E221: Science Fiction,
Dr. Michael O'Conner

[E221 Home] [Syllabus] [Assignments/Grading] [Attendance] [Policies and procedures] [Sci-Fi Links][Student Posts]
Science Fiction is a subgenre of fiction concentrating on the use and extrapolation of scientific knowledge and scientific possibilities as a background to a fictional story.

Two kinds of Surrealistic Fiction, a fiction where events are played out against social backgrounds that do not exist today

  • 1. Science Fiction
  • 2. Fantasy

    Sci-fi: surreal backgrounds that could be derived from appropriate changes in our technology and science

    Fantasy: surreal backgrounds that cannot reasonable be supposed to be derived from our own by any change in the level of science and technology (Usually deals with magic, swords, mythological creatures, etc.)

    It took an industrial revolution at the beginning of the 19th century for individuals to be able to perceive rapid advances in science and technology during their lifetimes, hence extrapolation about possible futures could take place. Sci-fiction is all about the perception of change through technology.

    "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today--but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all" (Isaac Asimov, Encyclopedia of SF 7).

    Two major types of sci-fi:

  • 1. Hard Science Fiction--concentrates more obviously on the science behind the story
  • 2. Soft or Social Science Fiction--concentrates more on political and social commentary

    No matter the type of science fiction, and no matter the setting, almost all good science fiction is really about the world we live in today.

    Csicserty-Ronay, Jr., Istvan. "The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction." Science Fiction Studies 70, 386.

    The techniques and tools that make science fiction unique:

  • 1. Neologisms--invented words refering to imaginary new realities
  • 2. Novums (new things)--inventions, discoveries, applications that change the course of history
  • 3. Historical extrapolation/historical futurism--historically logical explanations of how we got from the author's real-time present to the fictional future depicted
  • 4. Oxymoron--at the heart of the tale an absurd logical contradiction (time travel paradox, alternate universes)
  • 5. Scientific impertinence--tales that generally violate currently known scientific laws at some point, the purpose of which is to create uncanny, sublime, comic, or metaphysically intriguing situations
  • 6. Sublime chronotopes(space and time)--a literary space-time where ficitonal things work according to their own particular laws of time and space (cyberspace, alien planets, future earths)
  • 7. Parable--whatever the scientific content and historical extrapolation, a parable is constructed, science and technology become vehicles for moral tales; the morals may have much to do with science and technology, but they do not come out of the science and technology.

    [Return to O'Conner's E221 Home Page] [Return to O'Conner's Main Millikin Home Page]

    Last modified January,1998. Contact: Dr. Michael O'Conner at moconner@mail.millikin.edu