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Sci Fi Pride!


Last month, many science fiction fans and authors were enraged at Ian McEwan’s dismissal of the genre when he talked about his newest novel, Machines That Think Like Me, in an interview with The Guardian. As much as it contains the elements of science fiction, it was said that McEwan does not refer to it as that. Many people took this as literary elitism on his part. Science fiction has had a history of belittlement which has given the genre’s term a negative connotation. In this age of political correctness, many people do not like using the term and much less its shortened version, “sci fi”. Because of that, fans and even authors of the genre are self-conscious of using the word “science fiction” to refer to their reading preferences or work. I know because I’ve been there myself. However, there is nothing bad in the word “science fiction” except what the literary elite put in it. But that doesn’t count since what they put in it is only based on their own biases.


An android takes of it's human-looking face and it's robotic face under it.
Credit: Pixabay.com


First of all, I want to clarify that Ian McEwan did not dismiss his book as science fiction. He did not straight out say that his work is not science fiction and did not even use the term to say that it wasn’t. It’s particularly that fact, that he didn’t use the term “science fiction”, that I think a lot of fans in the genre got mad at and took it as an elitist attitude on his part. The Guardian says that “McEwan . . . has little time for conventional science fiction” and then quotes him saying, in relation to Machines,

“There could be an opening of a mental space for novelists to explore this future, not in terms of travelling at 10 times the speed of light in anti-gravity boots, but in actually looking at the human dilemmas of being close up to something that you know to be artificial but which thinks like you.” 

That’s all he said that comes anywhere close to him dismissing the genre. He didn’t so much dismiss his book as science fiction as he dismissed the familiar conventions of the genre. Therefore he particularly dismissed his novel as being “conventional science fiction” rather than saying that it wasn’t at all science fiction. What he was more so implying was that he does not use the familiar tropes of sci fi such as “travelling at 10 times the speed of light in anti-gravity boots”. Instead he emphasises the human reactions to human-like machines, an element of science fiction. Still, people call this reaction from him “genre snobbery”.

But that’s the way he describes such stories. He doesn’t have to refer to them as science fiction in order for them to be such and, besides, he doesn’t have to call it science fiction if he doesn’t want to. In fact, it’s his right to deny it as science fiction. He’s the author of the story, he can label it whatever the hell he wants! George Lucas never called his Star Wars movies science fiction as much as they have science fictional elements in them even if mostly on the pulp level. I disagree with Lucas, but I respect his right to not refer to it as science fiction. The late Harlan Ellison did not like being referred to as a science fiction writer in which I agree with him on that much more than I do with Lucas’s objection to Star Wars as sci fi. Ellison didn’t like the term being applied to him as an author because he felt it made him look restricted to writing only in that genre which he did not limit his writing to. I never liked being put in a box myself (except maybe at night when I go to bed) so I can perfectly understand him getting angry when people applied that word to him.

So, because McEwan was simply saying what his novel doesn’t contain, conventional science fiction tropes, rather than saying what it is not, science fiction, I think he has been misjudged by many lovers of the genre. To prove this a little more, he actually refers to his novel as “a total fantasy” as The Guardian quotes him saying. Although I don’t agree with a novel such as his being all fantasy, still, it’s fantasy of a sort. It’s science fantasy which is what science fiction had been called at one time. So it doesn’t appear that he’s entirely dismissing his novel as science fiction or as genre fiction of any sort.

That said, I do get very irritated when people really do dismiss science fiction as a cheap, un-literary form of fiction. And it’s true that much of the “literary” crowd dismisses it as that. The majority of academia and the upper class sophisticates have talked down about the genre to the point where the term has developed it’s negative connotation. Again, I’ve experienced this literary prejudice myself, particularly when I was in college. Submission calls for fiction at Sacramento State University often discouraged science fiction and other genre fiction such as high fantasy, horror and romance. Part of this discrimination came from the belief that genres had not much more use than for bookstores and big publishing houses to classify their merchandise as a means for gaining profit. But that isn’t the only reason that they are used for. People, myself included, have their reading preferences and it would be hell for many of us to have to open every single book in a bookstore or for us writers to have to second guess what a publisher wants if all genres were dismissed. 

The term ‘science fiction’ also got its negative meaning from becoming popular during the pulp craze of the 1930s through early 50s. Pulp fiction was often quickly written using story formulas, and so quality of character was often jeopardised. However, not all pulp fiction was like that but it became identified as such.

Even if they didn’t use the best characterization, many of the great science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, wrote stories that were far from shallow. These authors were very serious about conveying future technologies and scientific phenomena realistically and therefore convincingly. If they didn’t show how individual characters were effected by the scientific phenomenon then they showed how a society in the story was effected by it. Then you get people like Harlan Ellison who showed individual characters’ reactions to scientific phenomena and how it effected their daily lives and their relationships with others.

But it’s because of the high quality science fiction by authors such as the ones mentioned above that we should use the term “science fiction” with pride. Forget what the literary snots say, science fiction as a genre is as valid as any other type of fiction. I mean, how can we say it is cheap, worthless fiction of no importance? It’s because of science fiction that a man walked on the moon. It’s because of science fiction that we have smart phones and advanced medical technology including robotic limbs. Who the hell is anyone to say that the genre is cheap and worthless?


We as lovers of science fiction should not be embarrassed to use the term that refers to the genre. The genre has lead to a lot of achievements in science and technology. If we back away from using the word “science fiction”, we give power to the literary elite that put the genre down and we only enforce its negative connotation in doing so. So the next time someone asks what you write or read, and if you like the genre, then say “science fiction” with confidence and pride! The more of us that do that, the weaker that the bad connotation the literary elite give it becomes.

Are you proud to say you are a writer or reader of science fiction or whatever popular genre (e.g. fantasy, horror, romance, etc.) you read or write in or do you use a more “acceptable” term?

Until next time . . .




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