Science Fiction

Abstract

SCIENCE FICTION by Sherryl Vint. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2021. 224 pages. Paperback; $15.95. ISBN: 9780262539999. *Science Fiction is the story of the romance between fiction and science. The goal of the book is not to define the history or essence of science fiction, but rather to explore what it "can do" (p. 3). How does fiction affect scientific progress? How does it influence which innovations we care about? In the opposite direction, what bearing does science have on the stories that are interesting to writers at a point in time? Science Fiction references hundreds of books to paint a cultural narrative surrounding science fiction. Throughout the book, Vint refers to the fiction as ‘sf' in order to avoid distinctions between science fiction and speculative fiction. The dynamic between science and fiction is a relationship defined by both scientific progress and by forming judgments of the direction of development through a lens of fiction. Fiction is cause and effect; we use fiction to reflect upon changes in the world, and we use fiction to explore making change. *Vint, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and of English at the University of California, Riverside, gives overviews of different areas of sf. These include some of the most common sf elements, such as utopias and dystopias (chap. 2), as well as relatively recent concerns, such as climate change (chap. 7). Through these questions, she is navigating one question: how does sf engage with the world? It is more complex than the commonly reflected-upon narrative that sf is an inspiration to inventors--it is a relationship moving in both directions and involves value judgments as well as speculation about scientific possibilities. *The book also navigates the attitudes at the root of sf. Vint presents sf as a fundamentally hopeful, perhaps even an optimistic, genre. She describes sf as "equally about frightening nightmares and wondrous dreams" (p. 13). Yet even dystopian stories require hope for a future. Showing the world gone wrong still requires "the seeds of believing that with better choices we might avoid these nightmares" (p. 32). This is certainly true in the discussion of climate change sf. Where nonfiction writing often focuses on the impartial mitigation of disasters, the heart of fiction offers "the possibility to direct continuous change toward an open future that we (re)make" (p. 136). *The most surprising chapter is the penultimate one, focusing on economics (chap. 8). Vint discusses the recent idea of money as a "social technology" (p. 143) and the ways our current economy is increasingly tied to science, including through AI market trading and the rise of Bitcoin. The chapter also focuses on fiction looking at alternative economic systems--how will the presence or absence of scarcity, altered by technology, change the economic system? Answers to this and similar questions have major implications on the stories we tell and the way we seek to structure society. *As Christians, we have stories to help us deal with our experiences in life and our hope for the future. Science Fiction discusses sf as the way that our communities, including the scientific community, process life's challenges and form expectations for the future. We must not only repeat the stories from scripture, but also participate in the formation of the cultural narratives as ambassadors of Christ. While Science Fiction does not discuss the role of religion in storytelling, the discussion of our ambitions and expectations for the future is ripe for a Christian discussion. *Vint describes sf as a navigational tool for the rapid changes occurring in the world. Science Fiction references many titles that illustrate the different roles sf has played at historical points and that continue to form culture narratives. While some pages can feel like a dense list of titles, it is largely a book expressing excitement about the power and indispensability of sf. I would recommend this book for those who want to think about interactions between fiction, science, and culture, or learn about major themes of sf, as well as those interested in broadening the horizons of their sf reading. *Reviewed by Elizabeth Koning, graduate student in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.