Literature as a Form of Science Fiction

Within Science Fiction there are no constraints. There are no limits. You are free to explore any avenue your tortured imagination can conjure up. The only overriding limitation is the (sometimes) need for the author/ess to be true and consistent to him/herself and their reader.

In the first scenario, Edward Boringoldfart is stuck as Edward Boringoldfart, and the possible number of reactions he has to whatever it was that came in through the door are severely limited. However, in the second scenario we have many more options -

Within Science Fiction, the possible number of avenues to explore is limited only by ones imagination, and of course, the residents of those avenues. We are no longer limited by the artificial constraints of a provincial setting. We can now be a Martini- - any time, any place, anywhere. We could have our hero torturing himself, trying to find the answer to a particularly pressing problem. "What would Alexander the Great have done in this situation?" he moans. In Science Fiction we'd go and ask him. Thats how much scope weve got.

We could take a young soldier in the time of the crusades. He takes shelter in a run-down, brick-built (it's better than being stockily built) hovel and finds a frightened young girl hiding there. They chat for a few minutes and decide that, if they are to die, as seems likely, theyll have a modicum of fun before they do. The soldiers fingers frantically fumble at the fastenings of the girls dress, which slowly and tantalisingly falls open and drops from her shoulders, revealing ...

... a 24-channel FM receiver with twin cassette (I neednt say where this is sited) and CD player and a 4inch colour TV screen. The whole thing couples as a matter transmitter and communicator and the young soldier takes the girls hand and speaks into her palm.

"Beam me up, Spotty" he says, and the two figures fade from view just as two Arab soldiers enter. One turns to the other and says,

"Dont you just hate it when that happens?"

I have been flippant and irreverent, but that is just my style. Stir in the styles of countless thousands of other writers and the resultant brew is a heady mixture indeed. Science Fiction allows us the opportunity to conjure situations and characters that couldn't possibly exist in a 'real' sense - but which are no less real than any other form of fiction. After all, any fiction is just that - fiction. It exists purely in the writer's mind until it is committed to the page and later released by the reader. Science Fiction gives us more potential situations, more characters, far, far more scope than any other form of literature, and yet it is berated for not being as worthy as other more 'classical' forms of literature. First and foremost, literature is escapist entertainment. It gives us the opportunity to escape from our tedious, humdrum world and enter new worlds that we would not normally have access to. Science Fictions gives us far more worlds to enter than any other form of literature. It really is the only form of literature worthy of consideration, and any other branch of the literature family is merely trying to be Science Fiction.

Peter Bottomley

May 2003

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