Definition Time!

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