The Foundation of S.F. Success (with apologies for the title to Isaac Asimov)
Revised August 12, 2005

There are several things that any science fiction story needs to have in order to even be considered a science fiction story in my book (no pun intended), and I'll devote this essay to exploring what I believe those are. But before that, let's just look at a general definition of the term "science fiction." I've heard science fiction as a genre being described as stories that explore the nature of humanity through technology. That's a rather apt way of putting it. The good science fiction stories are the ones that make us draw parallels between the characters in the book and ourselves, that make us realize how much humanity will change based on the way futuristic societies work and at the same time how very little we change fundamentally. Then again, any good writer will make you sympathize with the characters in the story, not just science fiction writers.

Science fiction does explore the nature of humanity, true, but by its very name it's also supposed to be a genre about science and technology. I personally believe-- although this may be controversial-- that the technology that a science fiction story uses needs to be at least a somewhat realistic extension of current technology. (Although this may just be the hard science fiction fan in me coming out, which is probably why I've always liked Arthur C. Clarke so much. The man knows how to give enough detail about future technology without bogging us down in details.) If you don't utilize our current understanding of science and technology to write a science fiction story, then you're writing a fantasy story, not a science fiction story. In other words, if you can just make up whatever technology you want, without a basis in our current understanding of science, then you might as well be writing a fantasy story. For example, the idea of visiting parallel universes is a pretty common one in science fiction. So say you're a science fiction writer, and you want to make your characters in this story visit a parallel universe. How are they going to get there? What sort of technology are they going to use? How does that technology work? A good science fiction story will both ask and answer these questions in a realistic manner, based on the author's understanding of current technology. I've always hated the "technobabble" found on shows such as Star Trek, the language where the characters throw big scientific-sounding terms around to explain away the technology they use.

As a corollary to this, if you're going to be using realistic extensions of current technology, then the story must necessarily be set somewhere close in the future. This means that a science fiction writer also must take into account exactly how much humans and their technology will change between now and the date the story is set in. Sure, you can write a story set in the year 4500, but that's a date so far away that people, unless they happen to be psychic, have no idea of how humans and technology will change between now and that date. The farther and farther a science fiction story's setting goes from Earth in the year (whatever year it is now), the more and more the science fiction writer is forced to make up. This is not to say that science fiction writers have to be 100% accurate in the predictions that they make about the future, but they should make a realistic attempt to extend current societies and technology into the future. Unless a science fiction writer has come up with a genuine new discovery that could revolutionize the way we look at science, they're better off just sticking to realistic extensions of technology. If a science fiction writer comes up with a plausible scientific hypothesis for how getting into parallel universes would work, for example, and uses that in his/her story, then that might be considered a reasonable extension of technology. If, on the other hand, a science fiction writer resorts to technobabble in order to explain away technology not found in the present day, then they're just making up technology and the story is no better in terms of scientific accuracy than a fantasy story. Realistic technology-- again, barring any scientific breakthroughs-- must be utilized in a society reasonably close to the present day in a story for that story to be considered as science fiction.

I personally believe that there are several prerequisites to writing good science fiction. The first is an understanding of history and human psychology. If you're going to be writing a book about how humans change in the future, and how they respond to new technology/utilize that new technology, you're going to have to understand a little something about humans themselves and how they change over time. Studying history will also give an understanding of how not only humans, but the societies that shape them change over time. Orson Scott Card was right when he said that you don't have to know a whole lot about science to write a science fiction story; at the heart of most good science fiction stories is some larger moral about humanity and how it changes in the future. I'm not saying that all science fiction stories necessarily have to be moral parables about humanity, but it is an essential part of the genre. The best example I can currently think of of a book that explores humanity through technology is 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke. I'm a little hesitant to include this as "science fiction," because parts of the book (the ending in particular) are rather fantastic and have nothing to do with science or technology. But the rest of the book is a realistic enough extension of technology for me-- excepting possibly the use of AI in this book-- so I'm including it as science fiction. I believe we all know the plot: a monolith is found on the moon that sends out a signal towards Saturn, and a manned spaceship headed by the AI HAL 9000 is sent to investigate. This book makes us think about the way the human mind works through HAL, the AI: he was designed to pattern the human mind, and the actions he takes throughout the book are consistent with what a neurotic human might think. It also sort of makes you wonder how programmers will deal with creating AIs in the future-- how human can we make AIs? Not only that, but the book makes us think about the origins of humankind itself through the group of man-apes at the beginning of the book. Science fiction should not only be about technology, but about how humans change over time based on technology and how societies work in the future.

The second prerequisite is understanding at least a little bit about science and technology. Science fiction as a genre is not only defined by the way that it makes us think about humans through technology, it's defined by the technology itself to an extent. Although it's not necessary to hold a Ph.D in Physics in order to write a science fiction story, a science fiction writer should have a reasonable grasp of current science and technology in order to realistically extend it into the future (a component of good science fiction, as already discussed).

The third prerequisite is imagination. The rest of these constraints sound rather limiting, don't they? You have to write the story no later than so many years in the future, with realistic extensions of today's technology. But a science fiction writer, and indeed any writer that writes about things that don't involve the current state of humankind, must find some way to utilize these components in a story that he creates. In other words, the idea of humanity viewed through the lens of a futuristic society and the technology used in a science fiction story are merely the foundation upon which a science fiction writer builds his/her story. The writer still needs to come up with some concept that will make the science fiction story more than a dry exposition of how technology might be used in the future. I believe that Isaac Asimov understood this idea quite well: take his collection of stories in I, Robot, for example. The foundation of technology that he uses are the laws of robotics, which (although a bit naive) are a reasonable thing for programmers to give to AIs. For reference, the laws are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. and 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. The entire book is based around the paradoxes and conflicts that these laws create in robots' dealings with human beings, as well as how technology grows more sophisticated over time. So not only do we have a reasonable idea for laws that might be included in a future AI, but we have a look at how robots think and how they evolve and become more sophisticated over time.

To sum it up, a good science fiction story explores the idea of how humanity changes through technology, with a realistic extension of that technology itself. (No technobabble, please.) The science fiction writer, for his/her part, should have a grasp of history/human psychology, science, and an imagination in order to write a good science fiction story. For more information on good science fiction, read some books by these writers:
-Isaac Asimov (read "The Foundation of S.F. Success" for a not-entirely-serious look at science fiction)
-Arthur C. Clarke
-Stanislaw Lem
-among others...


Note: I revised this editorial because in the year since I wrote the old one, I've read a lot more science fiction and, I feel, come to understand the genre better. Also, some of the stuff I wrote in the other essay was just stupid and unrealistic to expect in a science fiction story. If you still want to read the old one, for whatever reason, feel free to email me at sixth_fantasy at yahoo.com and ask for it.