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{{SF}}
:''This article is on science fiction literature. For film, see [[History of science fiction films]].
The [[literary genre]] of '''science fiction (SF)''' is diverse and since there is little consensus of definition among scholars or devotees, its origin is an open question. Some offer works like the [[Sumer|Sumerian]] ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' as the primal texts of [[science fiction]]. Others argue that [[science fiction]] became possible only with the [[scientific revolution]], notably discoveries by [[Galileo Galilei|Galileo]] and [[Isaac Newton|Newton]] in [[astronomy]], [[physics]] and [[mathematics]]. Some place the origin with the [[Gothic novel]], particularly [[Mary Shelley]]'s ''[[Frankenstein]]''.
Science fiction developed and boomed in the [[20th century]], as the deep penetration of [[science]] and [[invention]]s into society created an interest in [[literature]] that explored [[technology]]'s influence on people and society. Today, science fiction has significant influence on world culture and thought. It is represented in all varieties of ordinary and advanced [[Mass media|media]].
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The development of American science fiction as a self-conscious [[genre]] dates in part from [[1926]], when [[Hugo Gernsback]] founded ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' magazine, which was devoted exclusively to science fiction stories. Though science fiction magazines had been published in Sweden and Germany before, ''Amazing Stories'' was the first English language magazine to solely publish science fiction. Since he is notable for having chosen the variant term ''scientifiction'' to describe this incipient genre, the stage in the genre's development, his name and the term "scientifiction" are often thought to be inextricably linked. Though Gernsback encouraged stories featuring scientific realism to educate his readers about scientific principles, such stories shared the pages with exciting stories with little basis in reality. Published in this and other pulp magazines with great and growing success, such scientifiction stories were not viewed as serious literature but as sensationalism. Nevertheless, a magazine devoted entirely to science fiction was a great boost to the public awareness of the scientific speculation story.
''Amazing Stories'' competed with other pulp magazines, including ''Weird Tales'', which primarily published fantasy stories, ''Astounding Stories'', and ''Wonder'' throughout the 1930s.
[[Fritz Lang]]'s movie ''[[Metropolis (1927 movie)|Metropolis]]'' ([[1927]]), in which the first cinematic [[humanoid]] [[robot]] was seen, and the Italian [[Futurist]]s' love of machines are indicative of both the hopes and fears of the world between the big European wars. ''Metropolis'' was an extremely successful film and its art-deco inspired aesthetic became the guiding aesthetic of the science fiction pulps for some time.
===Modernist writing===
Writers attempted to respond to the new world in the post-World War I era. In the 1920s and [[1930s|30s]] writers entirely unconnected with science fiction were exploring new ways of telling a story and new ways of treating [[time]], [[space]] and [[experience]] in the [[narrative]] form. The posthumously published works of [[Franz Kafka]] (who died in [[1924]]) and the works of [[modernism|modernist]] writers such as [[James Joyce]], [[T.S. Eliot]], [[Virginia Woolf]] and others featured stories in which time and individual identity could be expanded, contracted, looped, etc. While this work was unconnected to science fiction as a genre, it did deal with the impact of modernity (technology, science, and change) upon people's lives, and decades later, during the [[New Wave (science fiction)|New Wave]] movement, some modernist literary techniques entered science fiction.
Czech playwright [[Karel Capek]]'s plays ''[[The Makropulos Affair]]'', ''[[R.U.R.]]'', The Life of the Insects, and the novel ''[[War with the Newts]]'' were nodernist literature which invented important science fiction motifs. ''R.U.R.'' in particular is noted for introducing the word [[robot]] to the world's vocabulary.
A strong theme in modernist writing was ''alienation'', the making strange of familiar surroundings so that settings and behaviour usually regarded as "[[normal]]" are seen as though they were the seemingly bizarre practices of an alien culture. The audience of modernist plays or the readership of modern novels is often led to question everything.
At the same time, a tradition of more literary science fiction novels, treating with a dissonance between perceived Utopian conditions and the full expression of human desires, began to develop: the [[Dystopia|dystopian novel]]. For some time, the science fictional elements of these works were ignored by mainstream literary critics, though they owe a much greater debt to the science fiction genre than the modernists do. Sincerely Utopian writing, including much of Wells, has also deeply influenced science fiction, beginning with [[Hugo Gernsback]]'s ''[[Ralph 124C 41+]]''.
