The Speculative Divide: Science Fiction

At long last! My post on science fiction.

How to define science fiction? Well, it mostly has to do with the science, but people still get confused and still even a little angry about science fiction. Many people think that because it has "science," in its distinction everything must be one-hundred percent accurate. I do agree that the more accurate the science, many times it assists the fiction in its purpose and creates a better story. However, that really only applies to provable science, and by provable, I mean science that currently exists in the modern day. One of the most important parts about science fiction is the science that could be (and in recent years the science that could have been). Science fiction isn't always necessarily about science that currently is or was.

Now, this does contain a probability meter. Pure science fiction has to have some sense of probability to it. IE: Meeting Aliens on a foreign plant in 100 years would be science fiction, based on the fact that we have conducted space travel and our space programs around the world continue to grow. As long as the principles of the science that base the fiction are fairly sound. You have science fiction.

The divides on this become fairly blurred as with fantasy. When blending with fantasy (or horror for that matter), as long as it still has some kind of science that can be traced back to actual theory, it's technically a science fiction lovechild. There are many different names for these love children, science fantasy coming out into the forefront. One thing I did not mention about science fantasy in my fantasy post is something that happens as the science theory the fiction is based in degenerates: it becomes more of another genre. Science fantasy, for instance, can have almost none of the fantastic elements I mentioned before, but can have scientific principles not all that well based in modern theory OR just become a little far fetched but still use some kind of science (insert quotations as your mileage varies).

Horror, interestingly enough, while it began it's journey with fantastic leanings in it's monster films, now begins to turn to scifi leanings. (Don't get me wrong though--there's still a lot of fantastic horror and just messed up people with knives). I Am Legend gave a new take on vampirism, where the whole world became infected with a plague which turned them into vampires. Later media, such as the Resident Evil franchise used the same concept for zombies, only this time the plague was of man's creation. Then there are also media such as The Stepford Wives (released in print in 1972, in film in 1975 and 2004), a horror where men replace their wives with androids rather than deal with real women.  Another such film, (These Are) The Damned, based on H.L. Lawrence's novel The Children of Light, reveals a set of children who are product of radioactive fallout. Each are radioactive and quite poisonous to the world around them. They must live underground controlled by the government and problems arise when they are discovered by people from the town nearby.

These, in a sense are almost darker than fantastic horror as they imply that the circumstances are completely man's fault. In situations with magic, magic has always existed, and darkness tempts man into a fall. Man usually dives into the discovery of science as these films may show: many of the plagues and horrors which occur begin as "accidents" of discovery.

I mentioned above that some time ago (around the seventies, I believe) a series of subgenres emerged about what could have been. Over all this is called alternate universe genre, and I think that depending on the kind of alternate universe one creates (and what is used to create the shift from what is to what could have been). The reason I bring this up falls in one to two words, depending on stylization: steampunk. Steampunk works began with the idea of the steam engine evolving so that it became the greater power. Everything was powered by steam; cars, guns, boats. Eventually clockwork also became included in this movement and then it became a popular fashion movement (victorian wear and a lot of gears). But it was originally an intriguing science fiction literary movement and remains so. After all, there are many different variants of what happens with advance steam technology. Most of them stay in the Victorian era, for the clothing, though.

I'm not sure what else I can say about science fiction at the moment, so I'll have to leave you here and keep you tuned for the next (shorter) installment: Supernatural.