The science fiction and fantasy genre is an oeuvre of weird and wonderful. The mythic, the otherworldly, and the speculative are not so much an everyday occurrence as they are a mission statement. People come to science fiction and fantasy for the familiarity -- most children's fairy tales are deeply fantastical -- but they stay for reasons as varied as why people read at all.
Science fiction is perhaps best understood by an alternative name for the genre: speculative fiction. It is fiction that asks questions about the human condition and the meaning of life by taking us beyond everyday life. We go to strange planets, far distant futures or even to our own past — in order to learn about who we really are. Science fiction takes its readers to far off galaxies in order to help them understand life on earth more clearly. The results can be startling and profound.
A book like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels really captures what science fiction is about. Writing in a scientific and enlightened era, Swift knew his readers wanted plausible explanations that helped them suspend disbelief and follow his plot. Swift made the manner of Gulliver’s travels consistent with the scientific knowledge of the day; the countries he described are located in remote locations that were still unexplored in Swift’s time. As a result, Gulliver’s voyages to Lilliput, was consistent with what was scientifically known at the time. The book describe voyages to Lilliput but the subject is always home.
Taken as a whole, the field of science fiction today is where most of the most interesting thought about human society can be found. It is an exploration of our self, as individuals and as a society removed from the limiting restrictions of the present and recreating a world of amazing possibilities.
We should read this genre to help open our minds to the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us. The job of our times is to build a radically new world; science fiction helps point the way.
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