
The broader category of speculative fiction[2] - derived from the initials 'SF' of Science Fiction[3][4] - includes science fiction, fantasy, alternate histories (which often have no particular scientific or futuristic component), and even literary stories in which the only fantastic element is the strangeness of their style. Jorge Luis Borges's short stories are particularly known for their speculative style, and Olaf Stapledon's Darkness and the Light, which presents two possible futures for mankind defined by developments in ethics and philosophy, is a good example of speculative fiction. Another branch of speculative fiction is the utopian or dystopian story. These are sometimes claimed by science fiction on the grounds that sociology is a science. Many satirical novels with fantastic settings qualify as speculative fiction. Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-four, and Brave New World are examples. "Magic realism" could be regarded as a form of speculative fiction.

Slipstream fiction
Main article: slipstream (literature)

Slipstream is a term coined for fiction that that crosses conventional genre boundaries and does not fit comfortably either inside or outside the science-fiction genre.

Precursors of science fiction
Main article: History of science fiction

Lucian around 160 A.D. wrote Vera Historia. A whirlwind transports a ship sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the Moon, where the voyagers find the King is about to go to war with the Emperor of the Sun over rights to colonize Venus. Fabulous beasts such as flea archers the size of elephants are employed. The battle outcome was decided when long-waited reinforcements from Sirius arrived to support the Emperor at the end. Following this the Emperor's forces surrounded the Moon with fog clouds, leaving it without solar power. The inhabitants of the Moon were forced to surrender and the decision was made to colonize Venus with joint efforts. Given the scientific knowledge of the day, this could fit the definition of science fiction, while Johannes Kepler's Somnium is more marginal, as his explorer reaches the Moon by witchcraft, even though the Moon itself is described as accurately as contemporary astronomy permitted.

Early elements of science fiction are also found in ancient Indian epics such as the the Ramayana, which had mythical Vimana flying machines that were able to fly within the Earth's atmosphere, and able to travel into space and travel submerged under water.

Voltaire's "Micromégas" (1752) is a significant development in the history of literature because it originates ideas which helped create the genre of science fiction itself. It's a tale of the visit to Earth of a being from a planet orbiting Sirius and his friend from Saturn, and is regarded as the first example of science-fiction philosophical irony.

Precursors of the contemporary genre, such as Mary Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) and her post-apocalyptic The Last Man (1826), and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) are frequently regarded as science fiction, whereas Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), based on the supernatural, is not. A borderline case is Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, where the time travel is unexplained, but subsequent events make realistic use of science. Shelley's novel and Stevenson's novella are early examples of a standard science-fiction theme: The obsessed scientist whose discoveries worsen a bad circumstance.

According to J.O. Bailey:

The touchstone for scientific fiction, then, is that it describes an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences. The most serious pieces of this fiction arise from speculation about what may happen if science makes an extraordinary discovery. The romance is an attempt to anticipate this discovery and its impact upon society, and to foresee how mankind may adjust to the new condition. (Pilgrims Through Space and Time [New York, 1947])

Subject matter
Science fiction covers numerous distinct subjects ranging from time travel to alien invasion. Many of these were originally treated by early science fiction pioneers such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Verne's fiction depicted the future (Paris in the 20th Century), 1863, Space travel (From the Earth to the Moon), 1865, Technology not yet invented (Submarines Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), 1870, Terraforming (Invasion of the Sea), 1904, and mental changes in humans (The Green Ray), 1882

H.G. Wells' fiction treated the subjects of Time travel (The Time Machine), 1895, biological changes in humans or animals (The Island of Dr. Moreau), 1896, Humans with extraordinary powers (The Invisible Man), 1897, Contact with aliens from other worlds (The War of the Worlds), 1898, The future (When the Sleeper Wakes), 1899, Space travel (The First Men in the Moon), 1901, Nuclear warfare (The World Set Free), 1914, and the evolution of the human race (Men Like Gods), 1923.

Media
Early science fiction was published in books and in general circulation magazines.

Film
Main article: science-fiction film

Beginning early in the history of silent film, the science-fiction film established a tradition of its own, generally more sensational and less scientific than written science fiction. Some examples of early silent science-fiction films include Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). Many of the movie serials of the 1940s and 1950s were science fiction, and led into early science-fiction television programming (see below).

It has often been said that science-fiction film lags about fifty years behind written science fiction. For example, George Lucas' landmark 1977 film Star Wars has been compared to the pulp science fiction in Planet Stories, first published in 1939. Following the success of Star Wars there was an explosion of science-fiction films. Films in the genre now regularly achieve blockbuster status, for example, Alien, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Matrix, and many others.

Science-fiction films also explore more serious topics and some aim for high artistic standards, especially following Stanley Kubrick's influential 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. Contemporary filmmakers have found science fiction to be a useful genre for exploring political, moral and philosophical issues, such as 1997's Gattaca (the question of genetic engineering), 2001's Kubrick/Spielberg brainchild A.I. Artificial Intelligence (the question of what makes a being human), 2002's Minority Report (the question of civil liberties and free will).

