Science fiction is a genre within literature and film; since writing is thousands of years older than film-making, origin of this category is to be found there, in novels and short stories. In the western world, classic science fiction authors include Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Jules Verne (1828-1905) and H.G. Wells (1866-1946). Frankenstein and The Last Man by Shelley, Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man by Wells, are among the novels and other writings that show the impact of science research and discovery upon human imagination. Science and technology, in actuality or potential, are or should be intrinsic themes of any creative art labelled science fiction. The term fiction, in its Latin root, means shaping or molding something by verbal action, that is, words. Science is acquisition of knowledge by experiment. So science fiction extends the scientific quest to imaginary and fantastic ends.

Stacker is an online publisher of analysis and commentary on diverse topics, including science fiction. Numerous lists and rankings of science fiction movies and books are available there. Upon reading this material, one may come upon titles that don’t seem to have much to do with science, even in possible future developments, but just seem to be based on ideas of supernatural abilties or miraculous happenings. [Maybe this is the latent, unspoken, goal of all science, to turn men into gods.] Rather than exclude these titles from science fiction because they don’t fit within a basic definition, a question arises. What is all this creative effort and production trying to do? Is there a purpose, beside entertainment, to science fiction? One answer is that authors are attempting to place science, in its various branches, into moral context, whether it is or might be, good or bad. With scientific method, cures are found for disease; through science, more powerful weapons are invented.  

Further Reading

Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, 1985-2010, by Damien Broderick & Paul DiFilippo, New York, Nonstop Press, 2012. ”But here’s a necessary caution: most science fiction, our favorite kind of story-telling and reading, has about as much to do with real science as chick lit has to do with poultry.” (p. 8)

Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed by Sherryl Vint, London, Bloomsbury Pub., 2014. ”Thinking of sf as the literature of technologically saturated societies, then, encourages us to see the genre as a cultural and aesthetic response to how technoscience changes not only our material world but also our cultural values and practices.” (p. 34)