"Racism and Science Fiction"

"I don’t see how a science fiction writer can do more than wring your heart while telling you how it works. No writer can…” (“Racism and Science Fiction, 392.)

Delany mentions in his essay the above quotation from a review of his work in Galaxy in 1969. He shrugs off the compliment and moves on with his story, but I would like to pause here a moment and dwell on this description of his work. I realize that the above passage might not tie in well to the themes of his essay, but I think it speaks to some of the broader themes we are looking at in this class. This quotation reminded me of the first essay we read (“Why Don’t We Love Science Fiction?”.) I thought that this idea of the goal/purpose of science fiction would have fit in well with Appleyard’s view. Good science fiction speaks to the human experience, showing us ourselves through the lens of another time, another planet, or another culture. This quotation also places science fiction in a more emotional context. It is not enough that we recognize ourselves in works of science fiction—it is when we are able to feel ourselves in these stories that science fiction makes its impact.

This is why I think the above quotation described science fiction so perfectly. It is able to reconcile to very polarized entities: the “cold” logic of science and the warmth of human emotion. Leaning too far towards one end gives you an article in a scientific journal, leaning too far towards the other gives you a romance novel. And while each of these styles of writing have their fans, neither of them are exactly what I would call compelling reading. But good science fiction takes the best parts of both genres and makes an ultimately more universal and accessible narrative. Science fiction is not the only genre that does this—good historical fiction has a similar function in that it makes the reader emotionally invested in otherwise remote historical events. But science fiction is unique in that it can answer the questions of how or why things work while keeping the reader in its thrall. My favorite types of science fiction are the ones with a perfectly logical, plausible explanations for why things in the story work the way they do. (This was my one problem with Lathe of Heaven. Although I liked the premise of dreams that alter reality, I would have loved a plausible scientific explanation of the mechanism through which his dreams interacted with reality.) I know this seems a bit much to ask of a work of fiction, but let us not forget that this is science fiction— and scientific phenomena, although often mysterious, rarely defy logic.