Overcoming the stigma of Sci-Fi

There has always been an attitude of skepticism, even borderline disdain, for science fiction and fantasy. Years of mainstream popularity have done little to curb this attitude, and many critics will opine that these genres should not be considered serious literature.

To back the claim, they will often contend that these works do not provide the reader with opportunities for serious introspection, for feeling empathy and catharsis, and above all that there is nothing to learn and no opportunity to grow from these stories.

Many will even claim that all speculative fiction is a form of escapist literature.

But does science fiction actually leave no room for introspection or catharsis? This criticism strikes at the fact that stories usually take place in locations or timelines far removed from ours.

The characters in these stories are at interstellar distances or thousands of decades into our own future. Sometimes, they are in the same space and time as ours, but in an alternate reality.

These locales are so different and alien, it often feels as though there could be no parallels between their world and ours. However, as many avid readers of science fiction will know, the truth is completely the opposite.

While other fiction genres focus on the familiar and expose the inconsistencies and absurdities all around us, science fiction takes a very different approach that often works towards similar ends.

By setting the characters and locations in a reality very different from ours, the authors can then emphasise how the basic human condition remains the same. Even in these very different worlds, we see humans with the same fears and aspirations as those around us every day.

Take Isaac Asimov, for instance.

One of his best-known works, The Foundation Saga, is parallels the stagnation and eventual decline of the Roman Empire. Asimov purportedly got the idea for his own series while reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

The Foundation Saga is set in a future Galactic Empire comprised of hundreds of galaxies and thousands of terra-formed planets. The stories are set tens of thousands of years into the future, and humanity has forgotten that it ever lived on a planet called Earth.

Despite all these differences, Foundation is ultimately a story about humans and human civilisation, no different from many in our own history.

We are told about the downward trajectory of the Empire, and how the Foundation led by Hari Seldon hopes to someday restore a similar Empire.

In the Robot and Galactic Empire novels, we catch glimpses of how humanity left Earth behind, colonised planets, and eventually formed the Empire. Interestingly, most of the early colonies seemed to have been ruled by some form of monarchy, but eventually moved towards democracy.

Nothing is mentioned, however, of how these democracies eventually transformed into an empire.

Even though set in galaxies thousands of light years away, Foundation is about the human condition and depends very little on the crutch of speculative technology.

The fall of the Empire is a human failure, just like the eventual rise of the Foundation is a human triumph.

Emperors of the stars are just as subject to politics and palace intrigue as their counterparts on earth. Even more fascinating is the story told in the Robot and Galactic Empire novels as a prequel to the Foundation Universe. These stories involve human efforts to develop superluminal travel and settling other planets to address the population boom on earth.

We are told how the early settlements actually began to distance themselves from Earth, thinking themselves superior and restricting further immigration — a current global issue of our day and age.

The Robot novels speak of the mutual prejudice between Earthmen and settlers, and how eventually the Earthmen cut off ties with early settlers and went on to explore even more distant planets.

For the keen reader, these stories speak volumes through subtle messages on the history and eventual destiny of human civilisations. The prejudice and flaws so rampant in our past that are likely to shape our futures.

Listening in on a conversation between two major characters from the novels, we hear one of them ask the other to focus his efforts not on the individual thread that every human is, but rather on the complete tapestry of humanity.

All told, anyone who thinks these novels are just escapist works with no depth has probably not read them with due attention.

Of course, just one name out of decades' worth of writings does not seem too impressive.

Fortunately, Foundation is not alone.

In the more recent past, Orson Scott Card demonstrated as much with his Ender novels, the first of which was adapted by the Hollywood machine just a couple of years ago.

The story begins like regular pulp fiction about evil aliens, brave humans waging war, and the eventual triumph of humanity.

However, the Ender novels soon turn into something much more profound.

Without spoilers, the latter half of the series is no longer about the alien invasion, but about humanity's contact with different lifeforms, both carbon-based and silicon-based, and the struggles of assimilation and cohabitation.

It is a story of how we must understand the enemy in order to overcome them, and how our own perspective changes through this comprehension.

While we mostly associate the term science fiction with aliens and space operas, some of the most iconic works of science fiction actually deal with the future of our own planet.

In a rather grim manner, a lot of scientists have assumed that technological innovation will eventually lead to a dystopian, totalitarian society.

One of the best examples of this would be Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. These stories focus on how the technology of the time is being used to perpetuate dominance and tyranny, inspire subservience, and spread misinformation.

Many critics have remarked on the similarity between these works and Plato's Allegory of the Cave. These works influence our attitude towards politics and government to this day, and it would be not be too far-fetched to claim they have influenced modern artistic works, like the Matrix trilogy.

In more recent times, science fiction has ventured into alternate timelines. These stories try to imagine what the world around us today would be like had events in our history been different.

The first major work in this area would be The Man in The High Castle by Philip K Dick. It is a book that tries to imagine the world if the Nazis had won World War II.

For those unfamiliar with Philip K Dick, suffice to say that he is best known for short stories that introduce revolutionary concepts that are often fleshed out later into novels or films by others.

Just to name a familiar few, his short stories inspired Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report.

While it is now rather difficult to find these works, it's worth mentioning that some of the earliest science fiction written were by philosophers approaching the genre as a prolonged thought-experiment about how different civilisations would appear and act.

Even today, science fiction is about world-building.

Yet in all those differences, the message has always been constant – no matter how much else changes, our hopes and fears are the same, and they shape our destinies in myriad ways.

If you've always stayed away from the genre for fear of nerd culture, try picking up one of the books. It could be the beginning of a lifelong passion!