DEFINITIONS OF SCIENCE FICTION:
1. Science Fiction is "escapist" literature - a means of letting the mind escape from the pressures of daily life by turning to some vicarious emotional outlet that requires less thought and effort (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is". 10)
2.
Science Fiction deals with what the reader can accept as possibilities. (Del
Rey "What Science Fiction Is".6)
3. Science Fiction is primarily meant to be entertaining. (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is". 5)
4. Science Fiction accepts change as the major basis for stories (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is". )
5. Science Fiction answers the question "What If?" (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is." 6)
6. Science Fiction should deal with something alternate to our reality. (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is". 10)
7. Science Fiction is a glimpse of a possible future. (Del Rey "What Science Fiction Is."11)
8. Science Fiction is an attempt to deal rationally with alternate possibilities in a manner which will be entertaining. (Del Rey, "What Science Fiction Is". 5)
9. Science fiction is the fictional exploration of the unknown. The Origins of Science Fiction
10. Science fiction is the literature of difference. (The Origins of Science Fiction)
11. Science fiction is the only fiction that is realistic. (The Origins of Science Fiction)
12. The literature of discontinuity (The Origins of Science Fiction p.65)
13.
Kingsley Amis: "Science Fiction is that class of prose narrative treating
of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized
on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-technology,
whether human or extra-terresial in origin."
New Maps Of Hell (London, 1960)
14.
Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers
the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible
solutions.
That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance
upon human beings. (Isaac Asimov 1952)
15.
Science fiction is the search for definition of man and his status in the universe
which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science),
and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.
Brian W. Aldiss Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction (London,
1986)
16.
Science fiction reflects scientific thought; a fiction of things-to-come based
on things-on-hand.
Benjamin Appel The Fantastic Mirror-SF Across The Ages (Panthenon 1969)
17.
The touchstone for scientific fiction, then, is that it describes an imaginary
invention or discovery in the natural sciences. The most serious pieces of this
fiction arise from speculation about what may happen if science makes an extraordinary
discovery. The romance is an attempt to anticipate this discovery and its impact
upon society, and to foresee how mankind may adjust to the new condition.
James O. Bailey Pilgrims Through Space and Time (New York, 1947)
18. Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that
the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together. (Ray
Bradbury)
19. Science Fiction: fiction based on rational speculation regarding the human experience of science and its resultant technologies. (Reginald Bretnor)
20.
Science Fiction is literature about the future, telling stories of the marvels
we hope to see--or for our descendants to see--tomorrow, in the next century,
or in the limitless duration of time.
Introduction, Terry Carr Dream's Edge, Sierre Club Books, San Fransisco, 1980
21. ... science fiction "is the myth-making principle of human nature today." (Lester Del Rey)
22. We talk a lot about science fiction as extrapolation, but in fact most science fiction does not extrapolate seriously. Instead it takes a willful, often whimsical, leap into a world spun out of the fantasy of the author.... (Bruce Franklin)
23. In fact, one good working definition of science fiction may be the literature which, growing with science and technology, evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human existence. (Bruce H. Franklin)
24. Science fiction frequently tries to imagine what life would be like on a plane as far above us as we are above savagery; its setting is often of a kind that appears to us technologically miraculous. It is thus a mode of romance with a strong tendency to myth. (Northrop Frye)
25.
Science Fiction is that class of fiction which contains the currents of change
in science and society. It concerns itself with the critique, extension, revision,
and conspiracy of revolution, all directed against static scientific paradigms.
Its goal is to prompt a paradigm shift to a new view that will be more responsive
and true to nature.
Amit Goswami The Cosmic Dancers (New York, 1983)