Is science fiction going out of date? No point asking me 鈥� I鈥檓 too old 鈥� so I had a talk with Randy-at-the-bank, who looks to me to be about 25. (That may mean he鈥檚 35: as you get older the young look younger, just as when you鈥檙e young the old look older. Time is relative. I know that from reading sci-fi.) I knew he was a sci-fi fan because he said he liked . So as he was setting loose the key I had somehow got stuck in my own safety-deposit box, I asked him what he thought.
The first part of our conversation was about the meaning of the term science fiction. For Randy 鈥� and I think he鈥檚 representative 鈥� sci-fi does include other planets, which may or may not have dragons on them. It includes the wildly paranormal: not your aunt table-tilting or things going creak, but shape-shifters and people with red eyeballs and no pupils, and Things taking over your body. It includes, as a matter of course, space ships and mad scientists and Experiments Gone Awfully Wrong. Plain ordinary horror doesn鈥檛 count 鈥� chain-saw murderers and such. Randy and I both agreed that you might meet one of those walking along the street. It鈥檚 what you would definitely not meet walking along the street that counts, for Randy. And he doesn鈥檛 think these things are going out of date.
I agree with him. Not all of science fiction is 鈥渟cience鈥� 鈥� science occurs in it as a plot-driver, a tool, but all of it is fiction. This narrative form has always been with us: it used to be the kind with angels and devils in it. It鈥檚 the gateway to the shadowiest and also the brightest part of our human imaginative world; a map of what we most desire and also what we most fear. That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 an important form. It points to what we鈥檇 do if we could. And increasingly, thanks to 鈥渟cience鈥�, we can.
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- Margaret Atwood鈥榮 most recent work of 鈥渟peculative鈥� fiction is Oryx and Crake