Death Rays Are So Yesterday

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

The other view of science fiction, figureheaded by H.G. Wells, was that science was best left to scientists, and novelists who used science themes should feel free to make stuff up if it helped uncover the social and philosophical pitfalls in the road ahead of humanity. The Time Machine does not contain a blueprint for a working time machine, but it does contain a fairly rigorous and careful projection of where early-20th-century capitalist society, and science itself, might leave the species if certain changes weren’t made. In due course, this approach would be labeled “soft science fiction,” as opposed to Verne’s “hard,” nuts-and-bolts approach.

Verne and Wells were fighting for the soul of an art form that would frame the great debates of the modern age. It is hard to imagine how opponents of genetic engineering would function without the prefix franken-, derived from Mary Shelley’s 1818 soft science fiction classic Frankenstein. As for Orwellian, it seems safe to say that the book 1984 is more an expression of George Orwell’s revulsion with the totalitarian societies of 1948 than a warning for future generations about the dangers of interactive television, but the Soviet Union has collapsed and the meme of Orwellianism lives on.

Science fiction’s gifts to humanity weren’t confined to the world of ideas. Atomic bombs and satellites are among the real-world marvels lifted straight from works of futuristic fiction. Atomic bombs and satellites. Is there another field of literary fiction to rival science fiction’s impact on the world? Chick lit? Chicano realism? I think not.

All of which underscores the question of how it came to this: Why are the heirs to such a grand tradition dipping their tortilla chips into bean dip that has not even been decanted from its original plastic container into a proper bowl? Why are they not holding their annual meetings in some sort of gilded purpose-built pyramid while humanity waits breathlessly outside to receive their inklings about our future? And why are the science fiction shelves of bookstores glutted with brightly colored works of “fantasy” whose protagonists, judging by the covers, are shirtless bodybuilders with Thor hairstyles fighting dragons with swords?

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print