Incidental Science Fiction

Consider an analogy with feminist literature. Is it enough for a story to be written by a feminist about a feminist character to qualify as feminist literature? Hardly! For example, A Door Into Ocean by JoanSlonczewski is feminist literature, but its sequel Daughter of Elysium is merely about overpopulation and environmental degradation.

In analogy, it isn't sufficient for a story to have aliens, ArtificialIntelligences, spaceships, faster than light, or robots to be science fiction. In fact, a story could have all of these elements and still fail to be science fiction (witness RayBradbury's stuff). A Door Into Ocean is marginally SciFi because it has an all-women society (only achievable using some future technology) but Daughter of Elysium isn't despite having nanotech and faster than light which aren't present in the former.

A simple test of whether something is only incidentally sci-fi, or not sci-fi at all despite being in a sci-fi setting, is whether the story could take place in a known society without changing its message.

All of the above is true, but apparently was grossly misunderstood, because every single example listed immediately below is a false counterexample. The question isn't whether aspects of the theme could be adapted to a known (non-fictional) setting without changing its message, the question is whether 100% of the science-fictional elements could be removed (by substituting the non-science-fictional equivalent) without changing its message.

The thing is, all successful literature ultimately tells a story about people, because readers identify with people (the "people" can be aliens, of course; they can even be anthropomorphized rocks). And in a reductionist sense, there are only a few basic themes that can be told about people (some have said 4 themes; there's the famous "37 Dramatic Situations", etc). So the most abstract thematic elements of any story can be transplanted from/to any genre at all.

So the usual litmus test is, does the particular exposition truly depend on the science fictional elements? Would the plot have to be non-trivially changed without them? Would relationships, character development?

And even then, this litmus test is only a rule of thumb. This subject has been endlessly debated for many decades by Fans, by authors, by academics, etc, and it became so clear that there was no rule on the subject that didn't have exceptions, that some gave up and just said "science fiction is what science fiction authors write". That's too extreme of a position in general, but there are a small number of strange examples for which that's arguably true.

I wouldn't have even bothered to comment, if the list had been just stuff like StarWars and Alien, which is well-known to be sub-genre/cross-genre and debatable, but the totality of the list shows an overall misunderstanding. By the criteria used here, there is no such thing as science fiction at all.

Bullshit because after this list, the rest of the page is devoted entirely to subjects, books and movies that are inherently science-fiction. You know, you shouldn't baldly lie like that.

Stories that aren't scifi:

Now here's an interesting one: since its central message was realized by the invention of PsychoHistory within years instead of the millennia in the future the story is set in.

The Foundation series might not be strict sci-fi, but I'd disagree that this is just because PsychoHistory has already been "invented"... would you claim that JulesVerne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or From the Earth to the Moon are not science fiction just because we already have submarines and have been to the moon? Rather, these must be recognized as being speculative within their time (disregarding the other reasons why these are not pure science fiction ;) ).

Regardless of whether or not PsychoHistory already exists, Foundation is nonetheless an interesting exploration of how the existence of PsychoHistory might interact with its own predictions, which certainly has not happened yet, and may or may not make the Foundation series a candidate for "real" science fiction.

Wrong PsychoHistory. The PH in Foundation is about predicting the future; the real PH is about psychoanalysing historical figures. There's no connection beyond the name.

Psychoanalysing historical figures is only a minor sideline of the real PH. One of the aims of the real PH is precisely to predict the future.

But what is "essential" science fiction? What does a story need to have to fit that category?

How about exploring issues unique to the application of hypothetical technology?

I can live with that. It means I can't think of any "essential" science fiction I like, but I can live with that.

"Essential" SF would require a central theme that can't exist under current scientific/technological conditions. An example is found in Timothy Zahn's "The Icarus Hunt" ISBN 0-553-57391-8 . Here the Patth have possession and control of a unique FTL drive that is several times faster/cheaper/safer than anybody else's stardrive, and so control most of the commercial shipping throughout the civilized galaxy. When a far superior stardrive left over from an ancient race is discovered the Patth will do anydamnthing to suppress it. If this new (old) drive is released to the rest of the galaxy the Patth will not only no longer control commercial shipping, but every other species in the galaxy will - instead of cowtowing to the Patth - treat the Patth like the bums they are.

The equivalent would be a story about the Chinese trying to suppress the invention of gunpowder spreading throughout the world. This didn't happen, but it would make a cool "alternate history" kind of story, and no zap ray guns involved.

Genuine Science Fiction Themes

FrederikPohl?'s sequel to Gateway barely touches on PostScarcity. Its message is that cooperation with aliens will lead to PostScarcity.

