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Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.

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Misunderstanding science fiction                                                                                    

Posted at: Aug/10/2015 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Perspectives,

If you are perusing this, you are familiar with an old fashioned form of time consumption called reading. There are a lot of reasons to read including education, research and entertainment. I grew up prior to the age of the internet or 105 channels of cable/satellite where reading was one of the limited forms of entertainment available to me besides playing in the rain. While I read lots of different types of content including mystery, history and fantasy, my favorite genre is science fiction. Having browsed the internet on the subject, I have come to realize that there are a lot of definitions for science fiction. Opinions being what they are, I thought I would pollute the web just a little more by setting everyone straight with my definition of science fiction.

I was introduced to science fiction in high school reading “I Robot” by Isaac Asimov and “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein. I had endured a lot of assigned reading to that point, but these novels were the first I could actually remember enjoying. At the time science fiction was not considered “main-stream.” It did not occupy much space in book stores and its presence in other media including movies and television was very limited. Maybe because of this initially small footprint, it also has a well-defined signature and structure.

Drawing on its name, I believe that science fiction is stories set in a time or place in which science and technology are significant aids to humanity's day-to-day life. In this special future or alternate reality, many of the conventional burdens of life have been lifted by some new or not yet defined technology. In this alternate reality where technology or science has made life easier, the author can ask or challenge the reader with respect to some of the basic questions of life that challenge man’s existence and interactions.

One of my favorite science fiction stories is “Citizen of the Galaxy” by Robert Heinlein, the lead character is a boy named Thor. When we first meet Thor, he is a licensed beggar in a society that includes slavery. As Thor grows and pursues his quest he is integrated into a space ship society of inter-planetary traders and merchants. Later in the story he transitions to a military space ship and then eventually to an elite class on earth. The reader, through the eyes of Thor, must explore and adapt to the social and structural rules that are unique to surviving in each of these societies. With each new home we are forced to question what is normal and what is accepted as right. In this story, Heinlein uses technology as the means to move Thor from culture to culture allowing us to question how different societies work and how each has uniquely adapted to its environment.

With blasters, death stars, light sabers and evil villains, what’s not to love about Star Wars. While an entertaining series of movies, I do not consider any of them to be science fiction. The action is thrilling, the visuals are almost hypnotic, but no important questions about man’s existence are being explored. It would be easy to call this move an adaptation on the classic “hero’s journey” played out as a fantasy or adventure. My father described the original movie as a classic western set with blasters, space ships and a death star to replace the hand gun, horse and greedy ranch baron respectively. Just because the weapons were futuristic, doesn’t make this a work of science fiction.

The classic television show “Star Trek” is an example of science fiction brought to the small screen. In many of the episodes, the technology proposed by Gene Roddenberry (creator and producer) has solved most of life’s basic challenges including food, shelter and transportation. In this special future, the lead characters traverse the galaxy exploring many of the key social challenges being dealt with in the public sphere at the same time. There were episodes analyzing slavery, social stratification, bigotry and the challenges of over population. One of the most pointed episodes was called “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” and first aired in January of 1969. In the show two protagonists displayed a blinding racial hatred for each other. Each character was half white and half black divided down the middle. The hatred was driven by their outward appearance; one was white on the left and the other was white on the right side of their body. Their disdain for each other was so consuming that they had destroyed their world with racially inspired war and now ultimately represented the last of their kinds. The lessons of how destructive blind race based hatred could be were clear.

In contrast, another television series that aired in the mid 1960’s was “Lost in Space” produced by Irwin Allen. Possessing spaceships, robots and other futuristic paraphernalia, this show was represented in the schedule listings as science fiction. Despite this naïve interpretation, no important social or cultural questions were challenged or analyzed. Instead, the show focused on presenting its ensemble cast of serious and comedic characters with a variety of hurdles. Robbie the Robot might well have been the best character in the cast and this series would be better classified as science fantasy.

One of the touchstones for science fiction is the 1951 movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. Set in contemporary 1951, an alien spacecraft lands in Washington DC and proves itself inaccessible to any of mankind’s perceived technology or strength. We eventually learn that aliens have been monitoring earth for a long time. Now that humanity has entered the atomic age, the visitors tell the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets. Learning to live peacefully and responsibly with atomic energy is an important question. Along the way, the visiting alien emphasizes their superiority providing humanity with a humbling moment.

Stargate SG-1 was a television series that debuted in 1997. Critics refer to this 10 yearlong series as science fiction, while highly entertaining and successful, I would disagree. The show featured an alien worm-hole device that allowed for near instantaneous transportation across the universe to a collection of distant worlds. With each new world came a new adventure, but the focus was on the adventure and not providing an alternative view into man’s great moral and social challenges.

Another movie from the 1950’s that qualifies as a science fiction classic is the 1956 film “Forbidden Planet.” The plot includes the normal array of gadgets including leftover technology from a lost race the Krell. Dr. Morbius is the first to discover the technology and believes it capable of enhancing intellectual capacity. The plot is complicated by the presence of an invisible monster. Ultimately it is discovered that the machine, while capable of enhancing intelligence, also enhances the dark side or “id” that lives within all humans. The “id” was a Freudian theory of significant discussion and controversy in the 1950’s. The enhanced id, created by the machine is the monster that has already killed others. Using the alien technology we are faced with the question of how to manage and deal with the potential evil that lives within each of us.

One of the recurring challenges to humanity is its ability to harm or even destroy itself. Throughout history many people have assumed, or attempted to assume absolute power under the notion that they were best suited to protect man from himself. In “I, Robot” by Isaac Asimov this notion is explored from a new tangent. In this excellent science fiction story society has accepted and incorporated commercially available robots into many aspects of daily life. This acceptance is driven by the notion that the robots cannot possibly harm humanity because their fundamental programming includes “the three laws of robotics.” These laws are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Despite these laws appearing to be all encompassing, there is a fundamental flaw. As the versions of the robots become more and more sophisticated their programming evolves to decide that the only way to protect humanity from harm, is to assume dominion over them. Clearly, one of the great social questions is how to protect humanity from the potential harm it inflicts on itself without taking away freedom and choice.

One of the recurring behaviors of people is the desire to categorize the things and information we are confronted with. Cars get branded as sedan, crossover, SUV, minivan, and a host of other model types. While these categories are seldom absolute, there is a comfort factor associated with this type of pigeon holing. In a similar manner, books, movies and television are categorized into genre.

In the SF community, the debate over the definition of the acronym SF has not been settled. Instead, the acronym is now used without definition. Depending on the audience it can mean Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, or Speculative Fiction. Mostly, the term is a means to categorize “things I enjoy” depending on the audience. My narrow minded and older view is referred to by some critics as “hard science fiction.”

For years the genre of science fiction has been misunderstood. While many people were aware of science fiction, very few people actually admitted publically to reading or followed it. In this smudged view many believed that if a story possessed a space ship, blaster, robot or time travel it must be science fiction. In fact, the hard science fiction that I love is a great deal more than mere adventure with cool and futuristic toys. The best science fiction uses aliens, time travel and yet to be invented technology to provide a unique and stimulating view into the human condition. In this alternate reality, many of the burdens of day to day existence have been stripped away with the aid of science and technology making the greatest social challenges of our day easier to examine and challenge.

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