Chapter 1: Introduction
Notes CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION I. E.g. Brian Aldiss, ed., Introducing SF: a Science Fiction Anthology, p. 10, says that the stimulus ofa science fiction story comes from the fact that 'it is about what is happening toyou'; Ursula Le Guin, Introduction to her TheLeft Hand ofDarkness, no page, declares, 'Science fiction is metaphor'; Samuel Delany, Thejewel-Hingedjaw: Notes ontheLanguage ofScience Fiction, p. 178, maintains that 'Science fiction is the only area of literature outside poetry that is symbolistic in its basic conception. Its stated aim is to represent the world without reproducing it.' Aldiss , however, can also say, 'T he images are what attract me in science fiction, more even than the surprises and the ideas and the crazy plots' (Aldiss, ed., Yet More Penguin Science Fiction, p. 9 et seq .). 2. I am thinking here particularly of David Ketterer's fine New Worlds for Old: theApocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, andAmerican Literature. 3. Compare Mark Rose, Alien Encounters: Anatomy ofScience Fiction , which is a systematic account of the alien as metaphoric projection of the unknown or the 'void ' in our lives and our desire to overcome it. 4. As for example in Herbert's Dune, between the melange spice and oil. But to read only in these terms is mistaken. 5. A sane and wide-ranging account of the history of science fiction can be found in Brian Aldiss, Billion Year Spree : the TrueHistory ofScience Fiction; see also Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin, 'A BriefLiterary History of Science Fiction', Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision, pp. 3-99. The nineteenth century development of the genre in Britain is well covered in Darko Suvin's Victorian Science Fiction in theU.K.: TheDiscourses ofKnowledge andofPower:and that in America by H.
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