[[Image:Bravenewworld.jpg|thumb|left|100px|''[[Brave New World]]'']]
[[Image:Book_cover_1984.jpg|thumb|right|100px|''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'']]
[[Yevgeny Zamyatin]]'s 1920 novel ''[[We (novel)|We]]'' depicts a totalitarian attempt to create a utopia that results in a dystopic state where free will is lost. Aldous Huxley bridged the gap between the literary establishment and the world of science fiction with ''[[Brave New World]]'' ([[1932]]), an ironic portrait of a stable and ostensibly happy society built by human mastery of genetic manipulation. [[George Orwell]] wrote perhaps the most highly regarded of these literary dystopias, ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', in [[1950]]. He envisions a technologically-governed totalitarian regime that dominates society through total information control. Zamyatin's ''We'' is recognized as an influence on both Huxley and Orwell; Orwell published a book review of the ''We'' shortly after it was first published in English, several years before writing ''1984''.
[[Ray Bradbury|Ray Bradbury's]] ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'', [[Ursula LeGuin|Ursula LeGuin's]] ''[[The Dispossessed]]'', much of [[Kurt Vonnegut|Kurt Vonnegut's]] writing, and many other works of later science fiction continue this dialogue between utopia and dystopia.
===Public mythology===
[[Orson Welles]]' [[Mercury Theatre]] produced a [[radio]] version of ''[[The War of the Worlds (radio)|The War of the Worlds]]'' which, famously, panicked large numbers of people who believed the programme to be a real newscast. The idea of visitors or invaders from outer space became firmly part of the public [[mythology]].
During [[World War II]] pilots speculated on the possible origins of the [[Foo fighter]]s they saw around them in the air. The German flying bombs, V1s and V2s added to the growing wonder about the future of space travel. Jet planes and the [[atom bomb]] were developed. When a story of a [[flying saucer]] crash was circulated from [[Roswell, New Mexico]] in [[1947]], science fiction had become [[folklore]].
== The Golden Age ==
The period of the [[1940s]] and [[1950s]] is often referred to as the [[Golden Age of Science Fiction]].
===''Astounding'' Magazine===
With the emergence in [[1937]] of a demanding editor, [[John W. Campbell|John W. Campbell, Jr.]], at ''[[Astounding (magazine)|Astounding Science Fiction]]'', and with the publication of stories and novels by such writers as [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Arthur C. Clarke]], and [[Robert A. Heinlein]], science fiction began to gain status as serious fiction.
Campbell exercised an extraordinary influence over the work of his stable of writers, thus shaping the direction of science fiction. Asimov wrote, "We were extensions of himself; we were his literary clones." Under Campbell's direction, the years from 1938-1950 would become known as the [[Golden Age of Science Fiction|"Golden Age of science fiction"]], though Asimov points out that the term Golden Age has been used more loosely to refer to other periods in science fiction's history.
Campbell's guidance to his writers included his famous dictum, "Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." He emphasized a higher quality of writing than editors before him, giving special attention to developing the group of young writers who attached themselves to him.
Ventures into the genre by writers who were not devoted exclusively to science fiction also added respectability. Magazine covers of bug-eyed monsters and scantily-clad women, however, preserved the image of a sensational genre appealing only to adolescents. There was naturally a public desire for sensation, a desire of people to be taken out of their dull lives to the worlds of space travel and adventure.
An interesting footnote to Campbell's regime is his contribution to the rise of [[L. Ron Hubbard|L. Ron Hubbard's]] religion [[Scientology]]. Hubbard was considered a promising science fiction writer and a protege of Campbell, who published Hubbard's first articles about [[Dianetics]] and his new religion. As Campbell's reign as editor of ''Astounding'' progressed, Campbell gave more attention to ideas like Hubbard's, writing editorials in support of Dianetics. Though ''Astounding'' continued to have a loyal fanbase, readers started turning to other magazines to find science fiction stories.
===The Golden Age in Other Media===
With the new source material provided by the Golden Age writers, advances in special effects, and a public desire for material that treated with the advances in technology of the time, all the elements were in place to create significant works of science fiction film.
As a result, science fiction film came into its own in the 1950s, producing films like ''[[Destination Moon]]'', ''[[Them!]]'', ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]'', ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'', and many others. Many of these movies were based on stories by Campbell's writers. ''[[The Thing]]'' was adapted from a Campbell story, ''Them'' was based on a [[Jack Finney]] novel, ''Destination Moon'' on a Heinlein novel, and ''[[The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms]]'' was derived from a Ray Bradbury short story. [[John Wyndham|John Wyndham's]] [[cosy catastrophe]]s, including ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'' and ''[[The Kraken Wakes]]'', provided important source material as well.
