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Science Fiction Definitions with Citations Ellis 1 A Sampling of Science Fiction Chronological List of Definitions of descended from Martians, then you've Definitions Science Fiction got to explain our apparent close Dr. Jason W. Ellis relationship to terrestrial anthropoid apes Hugo Gernsback. 1926. “By as well” (Heinlein 17). 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of Heinlein, Robert. “On the Writing of Introduction story—a charming romance Speculative Fiction.” Of Worlds Beyond: intermingled with scientific fact and The Science of Science-Fiction Writing. The human brain is uniquely suited for prophetic vision ... Not only do these Ed. Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. Reading, PA: pattern recognition and categorization. amazing tales make tremendously Fantasy Press, 1947. 11-19. Print. Due to this evolutionarily derived interesting reading—they are always ability, we like to put similar things into instructive. They supply knowledge . groups. This kind of cognitive work in a very palatable form ... New helps us make sense of our complex adventures pictured for us in the John W. Campbell, Jr. 1947. “To be world, and it helps us communicate with scientifiction of today are not at all science fiction, not fantasy, an honest others about how some things are similar impossible of realization tomorrow ... effort at prophetic extrapolation from the and others are different. Many great science stories destined to be known must be made. Ghosts can enter of historical interest are still to be science fiction—if they’re logically In culture, we associate works of art, written ... Posterity will point to them as explained but not if they are simply the music, literature, film, and video games having blazed a new trail, not only in ghosts of fantasy. Prophetic into genres. A genre is a category of literature and fiction, but progress as extrapolation can derive from a number culture that is widely agreed upon. well” (Gernsback 3). of different sources, and apply in a However, people often debate what number of fields. Sociology, constitutes a genre. This is because Gernsback, Hugo. “A New Sort of psychology, and parapsychology are, genres change over time and they Magazine.” Amazing Stories April 1926: today, not true sciences: therefore overlap with other genres. Also, single 3. Print. instead of forecasting future results of cultural works (e.g., a novel by Stephen applications of sociological science of King) might occupy several different today, we must forecast the development genres and/or complicate what people of a science of sociology” (91). expect those genres to be like. J. O. Bailey. 1947. “A piece of scientific fiction is a narrative of an imaginary “Campbell, Jr., John W. “The Science of Put another way, we can find an analog invention or discovery in the natural Science Fiction Writing.” Of Worlds in biological taxonomy: Life, Domain, sciences and consequent adventures and Beyond: The Science of Science-Fiction Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, experiences ... It must be a scientific Writing. Ed. Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. Genus (shares root with genre), and discovery -- something that the author at Reading, PA: Fantasy Press, 1947. 89- Species. One possible simple taxonomy least rationalizes as possible to science” 101. Print. of culture from the macro/general to the (Bailey 10). micro/specific might be: Culture, Medium, Genre. Bailey, J. O. Pilgrims Through Space and Time: A History and Analysis of John W. Campbell, Jr. 1947. “Scientific Below, I have included a number of Scientific Fiction. New York: Argus methodology involves the proposition definitions of the science fiction genre Books, 1947. Print. that a well-constructed theory will not organized chronologically. They begin only explain every known phenomenon, with the person who wrote the but will also predict new and still definition, the year it was written, the undiscovered phenomena. Science- definition, and the MLA formatted Robert A. Heinlein. 1947. “Let's gather fiction tries to do much the same—and citation for that quote’s source. You may up the bits and pieces and define the write up, in story form, what the results use these definitions and citations in Simon-pure science fiction story: 1. The look like when applied not only to your work in our class. conditions must be, in some respect, machines, but to human society as well” different from here-and-now, although (Campbell 12). Most of them are different from one the difference may lie only in an another in some way, but many of them invention made in the course of the Campbell, John W., Jr. “Introduction.” also share some similarities. These story. 2. The new conditions must be an Venus Equilateral. George O. Smith. definitions represent the debates in the essential part of the story. 3. The New York: Garland Publishing, 1975. science fiction field about what science problem itself—the “plot”—must be a 10-14. Print. fiction means, what is science fiction, human problem. 