It has been around since humans began to speak. The earliest forms of speculative fiction were likely mythological tales told around the campfire. Speculative fiction deals with the "What if?" scenarios imagined by dreamers and thinkers worldwide. Journeys to other worlds through the vast reaches of distant space; magical quests to free worlds enslaved by terrible beings; malevolent supernatural powers seeking to increase their spheres of influence across multiple dimensions and times; all of these fall into the realm of speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to cutting edge, paradigm-changing, and neotraditional works of the 21st century. It can be recognized in works whose authors' intentions or the social contexts of the versions of stories they portrayed is now known. For example, Ancient Greekdramatists such as Euripides, whose play Medea (play) seemed to have offended Athenian audiences when he fictionally speculated that shamaness Medea killed her own children instead of their being killed by other Corinthians after her departure. The play Hippolytus, narratively introduced by Aphrodite, is suspected to have displeased contemporary audiences of the day because it portrayed Phaedra as too lusty.
Robert Anson Heinlein (/ˈhaɪnlaɪn/; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
Heinlein became one of the first American science-fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science-fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors. Notable Heinlein works include Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers (which helped mold the space marine and mecha archetypes) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His work sometimes had controversial aspects, such as plural marriage in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, militarism in Starship Troopers and technologically competent women characters who were formidable, yet often stereotypically feminine—such as Friday. (Full article...)
Fringe's premise is based on the idea of two parallel universes, our own and the Other Side, each of which contains historical idiosyncrasies. The two universes began to clash in 1985, after Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) stole the parallel universe version of his son, Peter, following his own son's death. The finale's narrative recounts what happens when Peter (Joshua Jackson) is taken back to the Other Side by his real father, dubbed "Walternate" (Noble). FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and Walter lead a team of former Cortexiphan test subjects to retrieve him, after discovering that Peter is an unwitting part of Walternate's plans to bring about the destruction of our universe using an ancient doomsday device. (Full article...)
Science fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.
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—Brian Aldiss (b.1925), Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction (1973).
Credit: Kleuske (photo, description), stained glass artist unknown
Stained glass window from the synagogue in Enschede, depicting a griffin. Text is a shortened version of "Blessed are those who listen to me; watching daily at my doors; waiting at my doorway." (Proverbs 8:34)
Satellite Science Fiction was an American science-fiction magazine published from October 1956 to April 1959 by Leo Margulies' Renown Publications. Initially, Satellite was digest-sized and ran a full-length novel in each issue with a handful of short stories accompanying it. The policy was intended to help it compete against paperbacks, which were taking a growing share of the market. Sam Merwin edited the first two issues; Margulies took over when Merwin left, and then hired Frank Belknap Long for the February 1959 issue. That issue saw the format change to letter size, in the hope that the magazine would be more prominent on newsstands. The experiment was a failure and Margulies closed the magazine when the sales figures came in.
The novels included the original version of Philip K. Dick's first novel, The Cosmic Puppets, and well-received work by Algis Budrys and Jack Vance, though the quality was not always high. Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and L. Sprague de Camp were among the short story contributors. Sam Moskowitz wrote a series of articles on the early history of science fiction for Satellite; these were later to be revised as part of his book Explorers of the Infinite. In 1958 Margulies tracked down the first magazine publication of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine from 1894 to 1895 and reprinted a short excerpt from it that had been omitted by every subsequent printing. (Full article...)
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