At the same time, science fiction began to appear on a new medium- the [[television]]. In the mid-50s, ''[[The Quatermass Experiment]]'' was shown on British television, the first significant science fiction show. In the United States, science fiction heroes like [[Captain Video]], [[Flash Gordon]], and [[Buck Rogers]] were shown on shows that more closely resembled pre-Campbellian science fiction.
===The End of the Golden Age===
Seeking greater freedom of expression, writers started to publish their articles in other magazines, including ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction]]'', ''If'', a resurrected ''Amazing Stories'', and most notably, ''[[Galaxy science fiction|Galaxy]]''.
Under editors [[H.L. Gold]] and then [[Frederik Pohl]], ''Galaxy'' stressed a more literary form of science fiction that took cues from more mainstream literature. It was less insistent on scientific plausibility than Campbell's ''Astounding''. The rise of ''Galaxy'' signaled the end of Golden Age science fiction, though most of the Golden Age writers were able to adapt to the changes in the genre and keep writing. Some, however, moved to other fields. Isaac Asimov and several others began to write scientific fact almost exclusively.
==The New Wave and its Aftermath==
===The Beat Generation===
Samuel Beckett's modernistic writings ''[[The Unnamable (novel)|The Unnamable]]'' and ''[[Waiting for Godot]]'' were influential upon writing in the [[1950s]]. In the former all sense of place and time are dispensed with and all that remains is a voice poised between the urge to continue existing and the urge to find silence and oblivion. In the latter, time and the meaning of cause and effect are played with to great effect. Beckett's influence could be felt on science fiction, which moved toward more serious reflection on being.
[[William S. Burroughs]] ([[1914]]-[[1997]]) was the writer who finally brought science fiction together with the modernist trend in literature. With the help of [[Jack Kerouac]] Burroughs published ''[[The Naked Lunch]]'', the first of a series of novels employing a semi-[[dada|dadaistic]] technique called the [[cut-up technique|Cut-up]] and modernistic [[deconstruction]]s of conventional society, pulling away the mask of normality to reveal horrors beneath. Burroughs showed visions of society as a conspiracy of aliens, monsters, police states, drug dealers and alternate levels of reality. The [[linguistics]] of science fiction merged with the experiments of modernism in a [[beat generation]] nightmare.
===The New Wave===
In [[1960]] British novelist [[Kingsley Amis]] published ''New Maps of Hell'', a literary history and examination of the field of science fiction. This serious attention from a mainstream, acceptable writer did a great deal of good, eventually, for the reputation of science fiction.
A major milestone was the publication, in [[1965]], of [[Frank Herbert]]'s ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]'', a dense, complex, and detailed work of fiction featuring political intrigue in a future galaxy, strange and mystical religious beliefs, and the eco-system of the desert planet [[Arrakis]]. Another was the emergence of the work of Roger Zelazny, whose novels such as [[Lord of Light]] and his famous [[Amber novels]] showed that the lines between science-fiction, fantasy, religion, and social commentary could be very fine.
Also in 1965 French director [[Jean-Luc Godard]]'s film [[Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution|Alphaville]] used the medium of [[dystopia|dystopian]] and [[apocalyptic science fiction]] to explore language and society.
In Britain, the 1960s generation of writers, dubbed "[[New Wave (science fiction)|The New Wave]]", were experimenting with different forms of science fiction, stretching the genre towards [[surrealism]], psychological drama and mainstream currents. The 60s New Wave was centred around the writing in the magazine ''[[New Worlds (magazine)|New Worlds]]'' after [[Michael Moorcock]] assumed editorial control in [[1963]]. William Burroughs was a big influence. The writers of the New Wave also believed themselves to be building on the legacy of the [[French New Wave]] artistic movement. Though the New Wave was largely a British movement, there were parallel developments taking place in American science fiction at the same time. The relation of the British New Wave to American science fiction was made clear by [[Harlan Ellison|Harlan Ellison's]] original anthology [[Dangerous Visions]], which presented science fiction writers, both American and British, writing stories that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in a science fiction magazine. Isaac Asimov, writing an introduction to the anthology, labeled it the ''Second Revolution'', after the first revolution that produced the Golden Age.
