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History of Dune|
I'm going to take a different tack on 'defining' science fiction, cause, while i haven't read Dune, books like TheLeftHandofDarkness? are not Sci-fi (and its not the gender changing androgynes that cause me to say that either). I will first agree with Curtis that the science of the time of publication should be the arbiter of what is science fiction. However, im not convinced that a logical definition that categorically divides it from fantasy is possible or plausible. Instead, i will take a systematics approach. First, the work of Jules Verne is the first science fiction. It created the genre. One could well call 20000 Leagues Under the Sea the stereotypical example. Regardless, it is sufficiently good at being science fiction that i designate it the holotype of the "genus" science fiction. Other works of his (Around the World in 80 Days, for instance) are arguably as good, but i don't wish to deal with paratypes or explaining what those are, so there. On the other hand, the best candidate for the holotype of fantasy is probably LotR?. Now, the systematics paradigm proceeds by defining a holotype (the first instance of some thing to be described sufficiently different from other things to deserve separate classification. This can be true at any level. Species have holotype individuals, genre and up have a holotype individual from a species they contain), then as new things are collected they are compared to the available holotypes and categorized appropriately. In this case, we are dealing effectively with assigning new species to genera based upon agreement with a holotype. The best way to do this involves comparative character analysis. (1) Sci Fi makes specific predictions or claims backed up by reasonable inference and extrapolation of the science fact of its day. 20000 Leagues gives specific measurements of the submarine in terms of the basic details of construction (pressure to withstand, thinkness of wall, etc...). These conform in all ways to what was known about the ocean deeps at the time, in fact, he was incredibly close to the real values. One could almost build a submarine to his specifications. The existence of the giant squid was eventually confirmed, and at the time of Verne's writing was supported by sucker marks on sperm whales. No science ever will explain Tolkien's magic; neither will science ever explain hyperdrive or warp drive. Oh, one day someone may invent FTL travel (unlikely, but i'll leave open the possibility), they may even call it hyperdrive or warp drive, but it is extremely unlikely it will behave in the same way as those 'technologies'. It will probably involve some funky stuff with accelerating the surrounding spacetime (assuming energetic feasibility, a current theoretical problem). Compare this to the specificity and preciseness of Verne's imagined submarine. (2) Sci Fi does not contain unexplainable elements. No, human behavior does not count as unexplainable (it may not be totally explainable from chemicals to output, but if we couldnt understand human behavior, not only couldnt we interact with people, nor could we identify with characters in books). Every technological claim made in 20000 leagues could be explained by invoking physics principles as they were understood. He goes into some detail on it in fact. By contrast, a defining element of fantasy is unexplainable phenomena, commonly referred to as magic. While Tolkien cloaks it in what is considered its canonical form (unsurprising since LotR? was the first), hyperdrive, the force, psychic powers, antigravity, warp drive, ray guns of all sorts, and a host of other devices are magic. Now, there are border areas here (Andromeda Strain, for instance), and violation of this does not necessarily disqualify something as Sci-fi, as we are going with a similarity approach, but the more grotesque the violation, the less likely it is to be scifi, and the likelihood function falls off rapidly. So inclusion of a virus that evolves to eat rubber is borderline enough to not be important, but inclusion of hyperdrive without any explanation likely calls for instant exclusion from the category of SciFi?. I will note that something like Journey to the Center of the Earth doesnt violate this character. The Hollow Earth Theory had a strong following at that point in history, in varying incarnations. No one had seen the hollow interior of the earth, according to the more reasonable interpretations (as opposed to the one which caused a number of V2 rockets to miss their targets in WW2), thus what was inside wasn't known, but Verne's extrapolation from past life on earth was plausible because it was known such things had existed. (3) Sci Fi depends on the envisioned technology for the plot of the story. 20000 Leagues doesnt work without the submarine. Its existence is the entire motivation of the story. 2001 needs the computer and the spaceship or there is no story. StarTrek, on the other hand, could easily replace the spaceships with sailing ships, and the worlds with islands, and tell basically the same stories. The props are just what the writers fancied when they put it together. Consider Odysseus's adventurers across the islands and a string of StarTrek shows, each new island for Odysseus brought him strange and fantastic encounters, its just that by the 20th century we knew our world a lot better. (4) Sci Fi is not far beyond science fact. It can't be if its going to be explainable. The technology Verne writes about was either implausible or extant within 50 years of his writing. If you get too far ahead you will have to invoke magic, because you will not be able to either understand or explain technology. As a corollary, sci fi also makes predictions. Verne predicted the submarine in 20000 Leagues. 2001 foreshadowed the space program and computers. In its way, Brave New World could be considered Sci Fi in many senses, the critical part that reproductive technology plays in it, and the prediction of eugenics run wild, something that we are starting to run into more and more. Its technology is almost within our grasp, and that is the mark of good sci fi. It doesnt propose the unimaginable, it proposes tomorrow. Fantasy proposes things which are far beyond our ken, things that it is only through the imagination of the author we are able to arrive at. Sci Fi merely points out the pieces of a puzzle we may have assembled ourselves and says "look, this is possible given what we know, it could happen." Now, not all of these things are necessary for something to be sci fi, but a work should possess the majority of these to qualify. There are probably other characters, and its been awhile since i read 20000 Leagues. But this seems like the best way to divide SciFi? from Fantasy, based upon the authors that gave the genres existence. --NickJohnson |
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The Roman Empire also wasn't stable: from the dissolution of the old Republic in ~50 BCE to the division of the Empire in ~300 CE was only a few hundred years, marked by dramatic and increasing problems. Herbert is proposing a period lasting several order of magnitude as long.--CurtisVinson |
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The Roman Empire also wasn't stable: from the dissolution of the old Republic in ~50 BCE to the division of the Empire in ~300 CE was only a few hundred years, marked by dramatic and increasing problems. Herbert is proposing a period lasting several order of magnitude as long.--CurtisVinson |