"And our love is science
Our love is science fiction"
Our love is science fiction"
—The Hawk In Paris, "Science Fiction"
"I lost my heart to a starship trooper
Flashing lights in hyper space
Fighting for the Federation
Hand in hand we'll conquer space"
Flashing lights in hyper space
Fighting for the Federation
Hand in hand we'll conquer space"
—Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip, "I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper"
"The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it developes; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield."
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, summing up the genre his wife has just invented in his preface to Frankenstein
"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
"SF is an opportunity to have an intense relationship with your own imagination. It's a kind of drive-by poetry, trashy and addictive; it's fun. After that, for me, it's an opportunity to explore that kind of imaginative artifact from inside, and use a little camped-up contemporary science as a way of generating new metaphors around my typical obsessions."
—M. John Harrison, author of Light
"Science fiction does not really try to predict the future. That is a fact. It's not debatable. That is not the role of science fiction, to predict the future. Science fiction books and stories are not judged on whether they come true or not. Because if that were the case there'd be one science fiction book: the right one."
"You know, the thing about Star Trek is they use more theater people, Shakespearean-trained. (I've done a lot of Shakespeare, most of the Klingons have done a lot of Shakespeare.) And that's something about that Star Trek was unique—is unique. They tend to go with people who can operate in a strangely heightened reality and somehow make it as close to reality as you can. That's sci-fi, you know, that's what you need."
—J. G. Hertzler
"Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever. You can go not only into the future, but into that wonderful place called "other", which is simply another universe, another planet, another species. It's things that happen inside your head."
