Science Fiction Questions
Bring on the tough stuff. There's not just one right answer.
- What's the line that distinguishes the science fiction genre from other genres such as speculative fiction or fantasy? What elements does science fiction have in common with these other genres? And how does it differ from them?
- Is science fiction "serious" literature? Can we include the best science fiction works along with other canonical literary works, like those by writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen and William Faulkner? Or is science fiction necessarily an "inferior" genre?
- Science fiction is closely associated with the novel and the short story form, given that the most famous works of Science Fiction have been written in these forms. That said, do you think that we can we have a science fiction poem?
- Why is science fiction so obsessed with time, and specifically the future? How does sci-fi's treatment of time challenge some of the conventional ideas we have about time?
- How does science fiction's depiction of non-human or semi-human characters challenge or redefine what we mean by the "human"?
- How do authors use the conventions of the sci-fi genre to say something about our own time and place? Why do you think science fiction lends itself to being used in this allegorical way?
- Why do you think male writers are overrepresented in the sci-fi genre? Why don't we have more women writing science fiction?
- Is science fiction "entertainment" or is it "literature"? How does "entertainment" overlap with "literature" and how does it diverge from it?
- Why is the idea of the journey or the voyage so central to science fiction?
- What's up with sci-fi's obsession with outer space? Why is it that sci-fi writers find this realm so fascinating, and why do they like writing about it so much?