This spring/summer, I took a course on “Science and Speculative Fiction” from Grant MacEwan University – in person, the real thing, for three hours twice a week alongside numerous fashionable and sleepy 20-year olds. As a writer, those are my two genres of choice: science fiction because of my physics background and science is fun to play with, and speculative fiction because it deals with possibilities in society that have not yet come to fruition (per Margaret Atwood), which to me is one of the most exciting things literature can do.
I’m even more passionate about the nexus between these two genres: fiction that predicts scientific possibilities – or more accurately, technological ones. Speculative science fiction is a mental paradise (or hell) for imagining the limits of what humanity can become. Throughout history, as societies have envisioned their future, sci-fi writers have provided sometimes scarily accurate predictions.
There are many definitions of literary fiction and usually they're presented in juxtaposition to genre fiction, which includes science fiction. Genres like science fiction are identified by their tendency to rely on plot and tropes as opposed to character development, although this is a pretty a reductionist stereotype. Throughout the course, my professor was adamant that science fiction is a serious literary genre that makes meaningful contributions to the human experience, and I agree (though it does of course depend on which science fiction, as it would for any book). I’ll attempt to demonstrate this below with some sample readings from my course.
Before I do, a note on technical accuracy – you know, the sciencey part of sci-fi. On the topic of “literature” vs. “genre fiction”, I’d be remiss not to mention Emily St. John Mandel, who’s made a name for herself writing “literary science fiction”. Her most recent book Sea of Tranquility came out last year and her 2014 novel Station Eleven, since made into a TV show, was part of the research I did for my comps of my current work-in-progress. Her view (gathered from a keynote she gave at the Origins writing conference I attended in June) is that technical accuracy isn’t the most important thing and a book can explore scientific issues while still prioritizing character. Fair enough. The example she gave was a time machine – who cares how it actually works? Funny she said that, because I actually had some technical hang-ups with Station Eleven, which I found distracting…
Emily St. John Mandel is fine and the issues I had with her work were harmless, but I (a) I do not think there is a natural tradeoff between literary value and scientific accuracy and (b) actually, I believe careless representations of science and technology can be dangerous. If you’re a writer, you have responsibilities. Your readers suspend reality and go on a journey with you. Inevitably, some of that journey stays with them long after, impacting their beliefs.
For example... < begin nuclear energy rant > As a matter of principle, I had to put down the beautiful story Lightless when I was more than three fourths of the way through and totally hooked because she talked about nuclear reactors exploding like bombs, which isn’t physically possible. And the author was a physicist! Casual misrepresentations like this may or may not be integral to the story and the reader's entertainment, but they can still perpetuate subconscious, damaging, and inaccurate rhetoric that can, for example, reduce our ability to solve climate change. < end rant >
None of that is to say that a non-scientist cannot write science fiction, or that scientists are somehow less likely to make these kinds of mistakes. We all just need to do our research, make use of beta readers with the right backgrounds, and use our best judgment.
Okay, now that I’ve spewed my views on the glories and pitfalls of science fiction, I’d like to show you some of the amazing stories I read in my class! The selection certainly added to my overall science fiction-literacy-supremacy, and it can do the same for you. As a special treat, I’ve included teasers to intrigue you to read the selections you fancy most:
“The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1846): Science fiction is born! Two short stories, written at a time when science was an emerging field and dangerously mixed with religion and magic. Both explore the consequences of a mad scientist meddling with the purity of nature in the form of a beautiful young woman (typical).
“The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster (1909): Enlightened citizens live in isolated pods run by the Machine while exploring their souls all day long. Sound a bit like today’s world?
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (1937) (notice the trend of going forward in time yet?): Not really a novel so much as a speculative narrative on exploring the galaxy without physical limits that compares star death to biological processes and portrays God as an artist dissatisfied with his painting ready for the next thing.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961): Oooooh this book is so cool. Hard sci-fi meets cosmic horror. In the search for extra-terrestrial life, humanity is actually seeking mirrors -- more versions of ourselves. And when we finally do meet the aliens, we won’t be able to comprehend their existence, let alone communicate. This book was also made into a horrendously slow-paced 2007 moving starring George Clooney and an expressionless but sexy woman.
Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick (1985, published posthumously) (warning, this book is near impossible to obtain): Comparisons between superior alien lifeforms and God. Loads of political commentary about ‘Murica.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020): It’s not often in a university literature course you read something so recent. This is a tome, not a novel, written as a series of interconnected vignettes about the near-future impacts of climate change. It’s extremely hard-scifi with lots of nerdy economic and technical stuff. I just wished he talked about nuclear power…
And that’s a wrap on my reflections, and all that homework I had to do! My proudest accomplishment from the course, apart from the new literary insights I've gained, is that I largely succeeded in going incognito as a proper college student majoring in physics. Gotta brag about that while I still can. 😊
George Clooney and the expressionless but sexy woman pictured below.
