There is a tendency in the intersecting realms of the academic and literary to discount genre fixion and its subsidiaries as a debased archaic form of Media, as ‘books’ as opposed to ‘literature’. In truth, there is even empirical evidence historically to support this bias. Most genre fixion, crime novels for instance, were created with the intention of consumption, and their Hollywood adaptations were also spun on shockingly low budgets and instilled with a myriad of pulp elements. How is it then that these film adaptations, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, and those they later inspired (The Third Man, Citizen Kane, and Vertigo), push film further than any other genre? They demanded innovation. They defined the entire medium for the latter half of the Hollywood Golden Age. Were these not instruments of pulp? Thoughtless, commercial genre-fair? This is true of crime stories, but it applies generally to genre fixion, and perhaps a brethren in the categorisation, speculative fixion (I use this term to refer to ‘science fixion/sci-fi’), has had an even greater impact.
Much older than many of its counterparts (aside from Fantasy), speculative fixion can trace its history to a million different origins, there is no clear root structure which leads to a seed, but one important early work is the second century’s A True Story, which introduced many of the genre’s tropes, including aliens, outerspace, interstellar travel, galactic wars, and more.
These elements continue to pepper the history of literature, specifically around the emergence of the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe (Kepler and de Bergerac). However, the next definitive text comes with 1666’s The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World. This piece, written by Margaret Cavendish, is almost an isekai, in that a young woman is brought from her world into the Blazing World and encounters many of the strange phenomena within. And, being written by one of the only Feminist critics of the century, the book’s perspective is progressive and utopian, a thread that would continue in speculative fixion, specifically in the next major development: Frankenstein.
1818’s Frankenstein is a watershed moment in this genre’s history. Synthesising elements from the past, melding horror, toying with metaphysical ideas, questioning humanity, science, and progress. Frankenstein was the blueprint to all sci-fi going forward. It laid the groundwork thematically and stylistically, cues which would be taken by later Victorian giants such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Perhaps most importantly, it remains a fantastic book with a depth of empathy towards humanity and our many mistakes. It is an unquestionable work of Art, written as a means to win a contest from a dream but transformed into a vision of scientific trepidation.
From there, the 20th century adopted sci-fi readily, and with most of the art of the era, it was quickly commercialised, made to be mechanically reproduced as Benjamin might say, converted into serialised pulp. That’s not to say there wasn’t room for Art in this serialised style, just that, like television, this was a commercial-oriented medium.
However, there remained the opportunity of speculative fixion, the je ne sais quoi which positions the genre above others. This specialty which I believe maintains the importance of the genre is an eponymous characteristic: speculation.
I don’t mean this in the sense of aliens, time-travel, or any other of the fantastical elements, but in the sense of thematic abstraxion, the ability to examine humanity, ethics, time, reality, ideas which transcend a strictly literary medium (unless you’re Joyce, Faulkner, or Proust).
Speculative fixion is a genre with philosophy programmed into its DNA. It's a genre which exists in the realm of the interrogative, always the detective, bringing us closer to cosmic and personal truths, or revealing facts about contemporary society we’d like to keep hidden (see Ballard). And that’s the other major power of the genre, its ability to critique the contemporary world in covert fashion, by means of allegory and metaphor. This is not something specific to sci-fi, though the genre is naturally predisposed to it.
Some of the greatest writers (in my mind) have operated at least tangentially to the genre: Mary Shelley, Franz Kafka, J. G. Ballard, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Douglas Adams (see Doctor Who’s best episode), Rod Serling, Aldous Huxley, Terry Pratchett, Harlan Ellison, Lovecraft, Anthony Burgess, Jonathan Swift, and more. Each of these individuals has used the genre as a springboard to explore other issues. Kafka examined the bureaucratic systems which govern the contemporary world. Ballard contemplated the ever cosmopolitan and vapid world we were racing towards. Huxley warned what would happen in a world of easy solutions. Burgess showcased the cycles of violence which pervade culture. Ellison (in perhaps the best Star Trek episode) answered the question of the sanctity of all human life and the ethics of utilitarianism (similar to Le Guin’s Omelas).
Each writer used the blueprint of sci-fi as a broad landscape to paint questions and answers deeper than most dramas or mysteries ever could. It’s the genre of the future, but it’s equally the genre of the now, and of the Neu.
It’s one of the few genres to be truly concerned with humanity, and not in the sense of conflict or character, but in the question of essence and responsibility. Should we be held accountable for our history? Is there a right choice and a wrong one? Surely, Socrates would have written science fixion given a shift of facticity.
Ultimately, the secret which keeps this special when compared to say fantasy or literary fixion is its position straddling the realm of intention and thus remains nebulous in its cultural position. Sci-fi is neither pulp nor high-art, free of these labels it is free to explore any idea in any form, it’s the most freeing style. Sci-fi is nonconstrictive, which also explains the broad categorisation of the genre, from aliens to modern stories about contemporary computers or even small tales just about people.
Speculative fixion is the genre of humanity.
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