How about PhilDick-ian themes such as brain manipulation ("We can remember it for you wholesale", which became the movie Total Recall); androids and self-identity ("Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", not at all similar to BladeRunner); AI military ordnance gone wild ("Second Variety", almost entirely unlike Screamers); police states that watch your every move ("Minority Report", which unfortunately may no longer be science fiction...)?

Exactly. :)

I don't think that "technology will destroy us" (Terminator) is a genuine sci-fi theme. As for "robots are human" and other such self-evident truths, well the story might as well be about black identity.

DoAndroidsDream? also brings up many questions concerning what identity means for humans, in a world where humans, who are brought up by society to act mechanistically, create androids that believe they are human. This, more than the humans vs. robots class struggle, is what elevates the work to "serious" sci-fi in my book. :)

Brain manipulation and consciousness tailoring qualify, and the former is one of the themes in The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, which are ten books' worth of stories about a futuristic society, all freely available online at http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/journals/

Themes explored:

Is StarTrek SF?

The analogy with feminist literature that occurs to me is that some people will get way too far into theory and come to conclusions that 99.999% of people will reject as "clearly mad". StarTrek, B5, and EndersGame are not ScienceFiction? Riiiight.

Everyone knows that Gene Roddenberry used StarTrek as a vehicle to explore contemporary issues. If StarTrek was ever science fiction, it ceased to be so after the civil rights movement, at which point it became fact. Or at least, so claim the carefully staged, racially-mixed pictures of the crew of the space shuttle. Perhaps the best term for StarTrek is SpaceOpera. It has nice overtones of soap opera ...

StarTrek is not space opera, as space opera is a term for a specific sub-genre of science fiction, to which StarTrek definitely does not belong. Space opera refers to a primarily action/adventure-oriented work, which StarTrek - at least, the original series - is/was not.

The original series was sold to NBC as an action/adventure series and at least attempted to deliver action and adventure each week.

If none of that stuff is science fiction, what is? Science fiction isn't anything other than the shelf they put books on that contain robots, space ships, ray guns, etc., and aren't written by established and respected authors. Science fiction has always used technology to talk about other things.

The definition of science fiction on this page is nothing at all like the definition in common use. It's an interesting discussion, but it's essentially useless to say that Star Trek is not science fiction. Um, and given that we cannot predict the future and all judgements about what the future may or may not look like have to be in some way founded in the present and in history, by the definition used here, nothing can ever be science fiction.

Huh?

Take PostScarcity, for instance. The concept derives from twentieth century viewpoints, the same way that depictions of artificial intelligence in sci-fi derive from their time and place. You can learn a lot about the way people thought about artificial intelligence in the '60s by looking at the way its depicted in sci-fi, the same way you can learn a lot about 1990s and 'Aughts notions about scarcity by looking at the way PostScarcity is depicted. Anyway, you could set a PostScarcity novel in Ancient Rome if you're clever.

I would dearly love to see someone do that. Or even provide a broad description of how it could be done.

Perhaps a useful distinction is science fiction cf. science fantasy...

Not useful to me. The distinction between fiction and fantasy seems to come down to "could it have dragons?". Fantasies are fiction and fiction is fantasy.

I read a lot of "science fiction" when I was a kid that turned into science fact later on. Where was the fantasy in that? No dragons needed, just add technology and time. -- MartySchrader

I just don't get the distinction. Dragons could become science fact via genetic engineering. I don't see how fiction is closer to fact than fantasy.

The kind of writing I grew up with - and still seek out - has to do with the implications of technology affecting people's lives. As I said before, a lot of that stuff was fiction when I was 12, but is taken completely for granted now. Fantasy stuff doesn't fit into that category and can't possibly be forced there. Is that a big enough distinction?

Why is it fiction if it might come true but fantasy if it can't? And how does one predict what might come true?

I second this. SF has nothing to do with whether it "might come true". Ringworlds, hyperdrive, artificial gravity, telepathy, all kinds of staples of SF will never and can never come true.

BZZZT! Wrong! Saying that some of these technoweenie staples of classic SF can never come true is really asking for it.

There's obviously a distinction between fantasy and SF. However, it's not anything as crude and simplistic as "can come true".

What's the distinction between science fiction and science fantasy?

"Hard" SF?

Okay, folks - this is getting a bit deep here. I can't tell who is yanking who's chain. First off, there is no such thing as "science fantasy." You gots science and you gots fantasy, and never the twain shall meet. Most of the popular fantasy writers stick to a set of rules for magic (no deus ex machina), but they never inject "science" into their writing. The "hard" SF writers slave over a hot Internet connection trying to establish the hard science (thus the term) to back up their stories before they commit them to word processing memory.

Now. Hard SF is about the extension of science and technology as we know it now and as it can reasonably be expected to proceed. Even weirdness like TheCulture, A Clockwork Orange, and Steel Beach have roots in modern science and the projection to logical conclusion of certain assumptions. This is how one distinguishes between fantasy and science/speculative fiction.

