"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Paul Lytle

In The Odyssey, Odysseus travels to strange and magical lands, faces numerous creatures of mythical origin, and descends literally into hell and comes back out. This is considered one of the greatest pieces of literatures of all time.

Consider, then, if Homer had based his mythical creatures not on myth at all, but on science. Say, perhaps, that evolution had separated a certain group of humans from the rest long in the past, and they developed a single eye and became much larger than we did. Perhaps the Sirens have a certain gene that makes them telepathic, and they lure potential enemies in by their mental powers. What if Circe was a kind of Dr. Moreau in reverse — using vivisection to create beasts of men. Would it be a different tale? Not terribly. There would be variations, of course, and certain explanations would be more drawn out, but the essence of the story will not have changed.

Would it still be Art? Some, apparently, would say no.

Science Fiction has been attacked for some time now as being a juvenile medium, with no real artistic value. The same people will attack all genre work, even fantasy, as though they do not realize that all great works of Art from before about 1700 are works of fantasy under a different name. But we can do better than mere name-calling on this subject.

Classical thought tells us that Art is supposed to teach and please — that is, it is to entertain us, and also give us some sort of lesson. Let us dispose of the "pleasing" part right away. By the very fact that Science Fiction is popular proves that it pleases, if nothing else. Few would actively seek out boring literature, save masochists and English majors, but I would find it difficult to believe that there are so many of either to keep Science Fiction going if it was not a pleasing genre.

Even opponents to Science Fiction will admit that, but what does it teach us?

If we are speaking of hard sciences, then no genre teaches better than Science Fiction. Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama is packed with scientific theory and fact. We are taught about gravity, meteorology, and centrifugal force during the duration of Rama's short flight through the solar system. Science Fiction authors are not stupid. Clarke came up with the concept of the communication satellite. Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every major category of the Dewey Decimal System. Ray Bradbury has suggested that Fahrenheit 451 spawned the Walkman. Whether the last example is fully true or not, I cannot say, but the contributions of especially Clarke and Asimov are undeniable.

Now, these hard sciences are not what Classical philosophers were talking about when they speak of "teaching." It is not the domain of Art to teach people the multiplication tables, but to teach of humanity and culture.

This has led many people lately to say that literature concentrates on character while lesser fiction concentrates on plot. After all, these critics would say, if Art is supposed to teach us of humanity, then we must concentrate on the humans. This is a decidedly limited vision of literature, and a vision that would surprise Homer or Charles Dickens, since it is the extraordinary events of the plot that draws out the true natures of the characters in the first place. But let us accept it for the sake of argument. Why is it impossible for a novel that is set in the future or in space not concentrate on characters? Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars is a story about the colonization of Mars. That quick summary says nothing about the book, because the plot itself could have been told in less than half the length of the book. The fullness of Red Mars comes in its characters, for it is the characters of the main characters that drive the plot.

We cannot truly understand human nature by merely looking at modern trends. If we only look at the people around us, we might think that Democracy and equality are all we have ever known. But it is when we begin to read others that we discover that hierarchy and monarchy has been accepted and loved throughout the world, and probably will again. Science Fiction can personalize the past by making it our future. It can put Americans under totalitarian rule, as in Phillip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. It can put us in a world where standardized test not only suggests a career for us, but forces us into that career, as in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. It can warn about technology or embrace it, and debate the issue. Isaac Asimov places more or less modern men into a re-enactment of the fall of the Roman Empire, and that historical event, which has never really touched Americans that much, suddenly becomes more accessible. The short-lived (though quite interesting) television series Firefly does the opposite: it tells of people who are forced into a galactic empire against their will. Suddenly, we understand still more about the Roman Empire.

In 1948, when George Orwell wanted to warn the world about Communism, it would have done little good to write a treatise on the USSR. Coming out of the war, the country was a new super-power, and any problems they were having could be easily blamed on German invasion. Besides, what Orwell was thinking about was prediction based upon his knowledge of totalitarianism. He could have written a political science book, but instead chose to personalize it with fiction. Of course, since no country had yet fully come to that level of control, he had to write Science Fiction and produced 1984.

Are we to dismiss the effort simply because it is set in the future? No, the work tells us more about human nature than any political science book on Communism. It gives us understanding of a situation we will probably never experience — a man imprisoned by his own country for no other reason than being alive.

Likewise, when Vonnegut began to get worried about technology taking control over the lives of humans, the best outlet for his predictions was Science Fiction. There he could study the future effects of current trends and what they would eventually do to the race. Asimov disagreed with him, and wrote of how beneficial technology would be, but they were both very likely right. Today we see how much modern computers have helped the world, but we also see people who are absolutely paralyzed by television or online video games.

It is difficult to deny the important and power of books like 1984, Player Piano, or The Time Machine. So those who loathe Science Fiction so much have tried one more trick — just move those certain books into "Literature" and leave the rest where they are. In most bookstores in which I have shopped, Kurt Vonnegut is placed in "Fiction" or "Literature," but only rarely in "Science Fiction." You will usually not find H. G. Wells next to Margaret Weis, but over with Vonnegut. It is the same with Aldous Huxley or Mary Shelley.

Of course, we cannot fairly say that Science Fiction has no value except for those books with value. Some may try, but it wears thin, like those people fifty years ago who were utterly racists, but loved Nat "King" Cole and Jackie Robinson. If there is a single great book in that genre, then we must say that the genre has the potential for great Art. Since we do have great Science Fiction books, then it is impossible to say that the entire genre is juvenile and worthless.

Science Fiction can explore humanity by taking the modern world away from the human and then seeing how he reacts. That is exactly what The Odyssey does. Certainly not all Science Fiction succeeds or even attempts the lofty goal of literature, but that does not mean that all Science Fiction is junk any more than a bad novel proves the entire form worthless.

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