Definition Time!

[major_clanger]

One of the occupational hazards of being Chair of the Science Fiction Foundation is that I get assorted email queries to answer. Today's was:

I was looking around your site to see if you have an answer for me. What makes a Sci-fi a Sci-fi??

Well I think I knew what she meant, so my response was:

Hi, and thanks for looking us up.

Defining science fiction is very difficult, and many people have different ideas. Probably a good general definition is that it is fiction in one of two categories:

a) Where the setting is not one that exists or has existed. This includes fiction set in the future, or in different versions of the past or present (i.e. alternate history) or in worlds utterly unlike our own (i.e. fantasy)

b) Where the story is based on extrapolating some sort of change. Traditionally this was scientific or technological, but often social, economic or environmental change is used as the starting point. Whatever the change, it is the "what if..." that makes it SF.

A lot of SF combines both, e.g. being set in a future world where there has been some technical development with a huge social impact.

I hope this helps,

I'm not sure this would quite meet with the John Clute quality assurance mark, but I think it's not too bad an answer...

MC

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

At the risk of agreeing with you twice in one day. Yep. That seems like a reasonable definition.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Good answer. Especially given the odd absence of nouns in the question.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Oh, talk to Andrew Butler. For various reasons, he bore the brunt of such enquiries until recently and by all accounts many of them were a bit thin on verbs and adjectives too, or at least meaningful combinations of them.

MC

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I think that's probably the best brief definition of sf I've seen, or am likely to.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you haven't actually answered the question. You have defined SF. 'Sci Fi' is a nasty label found in the more vulgar class of bookshop. It refers to tie-ins, Wookie books and under-edited partworks.

</sneer>

It's a very nice definition of SF, though! May I quote?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Please do!

IKWYM re 'sci-fi', but it can be hard to explain the difference to a casual inquirer without sounding, er, sneering. That explanation comes at the next level of 'what is sf' question.

MC