Television
Main article: science fiction on television

Science-fiction television dates from at least as early as 1938, when the BBC staged a live performance of the science-fiction play R.U.R.. The first regularly scheduled science-fiction series to achieve a degree of popularity was Captain Video and his Video Rangers, which ran from 1949 to 1955 on the American DuMont Network. The Twilight Zone, originally broadcast in the United States from 1959-1964, was the first successful science-fiction series intended primarily for adults, although it often blurred the distinctions between science fiction, science fantasy and fantasy. The TV serial Doctor Who first aired on BBC in 1963 and continues through to the present (with a hiatus from 1989 to 2004), introducing generations of UK viewers to the science fiction genre. Star Trek aired on NBC from 1966 to 1969, introducing a wider U.S. audience to the tropes of real science fiction. Stargate SG-1 is currently in its 10th season with more than 200 episodes and a spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis.

Several once-popular science-fiction shows have recently experienced a resurgence as the genre's popularity has increased. The Twilight Zone, for example, has seen two major revivals, from 1985-1989 and from 2002-2003. The most successful of the revivals in the late 20th century was undoubtedly the Star Trek franchise, which generated one (unofficial) spin off in 1973 and four spin-off series between 1987 and 2005. Doctor Who has also been revived recently by BBC Wales (and is being broadcast in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel and Australia on the ABC network) and is now one of the most highly rated shows on British television.[11] Sci-fi-Western series Firefly had a short yet stunning life, resulting in a feature film, Serenity. The recent remake of Battlestar Galactica has won both critical praise and increased viewership on the Sci Fi Channel.

Comics
Science fiction entered the comic strip medium in 1929 with Buck Rogers, followed in 1934 by Flash Gordon. The majority of Americans before the 1950s never encountered any science fiction other than in the "funny papers,"[citation needed] and assumed all SF was like this comic strip material; the phrase "that crazy Buck Rogers stuff"[citation needed] was often used to describe it, originally as an insult but later fondly by some fans.

The comic book began by reprinting comic strips, and Buck and Flash both had their own comic book reprints. As soon as original comic books began to appear, science fiction was a major genre. Planet Stories had a comic book companion. Hugo Gernsback published Wonderworld with art by pulp artist Frank R. Paul. Later EC Comics published the much beloved Weird Science and Weird Fantasy which first stole and later actually paid to adapt stories by Ray Bradbury. DC Comics published Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space, edited by Julius Schwartz.

Whether superheroes themselves are science fiction or fantasy is a matter of opinion - they routinely break the laws of physics - but superhero comic books often use science fiction tropes such as alien invasion, time travel, space travel, and giant robots. Many writers have worked in both prose science fiction and comic books. Examples include Alfred Bester, Gardner Fox, Edmond Hamilton, and J. Michael Straczynski.

Radio
An audio release of the radio program The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy An audio release of the radio program The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Early radio science fiction began by adapting Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon stories for radio, but later brought some of the best magazine science fiction to a larger audience with Dimension X and X Minus One, which adapted stories by Asimov, Heinlein, Leiber, and other major writers for radio.

The most famous example of radio science fiction was Orson Welles' 1938 adaptation of The War of the Worlds on CBS Radio. Structured as a series of "news" bulletins, the program caused people across the U.S. to panic when some listeners believed it was real.[12]

Contemporary SF radio continues the tradition of adapting sources originally produced for other media. For example, the BBC has broadcast a number of audio plays based on the Doctor Who television series. Less frequently in the modern era, science-fiction programs initially developed for radio have spread outwards to other formats. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is perhaps the best known property of this type, beginning on BBC radio in 1978 and subsequently spawning a series of best-selling novels, a computer game, a full-length movie, comic books, audio recordings of the radio program and other products. George Lucas licensed the three original Star Wars films ? along with the films' sound effects and music score ? to National Public Radio affiliate KUSC for adaptation into radio dramas. Several of the films' actors reprised their roles for the radio broadcasts.

Other media
There have been a few science-fiction stage plays, notably Los Angeles theater adaptations of Bradbury stories. The Czech authors the Capek brothers wrote the play "Rossum's Universal Robots" in the 1930s using a plot that presages many more recent stories of the end of mankind. There have been science-fiction View-Master reels, notably "Sam Sawyer's Trip to the Moon." There have been original science-fiction albums, such as Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds and The Firesign Theatre's Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. There is also a small but growing number of science-fiction operas.

Museums
One of the most important museums of the genre is Maison d'Ailleurs ("House of Elsewhere") in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. It houses one of the world's largest collections of literature relating to science fiction, utopias, and extraordinary journeys. It was founded by the French encyclopedist Pierre Versins in 1976 and now owns over 40,000 books, thousands of old pulps and magazines, as well as many other items related to science fiction and its imagery. It also has a gallery with temporary exhibitions exploring the main themes of the field.

Paul Allen and Jody Patton founded the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, located at the base of Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.

