What's Science Fiction?

Science fiction defies categorization as it contains aWe're learning that model building is the core strength
huge gathering of disparate forms of fiction includingof science. That's all the various forms of
horror, futuristic, magic, fantasy and a profusion ofmathematics are, various conceptual kits from which
more demonic monsters than the Middle Ages everto build models. It's the same strategy that Sherlock
imagined in its preoccupation with hellfire andHolmes uses, where all the evidence must fit within
damnation.one system of sense. Though Sherlock expected
Interest in the future is always partly fear-based-thethat only definitive tangible evidence would verify his
unknown, the mysterious and 'what's-to-come'. H.G.theory.
Wells was deeply concerned with the threat/promiseMeanwhile scientists have found a way to make
of technology. He struggled in his time to create atheory synonymous with fact. They've become
peaceful world community, profoundly disappointed atheroes in the 21st century. We adore them. In the
his death with humanity's inability to transcend theprocess they've gotten seduced by the fame of that
limitations of its time. So of course he dreamed ofexperience, and, to please their growing audience, are
time travel, the only alternative solution.writing part science, part fiction. Only vaguely imply
Forty years later Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)they're being hypothetical, they make grand scientific
and George Orwell (1984) wrote scathingassertions that have the authority of fact. They
denunciations-dystopias-of science, technology andmake no clear and simple disclaimers. They seem to
their dehumanizing inventions. Orwell predicted mindhave embraced the illusion that their models can
control by fear and intimidation, while Huxley imaginedpredict reality with a high enough probability of being
the biological engineering of uneducated, hedonisticallyright, that they can assume so. Pretending to be
pleasured drug-drones.making pure science, they're partly making science
At the beginning of the cold war Ray Bradbury, afiction, claiming it to be reality by blurring the
consummate romanticist, who wrote the beautifulboundary between models and reality.
Dandelion Wine about an idyllic summer of happiness,Perhaps, unconsciously, that's why, as readers, we've
yet was terrified of nuclear holocaust when hedeveloped such an addiction to reality. We avidly
envisioned Earth both destroying itself and the wisewatch real families raising real children, and real
far-advanced Martians in The Martian Chronicles.offenders committing real crime. We can't seem to
In the late 20th century Michael Crichton, worryingget enough of real people doing real things ... as if we
about medical and computer viruses writeshad lost touch with reality, and need to be reassured
Armageddon stories like Coma, Jurassic Park, andit's still there. In the meantime fiction has almost
Andromeda Strain, but then tried to convince usbecome synonymous with falsehood-unless it's just
there's nothing to be afraid of about global warmingcartoons.
in State of Fear.If a writer creates fiction, like HG Wells's War of the
By the end of the 20th century science fiction hadWorlds, as if it was actually happening, terrifying half
become almost synonymous with fantasy-magicala nation (Orson Wells radio show), what he'll receive
Hobbit stories. You can't tell whether Neil Gaiman isinstead of fame is infamy. He becomes the Judas
telling a mythical magic tale, once called a children'sGoat. Like the poor woman who wrote a story of
story, or writing a story about grown up people. Heher life that we bestseller loved, but later found
seems to be doing both in American Gods, whichwasn't true. In a moral flurry of indignation the
illustrates what's happened to science fiction. It'spublisher withdrew the book from the marketplace,
become there-are-no-limits-in-the-universe fantasyand we hounded her out of publishing.
writing, turning science fiction into cartoons and comicAs always, time changes everything. Does that mean
books for grownups. I believe entirely in fantasy.perhaps that everything is fiction-even facts?
That's what fiction is.Eventually they're false ... replaced with new ones.
But now science has entered the realm of fiction, forPerhaps we're having lots of trouble getting used to
instance, by employing hypothetical models of thethe fact that everything's relative, partly true and
environment, weather, planet size, etc., inventing twopartly fiction, and it will always be that way. And yet
fictional planets, and drawing scientific conclusionsin the meantime, at least for now, we still have to
about what kind of life would evolve there.make a decision.