- Joined
- Mar 15, 2005
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- 240
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- Edinburgh, Scotland
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Recently, British TV showed a 4-part documentary about what would happen if the Yellowstone caldera were to erupt in the near future. It took the form of two episodes of dramatization and two episodes of scientific commentary on the dramatizations.
The British SF newsletter Ansible commented as follows:
`In _Radio Times_, 12-18 March, the intro to an article about the "Supervolcano" film [read]: "A billion people killed and the start of a new ice age. Science fiction, right? Not according to a disturbing hi-tech thriller." Ah yes, quite -- hi-tech thrillers, you can rely on them. Not like that daft fiction about science nonsense.'
But when I read this, I realized that I knew what Radio Times meant. Without really thinking about it, I tend to expect the science in SF to be speculative and extrapolated in some way - I don't think of fiction about *today*'s science as science-fiction, even when it's applied to a speculative situation.
What do others think? Is a film or novel about an outbreak of the Ebola virus, being dealt with by current medical techniques, SF - or is it just a thriller?
What about Bakker's book Raptor Red, which tells of the life and loves of an early Cretaceous predatory dinosaur, with accompanying scientific notes? It's certainly fiction about science (palaeontology in this case), but is it thereby science-fiction? Historical novel? Animal story? Romance?
The British SF newsletter Ansible commented as follows:
`In _Radio Times_, 12-18 March, the intro to an article about the "Supervolcano" film [read]: "A billion people killed and the start of a new ice age. Science fiction, right? Not according to a disturbing hi-tech thriller." Ah yes, quite -- hi-tech thrillers, you can rely on them. Not like that daft fiction about science nonsense.'
But when I read this, I realized that I knew what Radio Times meant. Without really thinking about it, I tend to expect the science in SF to be speculative and extrapolated in some way - I don't think of fiction about *today*'s science as science-fiction, even when it's applied to a speculative situation.
What do others think? Is a film or novel about an outbreak of the Ebola virus, being dealt with by current medical techniques, SF - or is it just a thriller?
What about Bakker's book Raptor Red, which tells of the life and loves of an early Cretaceous predatory dinosaur, with accompanying scientific notes? It's certainly fiction about science (palaeontology in this case), but is it thereby science-fiction? Historical novel? Animal story? Romance?
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