Terminology
The term "science fiction" first came into popular usage in the 1930s with the publication of Science Wonder Stories magazine by Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback had previously coined the portmanteau word "scientifiction" for the genre, but the term did not gain acceptance. Before then, stories in this genre were often referred to as "scientific romances."[citation needed]

Two competing abbreviations for "science fiction" are in common usage. "SF" (or "S.F."; also sf) is the term most commonly used by science-fiction writers and serious fans. In fannish circles in the forties and fifties the abbreviation "stf" (pronounced "stiff" or "stef"), from Hugo Gernsback's coinage "scientifiction", was sometimes used, as was the adjectival form "stfnal". The use of SF is not unambiguous, however. It is also used as an abbreviation for speculative fiction, usually defined as a broader genre including, but not limited to, science fiction.

The euphonic "sci-fi," popularized by Forrest J Ackerman in 1954, but used five years earlier by Robert A. Heinlein[5] in a private letter, has grown in popularity and is today by far the most common term used in the popular press, although many hardcore fans and authors continue to wince at its usage or even consider it offensive. Brian Aldiss, defending the abbreviation "SF," notes that it is flexible enough to stand for science fantasy or speculative fiction, as well as science fiction.[citation needed] James M. Gunn, himself an SF writer as well as a professor of English and sometime president of the Science Fiction Research Association, said simply, "Sci-fi is mostly what the movie magazines, Variety and so forth, call bad science fiction movies. If you use the term sci-fi, that means you're not really informed about the genre. It's SF or nothing." [6] Some detractors of the term "sci-fi" have corrupted its pronunciation to "skiffy," which itself has become a pejorative sub-genre term for poorly made or imitation "science fiction." Harlan Ellison has derided the term "sci-fi" as a "hideous neologism" that "sounds like crickets fucking,"[13] a comment to which Ackerman responded by producing buttons bearing the slogan, "I love the sound of crickets making love."[citation needed]

Some commentators make a distinction between "sf" which they use to describe fiction in which science or speculation are integral to the plot or theme of the work, with "sci-fi" which they use for entertainment, typically in another genre such as action/adventure or horror which merely uses the trappings of traditional science-fiction stories, such a space ships, futuristic technology, bug-eyed monsters, or with the fantasies of cults influenced by such ersatz science fiction. Dr. John L. Flynn on the difference [[7]

Another source of dislike for the term sci-fi is the tendency for the mainstream to use it as a collective term that lumps together not only true science fiction but fantasy, horror, comic books, cult films, special effects action films, only marginally related genres such as anime and gaming, and completely unrelated fields such as UFOlogy. (The term "science fiction" itself has also been used at various times as a collective marketing term for these genres.)

Despite this controversy, two high-profile science-fiction based cable networks in the United States and the United Kingdom take their name from this term, although both networks air programming which may not fit into most people's definition of "science fiction." The channel name may be particularly suitable for those who dislike the term sci-fi since, according to Dave Langford, "SF people [pronounce sci-fi] in tones of heavy irony to describe bad TV or movie sf."[14]

A variation of the term is "sci-fantasy." [citation needed]

Fandom
Main article: Science fiction fandom

The science-fiction genre has a strong fan community of readers and viewers, of which many authors are a part. Many people interested in science fiction wish to interact with others who share their interests; in time, an entire culture of science-fiction fandom evolved.

Local fan groups exist in most of the English-speaking world, as well as in Japan, Europe, South America and elsewhere; often, these groups publish their own works. Also, fans (or 'fen', analogous to "fans") have created science-fiction conventions as a way of meeting to discuss their mutual interests. Although some fan conventions are larger, the longest-running convention is the Worldcon, which has been running without interruption since 1946. (It had previously run from 1939-1941, but was interrupted by World War II.)

Many amateur and professional fanzines ("fan magazines") exist, dedicated solely to keeping the science fiction fan informed on all aspects of the genre. The premiere literary awards of science fiction, the Hugo Awards, are awarded by members of the annual Worldcon. The other major science-fiction literary award is the Nebula. Science-fiction fandom often overlaps with other, similar interests, such as fantasy, role-playing games, and the Society for Creative Anachronism. The largest annual multi-fandom convention is Dragon Con, held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Fans of science fiction have whole-heartedly embraced the Internet. There are fan fiction sites which include additional, fan-created stories featuring characters from the genre's books, movies, and television programs. Although these may be technically illegal under copyright law, they are often permitted when no profit is made from them, and there is clear understanding that the copyright remains with the original creators of the work. There are fan sites devoted to Frank Herbert's Dune, Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, Joss Whedon's Firefly and Serenity, etc. and to television shows such as Doctor Who, and Star Trek and its derivatives.

SF fandom has frequently served as an incubator for special-interest groups which originally coalesced within it and then split off to form organizations or entire subcultures of their own. Examples include the Society for Creative Anachronism, the L-5 Society, LARP gaming, Furry fandom, and anime.[citation needed] SF fandom also has close historical links and a large population overlap with the hacker culture,[citation needed] and has been a significant vector in the spread of both neopaganism and libertarianism.[citation needed]