Rhapsody: Notes on Strange Fictions (2 page)

The best definition of science fiction is that it consists of stories in which one or more definitely scientific notion or theory or actual discovery is extrapolated, played with, embroidered on, in a non-logical, or fictional sense, and thus carried beyond the realm of the immediately possible in an effort to see how much fun the author and reader can have exploring the imaginary outer reaches of a given idea’s potentialities.

Groff Conklin

This is, perhaps, the SF that existed before Old Man Campbell, the SF that Gernsback was looking for. In its weaker form, this content-based definition of SF simply requires the presence of an element of vaguely rational futurol
ogy, extrapolated out into background, plot, etc. The speculation need not be a locus of metaphoric or metonymic meaning; a fancy rather than a conceit, it may function as little more than a superficial justification for the Romantic adventure story structures. This SF is simply
fantasy
, some might say, with the fanciful element rationalised in terms of science or technology. A better term would be fantasia.

Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the “willing suspension-of-disbelief” on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of science credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science and philosophy.

Sam Moskowitz

Sam Lundwall’s distinction between SF (with explanation) and fantasy (with no explanation) might also be considered here. Despite the differenti
ation, he focuses more on the “gimmick” of an explanation than on the actual rigour of the extrapolation, just as Moskowitz focuses on the “atmosphere of science credibility” and Conklin on the sense of play. Further, in his characterisation of the speculative element as one that might develop “from known science or from investigations of areas not yet quite explored but suspected,” that last clause provides the backdoor of a Paradigm Shift Caveat by which metaphysics and magic (e.g. FTL or ESP) can sneak into SF, with a wave of the hand and a mutter of
hyper-space
or
untapped human potential
. Working by this type of definition, the writer may play fast and loose with even the laws of physics. As long as the reader comes along for the ride, then it’s still seen as SF—scientific fancy, that is.

There are pros and cons to this scientific fancy, as there are with any form of SF. In u
sing extrapolation largely to build the environment in which the story takes place or to create some technological MacGuffin as a plot device in a Romantic adventure narrative structure (some planet-destroying Doomsday Machine to save the Earth from, an Unobtainium Drive to power a spaceship built in one’s back yard, a network of interstellar portals built by an ancient race), scientific fancy is all about the ripping yarn. Often this SF crosses over with YA and serves as excellent entry-level fiction for the new reader, seeing as it’s a whole lot of fun. The downside is that all too often the result is a shallow Boy’s Own
Space Opera
or
Military SF
that feeds the perception of SF being solely for teenage boys; and all too often it’s so deeply plot-oriented it neglects character and thus feeds the perception that SF has no depth and therefore is not
literature
. Romanticism has some neat tricks, but it also has a lot of…well…posturing adolescent bollocks.

So, many people talk of “growing out of SF” when they’re really just lea
ving behind those juvenile power fantasies, never having got past the entry-level adventuring of scientific fancy.

A different type of barrier might be why some readers never get past the e
ntry-level, but this is better illustrated with the next type of SF…

[Science fiction] is fiction about the future of science and scientists.

Isaac Asimov

In its stronger form the content-based definition of SF specifically turns the whole focus of the story onto science in terms of character, background and plot, not only regarding the scientific speculation as essential but requiring its centrality and expecting a degree of rigour in its treatment.

Fiction in which new and futuristic scientific developments propel the plot.

Harper Handbook of Literature

What is important to this SF is that the narrative itself must turn upon the science, not just as a plot device but as a driving force (the Three Laws of Robotics as the premises of the story’s logic, the von Neumann machines that run amok, the replicant that considers itself alive). The speculation is not a fancy upon which the story is built and from which it could ultimately be separated out. Rather, it is a
fabrication
—act and artefact, the process through which the story is constructed and the product which remains integral to the finished text, just as the
investigation
of a mystery is in the
Mystery
novel.

Science fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distant places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often the civilization or the race itself is in danger.

James Gunn

This scientific fabrication is perhaps what most within the community think of when they think of SF—the “what if” story formed by reaching out into the wilds of the hypothetical, the counterfactual, the metaphysical, grabbing a li
ttle (or not so little) seed of unreality, drawing it back into our world, planting it in the fertile soil of the imagination, and letting it grow. Pruning it back, wiring its branches, shaping its insanely accelerated development in the bonsai art of narrative.

As an exercise in the logic of imagination, scientific fabrication is often va
lued more highly than scientific fancy, as a more intellectual approach, but it serves us well to remember that the “what if?” scenario might well lead to exactly the same Romantic adventure plot structure. What if there was a world-destroying Doomsday Machine the hero had to save the Earth from? What if the hero invented an Unobtainium Drive to power a spaceship built in their back yard? What if the hero was called in to investigate a network of interstellar portals built by an ancient race? Add the Paradigm Shift Caveat into the equation and allow that process of fabrication to be run as much by the logic of story as by the logic of reality, and we may well simply end up back at scientific fancy, with lightweight literature that will not be taken seriously.

