The DEFINITION of Science Fiction

For ages, indeed, since the very beginning of the genre, a comprehensive definition of what IT is has been sought. Some of our greatest practitioners have tried, and failed, to deliver a definition of what science fiction is so that the rest of us can benefit from knowing what it is NOT. (Personal aside here. I don’t have a definition to back me up, but most of what is appearing in the movies and up on the little screen, even though it may be labeled for marketing purposes, is most decidedly NOT science fiction.)

For recreational reading (as opposed to the increasing review load, which is now ‘work’) I’ve been going back through Farmer’s Riverworld series. Last night I cracked the pages of The Dark Design, having already polished off To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat.

Hidden within the pages of Farmer’s epic (Dark Design & Magic Labyrinth were once a single novel), I think I have found the (near) perfect, unassailable, unquestioned master definition of the genre, as related in this passage from the book: but first, a quick recap:

Everyone who has ever lived or will ever live, has been resurrected on the ‘Riverworld’, a seemingly Earth-like planet (which might even be a re-engineered Earth) consisting of a giant world-girdling river and the gently rolling plains on either side of the river.

Among those characters followed in intimate detail are Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian explorer and Peter Jarius Frigate, a 20th century science fiction writer and Burtonphile. (Note Frigate’s initials.) Frigate is also married to Alice Hargreaves, the real-life inspiration for the Alice in Through the Looking Glass.

The two are members of the crew of a sailing ship, traveling up the river towards the North pole, where Burton and friends hope to discover an answer to how they were resurrected – and more importantly, why.

During a change in watches, Burton and Frigate discuss literature:

Burton never thoroughly understood what science fiction was, but he did not feel bad about it. Frigate couldn’t explain it clearly either, though he could give numerous examples.

“Actually,” Frigate had said, “science fiction was one of those many things that didn’t exist but nevertheless have a name. Let’s talk about something else.”

Burton had refused to drop the subject. “Then you were in a profession that didn’t exist?”

“No, the profession of writing science fiction existed. It was just that science fiction per se was nonexistent. This is beginning to sound like a dialogue in Alice in Wonderland.”

“Was the money you made from your writings also nonexistent?”

“Almost. Well, that’s an exaggeration. I didn’t starve in a garret, but I also wasn’t driving a gold-plated Cadillac.”

“What’s a Cadillac?”

Sadly Philip Jose Farmer has left us (to await us on the Riverworld) and can’t be contacted for follow-up, but his novels frequently contained outspoken characters who shared his initials and his personal thoughts, so we can content ourselves with the knowledge that what Frigate says is probably very close to what Farmer actually thought.

Simple. SF doesn’t exist – but you can still get paid (something, sometimes) for writing it.