Comment Is that the goal of sci-fi writers? (Score 1) 479
Science fiction may inspire inventors. The technology it depicts, whether or not the author intended it as prediction, may ultimately be invented in the reader's lifetime. One gets a profound feeling when it happens that way!
But good science fiction imagines the effects of advanced technology on the human condition. The inventions it depicts should be theoretically feasible, and the year in which it is set should be appropriate to the level of scientific advancement that would be needed. But verisimilitude is only a tool for telling a good story about people, which is the true metric of any fiction, science- or otherwise.
If the advancements depicted in a sci-fi work never take place, should that disqualify it from greatness? Is Star Trek TNG only any good if the advancements it portrays occur in real life, along the same timeline?
And if a work inspires no one to invent, then so what? What of dystopic sci-fi? Heaven forbid a great science-fiction novel like 1984 inspired anyone to develop the technology it portrays! (Although, in that case, the author was definitely making technological predictions, which happened to come true.)
But good science fiction imagines the effects of advanced technology on the human condition. The inventions it depicts should be theoretically feasible, and the year in which it is set should be appropriate to the level of scientific advancement that would be needed. But verisimilitude is only a tool for telling a good story about people, which is the true metric of any fiction, science- or otherwise.
If the advancements depicted in a sci-fi work never take place, should that disqualify it from greatness? Is Star Trek TNG only any good if the advancements it portrays occur in real life, along the same timeline?
And if a work inspires no one to invent, then so what? What of dystopic sci-fi? Heaven forbid a great science-fiction novel like 1984 inspired anyone to develop the technology it portrays! (Although, in that case, the author was definitely making technological predictions, which happened to come true.)