Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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What is “Science Fiction?”
September 19th, 2010
An author friend of mine sent an email to a list I’m on:
I’m about to start teaching an Honors science and lit class and I have a whole bunch of various definitions of what science fiction is, but many of those are from academics or dead people (I have some who are still alive and currently writing also). But I wonder, those of you who are chest deep in actually writing, what are you definitions of science fiction?
Well, I also think consumers of science fiction probably have some good ideas about this.
I’m afraid mine comes down to “I know it when I see it” so I can call Star Wars fantasy, and forgive Star Trek or other softer science fiction that conveniently ignores the laws of physics from time to time (even while acknowledging “you canna change” them).
Unfortunately, stories that take place in the past, present, and future can be science fiction, or not. Stories on Earth, or in space, can be science fiction or not. Stories involving time travel, again, science fiction sometimes and sometimes fantasy. Stories with robots can be science fiction, or modern versions of the golem story, or fantasies about the nature of love, or any damn old thing.
There’s a school of thought that says that science fiction is just a label that marketers put on the spine of a book, regardless of what is inside, and that something I’d call science fiction gets put into a different section if the author is Stephen King, Michael Crichton, or Margaret Atwood.
I’ve posted about this before and have some links there to other discussions on the web. Definitions…so simple, so difficult.
Let me try to state my own personal definition of science fiction:
“Science fiction is a kind of story in which science or technology plays a central role, both in terms of plot and theme, and the science or technology elements are beyond our current knowledge or capabilities (without violating what we already know), permitting the exploration of novel ideas and the reaction of humanity to them.”
This definition will exclude some things others will call science fiction, such as some kinds of space opera, and stories where super science is present but takes a backseat.
Feel free to critique my definition and help me improve it, or suggest your own. I’ll forward the information to my friend.
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Are you familiar with Wittgenstein’s idea that some words don’t have a single definition but have instead a complex network of traits no one of which is necessarily common to all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance#Examples_and_quotes
I think that’s the case with science fiction and why it’s so hard to define. In other words, it’s science fiction if it has enough science fictional tropes to makes us go “that’s science fiction” when we read it. Or as you put it more succinctly “I know it when I see it”.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Wittgenstein was a politician! Or a lawyer (“It depends on the definition of “is” is, or “sexual relations”.).
Leave it to David to bring up Wittgenstein…thanks a lot!
[…] just been reading a blog post by Mike Brotherton which presents (yet another) definition of science fiction. This is Mike’s suggestion: […]
Hi Mike, I hope you don’t mind that I quoted you on my blog. It’s a good, serviceable definition, and a nice starting place for my musings on what makes really great science fiction.
“Leave it to David to bring up Wittgenstein…thanks a lot!”
To be honest, I find his writings, frequently, rather lacking in clarity. But his idea of family resemblences is a good one and a pretty straightforward solution to the question of why some words are so difficult to define: that we started with the assumption that all members of the class X (science fiction, games and other terms definition of which turns out to be intractable) must have some property or properties common to all. An assumption which is almost certainly false.
“A story where speculation based on science provides a setting or situation that is significantly different from 1 that may normally occur or that is known to have occurred in history”
There’s a lot of good SF that focuses neither on science nor tech. While my suggestion is both over-simplified & wordy, I think it will meet the needs of your friend.
Mike, just FYI. io9 picked up that blog piece I mentioned and published it today. It contains your definition and a link back to this page.
Thanks for the head’s up, Graham!
I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commentters here!Keep writing.Thanks.
Leather Bags.
[…] films. I can’t recall that I posted this one about great science fiction, that included my definition I posted here recently. And finally, an older article about Margaret Atwood. There, maybe it is out of my system now. […]
I usually relate Sci-Fi to the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek and other futuristic and Cyberpunk themes