Science fiction. The uniqueness of the science fiction genre

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Science fiction

One of the types fiction, telling about the imaginary past or future of humanity (or the inhabitants of other planets), paying special attention to technical achievements, scientific discoveries, and opportunities that modern man is deprived of. Conflicts associated with these new possibilities and their uncontrolled use often form the content of science fiction. Science fiction does not include works fantasy where fiction is based on fairy tale motifs- the participation of monsters, fictional creatures, etc. (however, there are works that combine fairy-tale and science-fiction motifs - for example, “Monday begins on Saturday” and “The Tale of Troika” by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky), also socio-fictional stories do not belong to science fiction (or only partly belong) utopias(e.g. “We” E.I. Zamyatin, "1984" J. Orwell). The main feature of science fiction in comparison with other areas of fiction is rationality; when depicting fictional life, it uses scientific rather than mystical explanations of various kinds of miracles: the invention by scientists of spaceships, devices for transmitting thoughts at a distance, etc.; Another motif very often used in science fiction is aliens visiting Earth. In various works of science fiction, incredible things happen, often much more incredible than miracles fairy tales, but at the same time they are considered the achievement of intelligence - either earthly or alien. Science fiction is actually based on a picture of an atheistically minded world that believes in the achievements of human science, which is why its heyday occurs in the 20th century.

Illustration for the novel by A. R. Belyaev “The Head of Professor Dowell.” Artist B. Kosulnikov. 1990s

At the origins of Russian science fiction stood V.V. Mayakovsky, who depicted in the play “The Bedbug” the resurrection of a person in the distant future, when it becomes possible to resurrect the dead; M.A. Bulgakov, who showed in the story “ Fatal eggs“The discovery of the “ray of life” and the catastrophe that resulted from the authorities’ too hasty attention to it and careless handling of it. In classical Russian 19th century literature writers paid little attention to science fiction (part of this can be attributed to the unfinished novel by V.F. Odoevsky“Year 4338” and the utopian “Vera Pavlovna’s Fourth Dream” from the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky"What to do?"). The rise of science fiction in Russian. literature dates back to the 20th century, when the works of A.S. were created. Greena(“The Shining World”), A. N. Tolstoy(“Aelita”, “Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin”), V. A. Obrucheva(“Plutonia”, “Sannikov Land”), A.R. Belyaeva(“Amphibian Man”, “The Head of Professor Dowell”), I.A. Efremova(“The Andromeda Nebula”), A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky (“It’s Hard to Be a God”, “Roadside Picnic”), A. P. Kazantseva(“Planet of Storms”, “Moon Road”), K. Bulycheva(“The Secret of the Third Planet”), etc.

The beginning of foreign science fiction is associated with utopias written in the era Renaissance(T. Campanella, T. More). Then in the 19th century. Science fiction works appear in the works of many writers - E. By, M. Shelley, M. Twain, A.K. Doyle, especially in the novels of J. Verna and G. Wells. In the 20th century achievements in the genre of science fiction belong to R. Bradbury(“451° Fahrenheit”, collection “The Martian Chronicles”), S. Lemu(“Solaris”), etc.
Many works of science fiction are classified as children's literature because of their entertaining nature - they depict a life that is unlike modern life, filled with all sorts of technical innovations that the characters perceive as something completely ordinary. However, most works of this type of fiction attempt to answer serious questions. The task of science fiction is to “prepare” a person for the future, to show what problems he will face and what he will be responsible for. One of the main questions: what will humanity be like when it has more opportunities than it has now? What can change, first of all, in moral and spiritual terms? This is discussed, for example, by R. Bradbury (the story “The Veldt,” where a child’s room, guessing wishes, ultimately leads to the death of the parents; the story “Crime without Punishment,” where a virtual murder turns into a real one, etc.). Science fiction is trying to find an answer to another question that has long troubled humanity: are we alone in the Universe? One of the most common plots is a collision with alien civilizations, the perception of people by them or by people of them. Such a conflict allows us to show the different qualities of people against the background of representatives of other civilizations. In some cases, earthlings turn out to be more moral, understanding, tactful and incapable of violence (for example, in the story by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky “It’s Hard to Be a God”), in others, aliens turn out to be more “humane” than people (“Concrete Mixer” by R. Bradbury). The moral test of meeting aliens, changes in man himself are also the theme of many works of science fiction; for example, the story “Roadside Picnic” by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky is devoted to this. The external side of the plot is the “visit” of aliens to the Earth and various kinds of mechanisms and devices unknown to earthlings, left behind by them. The main conflict unfolds around the possession of these things, their speculation, the manifestation moral qualities person. ABOUT philosophical problem Man's responsibility for his cosmic deeds is also mentioned in the novels of S. Lem.
Science fiction is at the intersection of different areas of literature: on the one hand, the psychological authenticity of characters and conflicts makes it similar to realism; interest in exceptional situations and events is common with romanticism; it is also easy to find fairy tale elements in it, adventure literature– incredible situations, dynamic, action-packed plot, etc.
The entertaining nature of science fiction and the reader's interest in all sorts of miracles and amazing things lead to the creation of many short-lived works, where the writer does not pose serious problems, but is carried away by a detective plot, descriptions of fictional creatures and devices.
Science fiction has had a great influence on cinema - many films have been made based on science fiction works using images characteristic of science fiction (space flights, aliens, discoveries, etc.).