I'm sure all of this is covered pretty well in Usenet groups dedicated to these topics.

<Snort> From the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ: "8. What is the difference between science fiction and fantasy?"

"This also has been done to death. Virtually every answer you give will fail to clearly indicate which category a large number of books belong to...."

StephenBaxter, hailed as a "hard" SF writer, talks about a human made of "wavefunctions" (which doesn't even mean anything), photino birds, nanomachines performing nuclear fusion, reducing the Planck constant to zero, altering various constants and/or principles of physics by magic, and other such patent absurdities.

In my experience, the only difference between SF and fantasy is that SF uses scientific nomenclature and terminology as its incantations with which it performs magic. "logical conclusions" my ass!

Stephen Baxter may be "hailed as a 'hard' SF writer," but he's none too swift in my book. His science just isn't up to snuff. Research, boys, research. -- MartySchrader

A Clockwork Orange doesn't pass the test given at the top of the page (whether the story could take place in a known society without changing its message). The story could be set in 1950s UK without changing its message.

I thought it was set in '50s UK.

I think the distinction being made by the original poster is that essential SciFi depends on some scientific concept for the crux of the story. So, Neuromancer is SciFi because the story centers are the scientific concept of ArtificialIntelligences gaining consciousness. Take out the scientific elements and the story is non-existent or at least altered to a degree that it could no longer be considered to be the same story. An IncidentalScienceFiction would be any one that has SciFi elements such as robots, ray guns, etc. but doesn't focus on the implications and use of such technology. Any given SpaceOpera might fit into this category, as the battles fought by the characters for purely human reasons form the essential parts of the story and if transposed to some other setting the basic structure would still hold.

I think the distinction is useful. I know that I tend to avoid IncidentalScienceFiction because I'd rather read about the implications of some technology than an adventure story that happens to contain ray guns. ?- BrianRobinson [FooDash]

I'd like a list of SF that isn't Incidental SF. Just be warned that if it turns out to be incidental and/or extremely bad, I will be brutal and vicious in my critique.

The only essential SF idea in TheCulture novels (I've read 3) are that of sentient worlds managing themselves without human government. That point is made far more effectively in JoanSlonczewski's Brain Plague where human beings are worlds (and gods) to populations of sentient microbes. And in the Journal of Ken Shardik where AIs are the ship in a way that Culture Minds never are.

This idea is important because it applies to populations of AI. GregEgan's polises should be sentient AI themselves.

The base class of Science Fiction and Fantasy is called SpeculativeFiction, which also includes AlternateHistory stories. The key commonality is that these stories depend upon a 'what if' scenario.

However, the lines are so blurry as to be non-existent and/or arbitrary. For example, what genre is FightClub? It's clearly targeted at a contemporary audience, but the story is sufficiently 'what if'-ish to count as 'speculative'. In the end, the only thing that matters is that certain audiences enjoy certain types of stories more than other and are willing to pay money to find those stories on certain shelves in the bookstore/library/video-store.

A few months ago I came across an article that I mentally refer to as "The trouble with Genres" [http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre6.html]. Discussion can be lots of fun, and genres have some use, but remember that it's also very important to just read what you like.

Very interesting! Thanks for that link.

The Many Coloured Land has elves, dwarves and magic (the creative psionic power). Yet it's clearly science-fiction, not even science-fantasy.

The trait which distinguishes science-fiction from fantasy is rationalism and materialism. This should be obvious since the most distinguishing characteristic of fantasy is mysticism.

Mysticism means one of either two things; spirits, or language as power. Mysticism is where you have junk like "And the gods created the world out of the divine language, and the language was the gods themselves. blah blah blah". Lord of the rings is chock full of that kind of bullshit. So's the initial run of StarWars (spirit Force), which is another reason why it isn't science-fiction.

Science-fiction eschews mysticism. The guy has telepathy? Yeah, it's probably because he's got the X, Y and Z recessive genes inherited from his great-grandad the powerful psionic. Well let's put him behind this telepathy scrambling field we've got, that way he won't be able to contact his co-conspirators.

Science-fantasy is a misnomer. Something can't be essentially science-fiction and fantasy at the same time. Most commonly, "science-fantasy" is neither SF nor Fantasy, merely retaining the incidental devices of both. Sometimes, you have novels which are unclear on the spiritual vs rationalist axis and end up somewhere in the middle. They're always the least satisfying.

Strong rationalism / materialism is what makes Dune science-fiction. The novel isn't mystical at all despite being blatantly religious. (Don't confuse weak science with mysticism.)

CategoryScienceFiction (and strongly resembling CategoryRant, as well as a HolyWar)

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