This month At Boundary’s Edge has passed a major milestone. One hundred thousand all-time views. That’s one hundred thousand times people have come to read all my thoughts on science fiction. So, to celebrate, here’s a very special article. After all, if you’re interested in science fiction, there’s one question you’ve almost definitely asked or heard at some point: What exactly is Science Fiction?

Prior Definitions

Any good scholar builds on the works of the past. The term ‘science fiction’ has been in the cultural vocabulary for almost a century now, and precise definitions have triggered heated debate ever since. Hugo Gernsback, who coined the term in his 1929 magazine Science Wonder Stories, argued that that science fiction (which Gernsback previously called ‘scientifiction’ as far back as 1916) should inform the reader about science just as much as it entertained. He claimed that the correct balance was ’75 percent literature interwoven with 25 percent science’ and cited HG Wells and Jules Verne as examples of the genre.

The author and critic Brian Aldiss, in his 1973 work Billion Year Spree argued that ‘Science fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge.’ Aldiss was among the first scholars to take a serious examination of science fiction, aided in no small part by the fact that the genre had existed in a recognisable form for almost fifty years at the time of his writing. Aldiss also reaches back further than Verne, and popularised the idea that Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is the first true science fiction novel.

In his 2000 critical work Science Fiction, the author and academic Adam Roberts, drawing on a large body of prior scholarly works makes the argument that science fiction is ‘a means of symbolically writing about history.’ As with Aldiss, Roberts has the advantage of a large body of existing science fiction on which to base his findings. His argument that science fiction uses symbology and metaphors to explain our own past and present is likewise in a similar vein to Aldiss’ theories. Roberts, however, posits the origins of science fiction at a far earlier point, with the claim that the first work in the genre is John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

What all of these definitions have in common is that they reach into a time before the creation of the genre in an attempt to legitimise it. Gernsback did not claim to invent the genre, he simply applied the label to an expanse of existing literature. Likewise, Aldiss and Roberts pick well known classics, works that will be and have been studied by academics well outside the science fiction sphere of influence. Milton is a mainstay of university poetry courses, while Shelley is well-renowned as one of the great Gothic authors. Yet Milton, Shelley, Wells, and Verne all have something in common. They did not actively write science fiction. Milton wrote a theological satire. Shelley a gothic novel, Verne his adventures, and Wells his social experiments. Perhaps at best, Wells and Verne might have recognised the term scientific romance. But likely not science fiction. The first person to sit down and actively plan to write a science fiction story was likely to be the first person to read Gernsback’s editorial and decide to submit something to his magazine.

Furthermore, all of these definitions put science fiction on a pedestal. They attempt to elevate it to a highbrow level. The aforementioned desire for legitimacy at work. If these famous works are science fiction, they argue, then science fiction is inherently great literature. Aldiss and Roberts both put forward the notion that science fiction is doing important work in exploring humanity’s relationship to and understanding of science. Aldiss in particular looks down on science fiction that utilises magical or nonsensical explanations for science. Ironic for a man who would go on to write the Helliconia trilogy. Roberts, however, recognises on key point that eludes Aldiss. Not all science is technology. Sociology is also a science. Economics is a science. One could even argue that philosophy, in its attempts to reveal the mysteries of the inner mind, is a science too. If these elements are science, then science fiction is even broader than imagined.

Commercial Definitions

Marketing is a powerful force. In most bookshops, science fiction shares shelf space with fantasy and horror, and frequently with media tie-ins to tangentially related genres. Science fiction books may generally be recognised by spaceships on the cover, being set in space or in the future, or by the names of authors and reviewers who feature on the blurb. Like most marketing, the logic behind this is circular. When one book with a spaceship on the cover performs well, more spaceships are put on more covers, even when a spaceship has little to do with the story under the covers. So let us put aside the marketing department, and look for a deeper definition.

A New Definition

In seeking a new definition for the genre, I have tried to keep an open mind. Unlike Roberts and Aldiss, I do not wish to segregate space opera, for example, from more rigorous hard SF. I am of the opinion that steampunk and cyberpunk are equally science fictional, yet it is difficult to ensnare both of those subgenre sin a single definition. One looks forward, and one looks back, at least upon first examination.

Unlike Gernsback, I do not think that an educational aspect is required, though I do think a basis in current scientific understanding is key. The definition I have created uses the term ‘current’ and is intended to apply at the time of writing. A work does not cease to be science fictional simply because it is superseded by later discoveries. Thus, tales of aliens on Mars are not evicted from the genre due to the discoveries of the Viking landers and their robotic heirs.

The definition I have arrived at, which is subject to further revision, is as follows:

Science Fiction is that genre of fiction which extrapolates from current scientific understandings and projects them into imagined variations of the past, present, and future, through the means of a narrative lens.

Reasoning

I have chosen to use the term ‘fiction’ rather than ‘literature’, as previous scholars have done, in an awareness that science fiction has transcended the prose form. There are now a multitude of television programmes, films, musical works, plays, and games which are all recognisable as science fiction. I do not fault earlier academics for their oversight, as the explosion in science fiction’s popularity could not have been foreseen a century ago.

‘Current scientific understandings’ is a key component of the definition. While I do not expect every, or indeed any, writer in the genre to be a scientist, an awareness of the scientific background is an expectation. Thus, no new science fiction books should be written in which the Moon has a breathable atmosphere. Historical pastiche novels may have leeway in this regard, as they fall under the earlier mentioned category of current understanding as perceived at the time of writing. Through this, works set in alternative pasts are not expected to adhere to modern discoveries as truly as those written and set in the same period.

‘Past, present, and future’ is used to include traditional space fiction, alternative histories, and parallel Earth stories under the same umbrella. All these rely in some form on scientific theories. It deliberately does not include secondary worlds. Therefore, the pseudo science fiction of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe is excluded on the basis that it explicitly has no connection to our universe. However, the Star Wars franchise is included under this definition due it’s alleged positioning ‘a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’ which puts the setting in relation to our universe, albeit through the lens of a scientific myth.

Finally, the ‘narrative lens’ allows for those books which place less emphasis on science, and more on fiction. Much of the space opera subgenre falls under this bracket. The emphasis may be on the lens through which the science is viewed, but the science fictional elements are present nonetheless.

Storytelling which includes on some aspects of science fiction – for example, the invisible cars of James Bond – are arguably considered science fiction under this definition. However, it my argument that such edge cases should not be considered, on the basis that these gadgets are not important to the plot. Though in the case of James Bond, key exception must be made for Moonraker and Die Another Day. It is possible to have science fictional elements, without the narrative lens having an interest in those elements.

Conclusion

Going forward, this new definition is the one I will be applying to fiction to determine its place in the science fiction canon. In future essays, the term science fiction will use this definition unless otherwise noted. Academics and casual enjoyers alike are encouraged to use this definition, and suggest potential revisions.