The New Wave and their contemporaries placed a greater emphasis on style and a more highbrow form of a storytelling. They also sought controversy in subjects older science fiction writers had avoided. For the first time sexuality, which Kingsley Amis had complained was nearly ignored in science fiction, was given serious consideration by writers like [[Samuel Delany]], [[Norman Spinrad]], and [[Theodore Sturgeon]]. Contemporary political issues were also given voice, as [[John Brunner (novelist)|John Brunner]] and [[J.G. Ballard]] wrote cautionary tales about a ruined environment.
Asimov noted that the Second Revolution was far less clear cut than the first, attributing this to the development of the anthology, which made older stories more prominent. But a number of Golden Age writers changed their style as the New Wave hit. Robert Heinlein switched from his Campbellian [[Robert A. Heinlein#"Future History" short fiction|Future History]] stories to stylistically adventuresome, sexually open works of fiction, notably ''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'' and ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]''. Isaac Asimov wrote the New Wave-ish ''[[The Gods Themselves]]''. Many others also continued successfully as styles changed.
Science fiction films took inspiration from the changes in the genre. [[Stanley Kubrick|Stanley Kubrick's]] [[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]], [[Doctor Strangelove]], and [[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]] gave visual form to the genre's new dependence on style.
[[Ursula LeGuin]], working off small modifications to an imagined society, extrapolated science fictional visions that were anthropological rather than technical. [[Philip K. Dick]] explored the metaphysics of the mind in a series of novels and stories that rarely seemed dependent on their science fictional content. LeGuin, Dick, and others like them became associated with the concept of [[soft science fiction]] more than with the New Wave.
Soft science fiction was contrasted to the notion of [[hard science fiction]]. Though scientific plausibility had been a central tenet of the genre since Gernsback, writers like [[Larry Niven]] and [[Poul Anderson]] gave the idea new life, crafting stories with a more sophisticated writing style and more deeply characterized heroes, while preserving a high level of scientific sophistication.
==Science Fiction in the 80s==
===Cyberpunk===
By the early [[1980s]], the New Wave had faded out as an important presence in the science fiction landscape. As new personal computing technologies became an integral part of society, science fiction writers felt the urge to make statements about its influence on the cultural and political landscape. Drawing on the work of the New Wave, the [[Cyberpunk]] movement developed in the early 80s. Though it placed the same influence on style that the New Wave did, it developed its own unique style, typically focusing on the 'punks' of their imagined future underworld. [[William Gibson (novelist)|William Gibson's]] ''[[Neuromancer]]'', published in [[1984]] announced the cyberpunk movement to the larger literary world and was a tremendous commercial success. Other key writers in the movement included [[Bruce Sterling]], [[John Shirley]], and later [[Neal Stephenson]]. Though Cyberpunk would later be cross-pollinated with other styles of science-fiction, there seemed to be some notion of ideological purity in the beginning. John Shirley compared the Cyberpunk movement to a tribe (Cadigan 2002).
===New Space Opera===
The trend toward gritty, near-future stories represented the cyberpunks was countered by a revival and renewal of the tradition of [[space opera]]: stories set in the medium to far future and featuring interstellar civilizations, exotic technologies, and large-scale conflicts and natural events. Though such stories had never entirely disappeared from the field--[[Poul Anderson]] and [[Gordon R. Dickson]], for example, had been writing space adventures consistently since the 1950s and Larry Niven since the 1960s. But in the [[1980s]] the old tradition was given a boost by such series as [[David Brin|David Brin's]] [[Uplift Universe|Uplift Saga]], [[C.J. Cherryh|C.J. Cherryh's]] Alliance-Union Universe, and the [[Ender's Game Series|Ender]] novels of [[Orson Scott Card]].
Throughout the decade, established writers continued to explore this territory: [[Greg Benford]] and [[Poul Anderson]] expanded on earlier work, [[Arthur C. Clarke]] added to his [[Rama]] series, and Isaac Asimov produced more [[Foundation]] novels. Emerging writers also offered large-scale interstellar adventures, for example, [[Greg Bear]]'s ''Eon'' (1985), [[Iain M. Banks]]'s ''Consider Phlebas'' (1987), [[Paul McAuley]]'s ''400 Billion Stars'' (1988), [[Bruce Sterling]]'s ''Schismatrix'' (1985), and [[Michael Swanwick]]'s ''Vacuum Flowers'' (1987).
