Science Fiction

Abstract

Science fiction of the literary kind was invented in Britain and there has been a lot of British science fiction. More than 3,000 significant science fiction novels and story collections by authors born or long resident in the UK were published in Britain in the twentieth century. Yet science fiction in general and British science fiction in particular are problematic concepts. “Science fiction” was not used as a genre label until the 1930s in the USA, long after works now considered to be science fiction first appeared in Britain. There is still no generally accepted academic definition of science fiction, and there remains an academic reluctance to take seriously what is thought to be a popular literature for the immature. Those who do take British literary science fiction seriously are often anxious to disassociate it from “sci‐fi” Hollywood blockbusters and their spin‐offs.