Expanded Universe

RAY GUNS AND ROCKET SHIPS

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

"Science Fiction" is a portmanteau term, and many and varied are the things that have been stuffed into it. Just as the term "historical fiction" includes in its broad scope Quo Vadis, nickel thrillers about the James Boys or Buffalo Bill, and Forever Amber, so does the tag "science fiction" apply both to Alley Oop and to Aldous Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. It would be more nearly correctly descriptive to call the whole field "speculative fiction" and to limit the name "science fiction" to a sub - class - in which case some of the other sub - classes would be: undisguised fantasy (Thorne Smith, the Oz books), pseudoscientific fantasy (C. S. Lewis's fine novel Out of the Silent Planet, Buck Rogers, Bradbury's delightful Martian stories), sociological speculation (More's Utopia, Michael Arlen's Man's Mortality, H. G. Wells' World Set Free, Plato's Republic), adventure stories with exotic and non - existent locales (Flash Gordon, Burroughs' Martian stories, the Odyssey, Tom Sawyer Abroad). Many other classes will occur to you, since the term

"speculative fiction" may be defined negatively as being fiction about things that have not happened.

One can see that the name "science fiction" is too Procrustean a bed, too tight a corset, to fit the whole field comfortably. Nevertheless, since language is how we talk, not how we might talk, it seems likely that the term "science fiction" will continue to be applied to the whole field; we are stuck with it, as the American aborigines are stuck with the preposterous name "Indian."

But what, under rational definition, is science fiction? There is an easy touchstone: science fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws. The result can be extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate - and often very tightly reasoned - speculation about the possibilities of the real world. This category excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy.

But the category includes such mind stretchers as Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, William Sloane's To Walk the Night, Dr. Asimov's The Stars, Like Dust, even though these stories are stranger than most outright fantasies.

But how is one to distinguish between legitimate science fiction and ridiculous junk? Place of original publication is no guide; some of the best have appeared in half - cent - a - word pulp magazines, with bug-eyed monsters on their covers; some of the silliest have appeared in high - pay slicks or in the "prestige" quality group.

"The Pretzel Men of Pthark" - that one we can skip over; the contents are probably like the title. Almost as easy to spot is the Graustark school of space opera. This is the one in which the dashing Nordic hero comes to the aid of the rightful Martian princess and kicks out the villainous usurper through super science and sheer grit. It is not being written very often these days, although it still achieves book publication occasionally, sometimes with old and respectable trade book houses. But it does not take a Ph.D. in physics to recognize it for what it is.

But do not be too quick to apply as a test to science fiction what are merely the conventions of better known fields of literature. I once heard a librarian say that she could not stand the unpronounceable names given by science - fiction writers to extraterrestrials. Have a heart, friend! These strings of consonants are honest attempts to give unearthly names to unearthly creatures. As Shaw pointed out, the customs of our tribe are not laws of nature. You would not expect a Martian to be named "Smith." (Say - how about a story about a Martian named "Smith?" Ought to make a good short. Hmmmm - )

But are there reliable criteria by which science fiction can be judged by one who is not well acquainted with the field? In my opinion, there are. Simply the criteria which apply to all fields of fiction, no more, no less.

First of all, an item of science fiction should be a story, i.e., its entertainment value should be as high as that which you expect from other types of stories. It should be entertaining to almost anyone, whether he habitually reads the stuff or not. Second, the degree of literacy should be as high as that expected in other fields. I will not labor this point, since we are simply applying an old rule to a new field, but there is no more excuse here than elsewhere for split infinitives, dangling participles, and similar untidiness, or for obscurity and doubletalk.

The same may be said for plotting, characterization, motivation, and the rest. If a science - fiction writer can't write, let him go back to being a fry cook or whatever he was doing before he gave up honest work.

I want to make separate mention of the author's evaluations. Granted that not all stories need be morally edifying, nevertheless I would demand of science fiction writers as much exercise of moral sense as I would of other writers. I have in mind one immensely popular series which does not hold my own interest very well because the protagonist seems to be guided only by expediency. Neither the writer nor his puppet seems to be aware of good and evil. For my taste this is a defect in any story, nor is the defect mitigated by the wonderful and gaudy trappings of science fiction. In my opinion, such abstractions as honor, loyalty, fortitude, self - sacrifice, bravery, honesty, and integrity will be as important in the far reaches of the Galaxy as they are in Iowa or Korea. I believe that you are entitled to apply your own evaluating standards to science fiction quite as rigorously as you apply them in other fiction.

The criteria outlined above take care of every aspect of science fiction but one - the science part. But even here no new criterion is needed. Suppose you were called on to purchase or to refuse to purchase a novel about a Mexican boy growing up on a Mexican cattle ranch; suppose that you knew no Spanish, had never been to Mexico and were unacquainted with its history and customs, and were unsure of the competence of the author. What would you do?

I suspect that you would farm out the decision to someone who was competent to judge the authenticity of the work. It might be a high school Spanish teacher, it might be a friend or neighbor who was well acquainted with our neighboring culture, it might be the local Mexican consul. If the expert told you that the background material of the book was nonsense, you would not give the book shelf room.

The same procedure applies to science fiction. No one can be expected to be expert in everything. If you do not happen to know what makes a rocket go when there is no air to push against, you need not necessarily read Willy Ley's Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel - although it is a fine book, a "must" for every library, desirable for any home. You may instead consult anyone of your acquaintance who does know about rocket ships - say an Air Force or Artillery officer, a physics teacher, or almost any fourteen - year - old boy, especially boys who are active in high school science clubs. If the novel being judged concerns cybernetics, nuclear physics, genetics, chemistry, relativity, it is necessary only to enlist the appropriate helper.

You would do the same, would you not, with a novel based on the life of Simon Bolivar?

Of course, there is the alternate, equivalent method of testing the authenticity of any book by checking on the author. If the Simon Bolivar novel was written by a distinguished scholar of South American history, you need concern yourself only with the literary merit of the book. If a book about space travel is written by a world - famous astronomer (as in the case of the one who writes under the pen name of "Philip Latham"), you can put your mind at rest about the correctness of the science therein. In many cases science - fiction writers have more than adequate professional background in the sciences they use as background material and their publishers are careful to let you know this through catalog and dust jacket blurb. I happen to be personally aware of and can vouch for the scientific training of Sprague de Camp, George 0. Smith, "John Tame," John W. Campbell, Jr., "Philip Latham," Will Jenkins, Jack Williamson, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, E. E. Smith, Philip Wylie, Olaf Stapledon, H. G. Wells, Damon Knight, Harry Stine, and "J. J. Coupling." This listing refers to qualifications in science only and is necessarily incomplete, nor do I mean to slight the many fine writers without formal scientific training who are well read in science and most careful in their research.

But some means of checking on a writer of alleged science fiction is desirable. Most writers of historical fiction appear to go to quite a lot of trouble to get the facts of their historical scenes correct, but some people seem to feel that all that is necessary to write science fiction is an unashamed imagination and a sprinkling of words like "ray gun," "rocket tube," "mutant," and "space warp." In some cases the offense is as blatant as it would be in the case of an author of alleged historical fiction who founded a book on the premise that Simon Bolivar was a Chinese monk! It follows that, in order to spot these literary fakers it is necessary to know that Bolivar was not a Chinese monk - know something of the sciences yourself or enlist competent advisers.