While cyberpunk maintained a high profile through the 1980s, this new-generation space opera received more acclaim from the mainstream science fiction community. Though Gibson won both the [[Nebula Award]] and [[Hugo Award]] for ''[[Neuromancer]]'', the majority of the winners of these awards from the 1980s onward could be classified as space opera (see Hartwell and Cramer, cited below).
The term "New Space Opera" finally emerged as a description of a body of work that had started to appear in the [[1990s]] from UK and Australian writers such as [[Neal Asher]], [[Stephen Baxter]], [[Peter F. Hamilton]], [[Ken MacLeod]], [[Richard K. Morgan]], [[Alistair Reynolds]], [[Charles Stross]], and the team of [[Sean Williams]] and [[Shane Dix]]. These writers were seen to be pushing the already-large envelope of space opera, integrating the latest SF ideas and motifs (nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, personality uploading, radical bodily transformations, cutting-edge physics and cosmology). American writers whose work has followed the same path include [[Wil McCarthy]], [[Linda Nagata]], [[Robert Reed]], [[Dan Simmons]], [[Vernor Vinge]], [[Scott Westerfeld]], [[Walter Jon Williams]], and [[George Zebrowski]].
''[[Locus (magazine)|Locus]]'' magazine devoted part its August 2003 issue to old and new space opera, and David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have outlined a history of space opera that places the new works in context in "How Shit Became Shinola: Definition and Redefinition of Space Opera" (2003). [http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2003/0308/Space%20Opera%20Redefined/Review.htm]
==Contemporary Science Fiction and its future==
Contemporary science fiction has been marked by the spread of cyberpunk to other parts of the marketplace of ideas. No longer is cyberpunk a ghettoized tribe within science fiction, but an integral part of the field whose interactions with other parts have been the primary theme of science fiction at the turn of the century.
Notably, cyberpunk has influenced film, in such works as [[Johnny Mnemonic]] and [[The Matrix series]], and the emerging medium of [[computer games]], with the critically aclaimed [[Deus Ex]]. This entrance of cyberpunk into mainstream culture has led to the introduction of cyberpunk's stylistic motifs to the masses, particularly the [[cyberpunk fashion]] style.
The cyberpunk reliance on near-future science fiction has deepened. In William Gibson's [[2003]] novel, ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]'', the story is a cyberpunk story told in the present, the ultimate limit of the near-future extrapolation.
Cyberpunk's ideas have spread in other directions, though. Space opera writers have written work featuring cyberpunk motifs, including David Brin's ''[[Kiln People]]'' and [[Ken MacLeod|Ken MacLeod's]] [[Fall Revolution series]]. This merging of the two disparate threads of science fiction in the 1980s has produced an extrapolational literature in contrast to those technological stories told in the present.
[[John Clute]] writes that science fiction at the turn of the century can be understood in two ways: "a vision of the triumph of SF as a genre and as a series of outstanding texts which figured to our gaze the significant futures that, during those years, came to pass... [or]... indecipherable from the world during those years... fatally indistinguishable from the world it attempted to adumbrate, to signify."
==References==
Aldiss, Brian, and David Hargrove. ''Trillion Year Spree.'' Atheneum, 1986.
Amis, Kingsley. ''New Maps of Hell.'' Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1960.
Asimov, Isaac. ''Asimov on Science Fiction.''Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1981.
Cadigan, Pat. ''The Ultimate Cyberpunk'' iBooks, 2002.
de Camp, L. Sprague and Catherine Crook de Camp. ''Science Fiction Handbook, Revised.'' Owlswick Press, 1975.
Ellison, Harlan. ''Dangerous Visions.'' Signet Books, 1967.
Landon, Brooks. ''Science Fiction after 1900.'' Twayne Publishers, 1997.
''The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction.'' Ed. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
''A Companion to Science Fiction.'' Ed. David Seed. Blackwell, 2005.
''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.'' Ed. [[John Clute]] and [[Peter Nicholls]]. Second ed. Orbit, 1993.
''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Themes, Works, and Wonders.'' Ed. Gary Westfahl. Greenwood Press, 2005.
==Sources==
*[http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/books/scienceFiction.jsp Bison Frontiers of Imagination]
*[http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-detective-stories--science-fiction--ghost-stories--supernatural-general.html Dover Publications]
[[Category:Science fiction]]
[[et:Ulmekirjandus]]
[[gl:Historia da ficción científica]]
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