The rapid pace of technology and the advancement of scientific understanding in the
past one hundred years are at the backbone for the distinctly twentieth century genre --
science fiction. Such rapid advancement in these fields of technology have opened up
literally worlds of possibilities for the future. One hundred years ago the possibility
of simply flying from city to city may have seemed nothing more than a distant futuristic
dream to most. While a mere sixty years later the impossible was achieved -- a human
being on the moon. Since technology has brought as much change as it has in the past one
hundred years the next hundred should be entirely incomprehendable to us. Who knows what
to expect? "The modern discoveries and applications of Science throw deeply into the
shade the old romances and fanciful legends of our boyhood" (James 8) observes James.
Technology has made what was once thought impossible, plausible and weather or not
technology is directly incorporated into a science fiction story as an obvious vehicle,
the author knows that it is always present in the mind of the reader. It is this
plausablilty of what conventionally should not be acceptable that has led to science
fiction's increasing popularity over the years. As James explains, "much sf is
concerned with the future and with the possibilities presented by scientific and
technological change" (James 3). Truly, humans exploring and even colonizing other
worlds, the plot of many a science fiction novel, has to many become inevitable. The
successful series of Apollo moon landings in the 1960's and the knowledge that we already
possess the technology to send humans to other worlds leads many to believe that it is
only a matter of time. Even such a notably respectable news source as Newsweek has
detailed the future maned missions to Mars (September, 23 1996). When I look forward to
the future I can hardly imagine the changes that will occur as a result of new
discoveries in science and new technologies. With so many possibilities for the future,
science fiction is able to capitalizes on this by showing the audience entirely new
worlds and alternatives to our own.
Technology presented in science fiction stories most commonly serves a very important
role in the stories plausablilty to the audience. While this does not mean that
technology is necessarily the focus of such stories it is often used as the vehicle for
which such alternative and wonderous events occur. Without the advanced spaceship how
could the Segnauts have gotten to the planet Zorgon and defeated the evil empire? In
2064, or Thereabouts by David R. Bunch, the robotic men and the mechanical world play a
secondary role to the importance of the human traits these half man half machines
possess. Despite the fact that these people have become converted into a part robot for
increased strength and, apparently, longer life the mind still searches for something
that technology apparently has not solved -- the meaning of life. The initial
recognition by the reader that technology in our time and place is continuously expanding
allows for plausibility such a strange and bizarre plot to occur. In Pohl's Day Million
the seemingly strange world set one thousand years in the future is so completely
different from earth today because of technological changes in virtually everything --
even the act of love, which is at the center of the story, has become completely alien
to the audience. (Pohl 166) Despite the fact that the technology presented may seem
strange and unusual to the audience Pohl draws his ideas directly from modern day science
and technology. Gene manipulation and machine interaction with the body are all
currently being researched and used in the science labs and hospitals. In the case of
Day Million such technology shapes how these people live and interact with one another.
Science fiction in many cases attempts to better our understanding of our own world and
our surroundings by using technology not as a form of advancement, as it is commonly seen
in many stories, but as a form of destruction and danger. James states, "You might note
that only on sf shelves are there serious fictional discussions of the possibilities of
survival after nuclear warfare or the consequences of the greenhouse effect or of
overpopulating or of the possible dire consequences of genetic engineering" (James 3).
Truly, the 'mad scientist' character itself was spawned from science fiction. Earth by
David Brin deals with a miniature black hole developed by a scientist who believed he
knew how to contain it. Instead the experiment goes out of control and results in a
expanding black hole that consumes the Earth from the inside out. Technology in Michael
Chrichton's Jurassic Park, the best selling novel in 1990, enables scientists, lured by
greed, to genetically engineer dinosaurs that turn out to be too much for the human
scientists to handle, despite the technological precautions taken beforehand. The reader
surely can not help but compare the world of the story to that of their own. "Not only
is science fiction an idea of tremendous import, but it is to be an important factor in
making the world a better place to live in, through educating the public to the
possibilities of science and the influence of science on life" (James 8). Science
fiction in this sense does much more than simply relay a story but it calls for the
awareness of the reader to judge the possibilities of the future of their own world.
Certainly science fiction in many cases serves not only as a beautiful vision of our
future but also as a clear warning of what might become. "The content may be not
scientific but scientistic, when science and technology are presented as deity (or
negatively as demon). Science is all-powerful: it can create anything (destroy
everything). Science will save us (destroy us). It can solve any problem (it is the
problem). It is the essence of human (it creates monsters). Science is a purely
rational process (the scientist is mad)" (Guin 23). Technology in these science fiction
stories poses clear questions to the audience as to the merits of such 'advancement'.
"Science fiction not only allows us to escape our assigned space and time and step into
other dimensions. It lets us examine our mundane, earthbound problems from a fresh
original viewpoint" (James 1).
The advancement of science and technology in the twentieth century and the unknown of
what lays ahead in our future have allowed science fiction to not only plausibly escape
the world as we know it but criticize it as well. "If you thought about it, you might
see that sf...because they deal with imaginative alternatives to the real world, also
frequently offer criticism to that world" (James 3). Science fiction can not help but
draw upon the promise of future technology and analyze how it will effect our lives.
While this role may be secondary in many science fiction stories, its importance most
certainly is not meant by the author to be ignored.
|