Chrononautic Log: What is it?

What is it?

1 o'clock, September 19, 2003

There’s been a lot of argument over definitions in the SF world lately — nothing new, I’m sure, just the latest wave. But it got me thinking. And then I ran across this link in the Making Light “Particles” sidebar, and that led me to this one: “Definitions of Science Fiction.”

Plenty of luminaries represented there. Robert Heinlein’s definition is exclusionary, Tom Shippey’s is academic, Frank Herbert’s is mystical, Ray Bradbury’s is surprisingly dull, and John Brunner’s is less depressing than it should be.

But the only one that really resonated, for me, was this one, from ol’ Hugo himself:

By “scientifiction” . . . I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story — a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision.

——Hugo Gernsback

Not to say that’s always what I write, or even always what I’m shooting for; but I like it.

Gernsback's description paints a lovely picture. I liked Lester Del Ray's: ...science fiction "is the myth-making principle of human nature today."

Wide open and almost useless for practical divisionary purposes, which is probably why I can stand it.

I think that’s partly true, but maybe not the way he means it. A lot of the talk in SF about “myth-making”, you get the feeling the talkers have got the idea that they’re the auteurs of these New Myths — which I think is bunk. The general public, picking out an element here and an element there — whether it’s Frankenstein’s monster or Gandalf or Big Brother or the starship Enterprise — and anonymizing them, incorporating the motifs into the collective unconscious, they’re (we’re) the ones making the myths. As SF writers, all we’re doing is putting the ideas out there.

Chrononautic Log

What is it?

1 o'clock, September 19, 2003

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