4. The human problem and what is not science fiction. We will must be one which is created by, or use these as a guide throughout the indispensably affected by, the new semester. I want you to keep this list conditions. 5. And lastly, no established Isaac Asimov. 1951. “True s-f is not to handy as we read and discuss science fact shall be violated, and, furthermore, be confused with weird stories or horror fiction this semester. when the story requires that a theory stories or tales of the supernatural or, in contrary to present accepted theory be fact, with fantasies of any sort. The best After the list of definitions, I have used, the new theory should be rendered definition of s-f that I know of is, indeed, included a glossary of basic terms that reasonably plausible and it must include almost sociological in its gravity. It goes we will talk about the first week of class and explain established facts as as follows: Science-fiction is that branch and that will be useful to your thinking satisfactorily as the one the author saw of literature which is concerned with the about science fiction moving forward. fit to junk. It may be far-fetched, it may impact of scientific advance upon human seem fantastic, but it must not be at beings” (Asimov 148). variance with observed facts, i.e., if you are going to assume that the human race Ellis 2 Asimov, Isaac. “Other Worlds to method' (observation, hypothesis, Conquer.” The Writer 64.5 (May 1951): experiment) to examine some postulated 148-151. Print. approximation of reality, by introducing a given set of changes—imaginary or Ursula K. Le Guin. 1971. “I write inventive—into the common background science fiction because that is what of 'known facts', creating an publishers call my books. Left to myself, Theodore Sturgeon. 1953. “After some environment in which the responses and I should call them novels” (Le Guin 1). fifteen years of arduous filtering, one of perceptions of the characters will reveal S-F’s more widely-read practioners has something about the inventions, the Le Guin, Ursula K. “The View In.” A come up with a definition of science characters, or both” (Merril 60). Multitude of Visions. Ed. Cy Chauvin. fiction designed to include all that is Baltimore: T-K Graphics, 1975. 5-7. worthy in the field, and exclude the Merril, Judith. “What Do You Mean: Print. cowboy story which occurs on Mars Science? Fiction?” SF: The Other Side instead of in Arizona. ‘A good story is of Realism. Ed. Thomas D. Clareson. good science fiction,’ he says, ‘when it Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green deals with human beings with a human University Popular Press, 1971. 53-95. Darko Suvin. 1972. Science fiction is “a problem which is resolved in terms of Print. literary genre whose necessary and their humanity, cast in a narrative which sufficient conditions are the presence could not occur without the science and interaction of estrangement and element’” (qtd. in Williams 376). [While cognition, and whose main formal this definition is often attributed to Samuel R. Delany. 1971. “A distinct device is an imaginative framework Sturgeon, he seems to give credit to level of subjunctivity informs all the alternative to the author's empirical another writer. However, Sturgeon words in an SF story at a level that is environment” (Suvin 375). began publishing in 1938—15 years different from that which informs before 1953—so, he could be employing naturalistic fiction, fantasy, or reportage. Suvin, Darko. “On the Poetics of the rhetoric to give a definition he thought Subjunctivity is the tension on the thread Science Fiction Genre.” College English up greater weight.] of meaning that runs between (to borrow 34.3 (Dec 1972): 372-382. Jstor. Web. Saussure’s term for ‘word’:) sound- 29 March 2012. Williams, Paul. “Story Notes.” Berkeley: image and sound-image. A blanket North Atlantic Books, 2000. 375-388. indicative tension (or mood) informs the Print. whole series: this happened. That is the particular level of subjunctivity at which Brian Aldiss. 1973. “Science fiction is journalism takes place. Any word, even the search for a definition of man and his metaphorical ones, must go straight back status in the universe which will stand in Kingsley Amis. 1960. “Science fiction is to a real object, or a real thought on the our advanced but confused state of that class of prose narrative treating of a part of the reporter. The subjunctivity knowledge (science), and is situation that could not arise in the world level for a series of words labeled characteristically cast in the Gothic or we know, but which is hypothesized on naturalistic fiction is defined by: could post-Gothic mode” (Aldiss 8). the basis of some innovation in science have happened….Fantasy takes the or technology, or pseudo-science or subjunctivity of naturalistic fiction and Aldiss, Brian.
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