The Science of Science Fiction

Written for the Ghengiscon 2008 panel

History

(Totally cribbed from wikipedia)

It is difficult to say exactly when science fiction began, since for a long time there was no real distinction between science, religion, and myth, and so no easy distinction between science fiction and fantasy (not that the distinction is entirely clear now)

The first science-fictiony story based on the real science of it's time was "Theologus Autodidactus" by the scientist Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century, which attempted to scientifically explain things like resurrection and spontaneous generation.

After the enlightenment in Europe, scientists and other thinkers used fiction to explore the new ideas they were developing, from cosmology in Kepler's "Somnium" (about a journey to the moon) or social science in Thomas Moore's "Utopia" (about a perfect society)

Science fiction really got started in the 19th century. As the genre became established there developed the now well established tension in sf between science as a means or as an end, such as between the deliberately vague workings of H.G. Wells Time Machine, used mainly as a device to explore human nature, and Jules Verne carefully described and logically extrapolated submarines and space-ships whose human occupants are used largely as a device to demonstrate the machines.

Pulp sf in the 1930s was a mix of all sorts of sf, from completely unrealistic sensationalism to carefully written scientific realism.

The Golden Age of Science Fiction (from the late 30s) involved a focus on hard science fiction stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress by authors like Isaac Asimov. At the same time there were thoughtful explorations of the possible downsides to modernity, such as "1984" and "Brave New World".

The new wave in the 1960s brought science fiction back towards the rest of literature, focussing less on science fact and more on modernist ideas of surrealism and human nature. Books like "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny blurred the boundaries between science-fiction, fantasy, religion, and social commentary.

There became a distinction between "soft" science fiction (either about the soft sciences, or just not very scientific at all) and "hard" science fiction (either about hard sciences like physics or just any story using science accurately and as a main focus). These definitions are pretty vague and make it difficult to categorise accurate depictions of soft sciences or inaccurate depictions of physics etc.

From the 70s on, both genres have continued on successfully, leading to a huge variety of styles and types of science fiction, from the complete fantasy of Star Wars to the carefully worked out equations of a Stephen Baxter novel.

Science fiction by scientists

There have been a number of science fiction novels written by scientists:

Technology and technobabble vs the scientific method

Science fiction is both a setting and a style.

Stories in genres like cyberpunk/steampunk and space opera often have a superficial veneer of technology and (somewhat) scientific ideas like computers, cryogenics and rocket ships but are more interested in what it's like for the people living in these worlds or just playing around with the cool factor.

At the other extreme are stories which carefully work out the consequences of a small change or long term trend, creating a consistent and logically coherent world which may have absolutely no resemblance to our world or any conventional view of the future. Some examples are alternate histories and other "what if"s, and "fantasy" stories which have a scientific explanation at their base (such as Gene Wolfe's "Book of the new Sun")

Most science fiction tries for a sciencey "feel" and at least a pretense that everything makes sense and has an explanation. This can lead to technobabble, "scientific" explanations which only hold up to very superficial scrutiny. Authors like Theodore Sturgeon imagined interesting if not entirely plausible consequences of the technology of the time.

Really plausible sf blurs into futurism, the science of trying to predict the future.

Science as subject

Often sf which looks at the role of science in society extrapolates it into a utopia or dystopia.

Some science fiction presents science as a force for good, such as Asmiov etc from the "Golden Age" of science fiction in the 50s or Star Trek.

But others use sf to give cautionary tales of science's limits, like "Frankenstein" or a lot of feminist science fiction, such as "Beauty" by Sheri S Tepper.

Stuff almost everyone gets wrong

It's true, in space noone can hear you scream. Or explode.

Babylon 5 and the new Battle Star Gallactica are about the only tv sf shows to depict zero-gravity space flight in a vacuum accurately.

"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman and anime "Voices from a Distant Star" are some of the few stories of roughly-light-speed travel to take time dilation into account. (In both cases they use it to create angst in the thrust-into-the-future pilot)

The science fiction in science

Many scientists have claimed to have been inspired by science fiction. For example, the "bio beds" in Star Trek in the 60s inspired CAT scans and MRIs etc.

Futurism is basically science fiction as science.

How much does it matter?

Some people think that plausible science is a prerequisite for a story to be science fiction, and that everything is just fantasy with a pseudo-science veneer.

Other science fiction fans think that the first priority is good writing (in terms of plot, characterisation etc), and that any story which sacrifices this for scientific ideas (no matter how interesting) is still bad writing and not worth reading.

These two ideas are not incompatible (though it does leave you with very limited reading options) but personally I think if a story is enjoyable and feels science fictiony then it's ok, bad writing or bad science notwithstanding.

Some good examples:

Since much science fiction deliberately blurs the boundaries between, say, neuroscience, quantum physics, and philosophy, these are kind of hard to categorise.

This article has a bunch of examples on a graded scale for realism.

Maths and theoretical computer science

Technology

Physics

Biology

Social Sciences

Not science at all

Other interesting authors: Alastair Reynolds, Olaf Stapledon, Theodore Sturgeon