What defines "science fiction?"

[Nerds_feather]

Hey Everyone,

The third episode in our Blogtable series is live! The prompt this time is:

What does the term “science fiction” denote to you?

• Do you favor a broader or narrower definition of what science fiction “is” or “isn’t?”
• How central is speculative science to science fiction, and how rigorous or “hard” does that science need to be?
• More broadly, what, if anything, makes a story “science fictional?”

How important is it for science fiction to have a clear identity--as distinct from fantasy or mimetic/literary fiction?

• What are the potential benefits and pitfalls of transgressing genre boundaries, such as those delineating science fiction from fantasy or mimetic/literary fiction?
• How does the transgression of genre boundaries affect the kinds of stories being told and range of literary statements being made?
• What about staying within definitional boundaries--does this (generally) serve as a means of focus or constraint?

The discussants are:

1. Ian Sales (BFSA award-winning author and former Chrons regular)
2. Aliette de Bodard (Nebula, BFSA and Locus award-winning author)
3. Paul Kincaid (aka the greatest living critic of science fiction)

As you will see, they each present very different ideas on what science fiction "is" and "is not." Also, I'm posting this both to see what you all think of their ideas and to see what ideas you have of your own, insofar as they differ from the ones presented!

 

[tinkerdan]

I think the discussion highlights what I've always thought; which is that genre are for libraries; bookstores; and Publishing houses. They are for sorting and getting the book in front of the correct reader.

Any further discussion or distillation of them might work well with awards, book clubs, writing circles and reviewers; but authors should be weary lest their words come back and bite them later.

Really I think it all should be called skiffy and let it be; at that.