The term can be applied only to a story in which wherein removal of its scientific content would invalidate the narrative.

Theodore Sturgeon

A more important potential point of failure for this SF, though, is where the logic of reality is incomplete, where a focus on the intellectual appeal of the thought experiment, its results and ramifications, carries with it a neglect of other aspects of reality—human motivation, the logic of affect. A syllogism is not a story. An algorithm is not an ane
cdote. What a reader of this SF finds intriguing in its exploration of an abstract idea, may seem far less intriguing to a reader more concerned with behaviour than biology, more interested in characters than chemistry, fascinated more by personal flaws than particle physics. Fiction that fails to engage an audience with the emotional intricacies of viable characters will, for many in that audience, simply alienate them with its profound irrelevance at the human level. If scientific fancy risks reading as if it were written by and for the adolescent, scientific fabrication also risks reading as if it were written by and for the precocious prepubescent, the pint-size Spock as yet oblivious to sex, death, and other such shitstorms of adult experience.

Unfortunately, this risk is exacerbated by one attempt to deal with the first potential weakness—the Romantic nonsenses of scientific fancy—by rejecting the Paradigm Shift Caveat entirely, precluding the presence of any element in the story which breaches sc
ientific orthodoxy. As understandable as it is, as an attempt to force a seriousness onto the form via rationality and rigour, this next definition of SF largely just pushes the uninitiated reader’s interest to breaking point.

Realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on ad
equate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.

Robert A. Heinlein

This type of definition may adopt a wide or narrow scope in terms of what exactly constitutes realistic speculation, where the boundaries lie between the sciences and the humanities. At its very narrowest we have Campbell rejecting sociology and psychology, establishing the sort of strictures that bind a core of
Hard SF
to the hard sciences—mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology. At its widest, with the soft sciences considered fair game, all manner of utopian, dystopian and heterotopian fictions founded on politics and ethics may be considered as within the form. But even at its most encompassing, this type of definition remains qualitatively different from scientific fancy or even scientific fabrication in one clear respect: its exclusion of the metaphysical.

The inexplicable, the irrational, the
metaphysical
is something of a sticking point for some SF writers. Rooted deep in a Rationalist worldview, refusing to accept the limitations of reason, they reject a whole form of conceit allowed by other forms of SF. Where scientific fancy and scientific fabrication are predicated solely on the inclusion of a certain speculative element, this scientistic fabrication is predicated also on the exclusion of another element, often referred to as
magic
.

It is the premise of science fiction that anything shown shall in principle be interpretable empirically and rationally. In science fiction there can be no inexplicable marvels, no transcendence, no devils or demons—and the patterns of occurrence must be verisimilar.

Stanislaw Lem

This is an SF that many of its advocates will insist defines the core of the genre—an SF where the science must be wholly central and wholly rigourous, and where the met
aphysical/magical is absolutely unacceptable. Regardless of the number of works this stricture exiles from the canon, the advocates of scientistic fabrication insist there are no shadows in their world. The universe is, for them, laid flat and bare by reason’s light, there are no shadows anywhere. None of Dick’s dead gods. None of Bradbury’s ghost Martians. There is no mystery that cannot be unravelled in this type of fiction.

Not the easiest sell to the incognoscenti perhaps. There are those who do not find science exciting in and of itself, who are not thrilled by the enigma of theories beyond their understanding, or the sudden moments of comprehe
nsion when those theories are made clear through fictive explorations. These readers will be left cold by fiction utterly enrapt with science, if they are not scared off from even reading it by the fear it will be full of calculus and other such mathematical bogeymen. Lacking even a rudimentary understanding of what is or isn’t possible, they may well see the whole narrative problem as irrelevant. If they are not alienated by incomprehension, they may feel utterly deflated by a mundane explanation.

These are not, of course, intrinsic certainties, only inherent risks, and in their determ
ination to apply intellect to the form, the scientistic fabricators have undeniably pushed SF into new territories, beyond the Romantic adventures of scientific fancy, beyond even the “what if” scenarios of scientific fabrication. This is, in part, the worldview that gives us the
Mundane SF
movement with its resolute commitment to authenticity, not simply as an end in and of itself, rigour for the sake of rigour, but as an antidote to wish-fulfilment, as an ethical dedication to tackling the actual problems of this world’s most likely future(s), addressing issues like global warming in terms of feasible hypotheticals rather than fantasising about aliens and AI. For the scientistic fabricators, to whom
fantasy
equals
fancy
, which is to say whimsy as a mere diversion, this is the very real and very important purpose of SF.

Of course, there are those who disagree completely.