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

See what “science fiction” is in other dictionaries:

It is not written for scientists, just as ghost stories are not written for ghosts. Brian Aldis Science fiction deals not with man, but with the human race as such, and even with possible species of intelligent beings. Stanislav Lem Scientific... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

SCIENCE FICTION, a type of fiction, a branch of fiction, as well as cinema, theater, and painting, devoted mainly to artistic forecasting of the future. The main technique is a thought experiment. The flourishing of scientific... ... Modern encyclopedia

A type of fiction, a branch of fiction, as well as cinema, theater, and painting, devoted mainly to artistic forecasting of the future. The main technique is a thought experiment. The rise of science fiction in the 20th century... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Science fiction- SCIENCE FICTION, a type of fiction, a branch of fiction, as well as cinema, theater, painting, devoted mainly to artistic forecasting of the future. The main technique is a thought experiment. The flourishing of scientific... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

2000 as imagined by Albert Robide Science fiction ... Wikipedia

SCIENCE FICTION- (often replaced by the abbreviation NF; the English-language analogue of science fiction, respectively SF), an established designation for the main part of modern science fiction literature (see Science Fiction). The term was established in the 30s and 50s. XX century, when... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary

A type of fiction, a branch of fiction, as well as cinema, theater, and painting, is devoted mainly to artistic forecasting of the future (the English-language equivalent of science fiction). The main technique is a thought experiment.... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (English equivalent of science fiction) special kind artistic fiction (See Science Fiction), emerging in the formative era modern science(17th-18th centuries) and finally formed in the 20th century. Based, like its other types, on... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Science fiction- See fiction... Dictionary of literary terms

Science fiction- see science fiction literature... Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

F.G.A.O.U. V.P.O "Russian State Vocational and Pedagogical Institute"

Department: Cultural Studies

Science fiction, its varieties and subgenres

Ekaterinburg 2011

Introduction

The theme I chose, “Science Fiction,” is interesting to me because it has a specific feature of depicting scientific topics that are not built on pure fiction, but are always based on a scientific basis. And if you look into the past, most of the themes of science fiction in the field of biology, physics, cybernetics, medicine, and the conquest of space have become reality in our time.

History of fiction

The emergence of science fiction was caused by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. With the acquisition of popularity, fiction began to be divided into scientific and entertainment, in which fantastic surroundings were used to refresh old plots. Initially, science fiction was a genre of literature that described the achievements of science and technology, the prospects for their development, etc. The world of the future was often described (usually in the form of a utopia. A classic example of this type of fiction is the works of Jules Verne.

Later, the development of technology began to be viewed in a negative light and led to the emergence of dystopia. And in the 1980s, its cyberpunk subgenre began to gain popularity. In it, high technology coexists with total social control and the power of all-powerful corporations. In works of this genre, the basis of the plot is the life of marginal fighters against the oligarchic regime, as a rule, in conditions of total cybernization of society and social decline. Famous examples: Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Science fiction

A genre in literature, cinema and other forms of art, one of the varieties of science fiction. Science fiction is based on fantastic assumptions in the fields of science and technology, including both natural and humanities. Works based on non-scientific assumptions belong to other genres. Themes of science fiction works are new discoveries, inventions, facts unknown to science, space exploration and time travel. Science fiction often takes place in the future, which makes this genre similar to futurology, the science of predicting the future world.

The originator of the term “sci-fi” is probably Yakov Perelman, who in 1914 wrote and published an additional chapter, “Breakfast in the Weightless Kitchen,” to Jules Verne’s novel “From a Gun to the Moon,” to which he gave the term “sci-fi.” Before this, a similar term - “fantastic scientific travels” - was used in relation to Wells and other authors by Alexander Kuprin in his article “Redard Kipling” (1908). Wells originally used this term to denote what we would today call science fiction, in which the basis for the narrative is a conscious desire to rely on facts already known (at the time of writing), and if some kind of miracle also occurred in the narrative, then at least At least we shouldn’t be talking about a whole arsenal of miracles.”

Types of science fiction

Science fiction has evolved and grown over its history, spawning new directions and absorbing elements of older genres such as utopia and alternative history. Science fiction is divided mainly according to the area of assumption: discoveries and inventions, the course of history, the organization of society, time travel, etc. Of course, the division into areas is quite arbitrary, since the same work can combine elements of several types of science fiction at once.

Hard science fiction

The oldest and original genre of science fiction. Its peculiarity is its strict adherence to what was known at the time of writing scientific laws. Works of hard science fiction are based on a natural science assumption: for example, a scientific discovery, invention, new science or technology. Before the advent of other types of science fiction, it was simply called “science fiction.”

Some books by Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Robur the Conqueror, From the Earth to the Moon) and Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World, The Poisoned Belt, Marakot's Abyss), works by H.G. Wells, Alexander Belyaev are called classics of hard science fiction. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in addition to his scientific works, wrote several science fiction works: “On the Moon” (1893) and “Outside the Earth” (1918), and also participated as a consultant in the filming of a science fiction film. Distinctive feature These books had a detailed scientific and technical background, and the plot was usually based on a new discovery or invention. The authors of hard science fiction have made many “predictions”, correctly guessing the further development of science and technology. Thus, Verne describes a helicopter in the novel “Robur the Conqueror,” an airplane in “Lord of the World,” and space flight in “From the Earth to the Moon” and “Around the Moon.” Wells predicted video communication, central heating, laser, atomic weapons Belyaev in the 1920s described a space station and radio-controlled technology.

Hard science fiction was especially developed in the USSR, where other genres of science fiction were not welcomed by censorship. “Short-range science fiction” was especially widespread, telling about the events of the supposed near future - first of all, the colonization of the planets of the solar system. The most famous examples of “short-range” fiction include books by G. Gurevich, G. Martynov, A. Kazantsev, and early books by the Strugatsky brothers (“Land of Crimson Clouds”, “Interns”). Their books told about the heroic expeditions of astronauts to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and the asteroid belt. In these books, technical accuracy in the description of space flights was combined with romantic fiction about the structure of neighboring planets - at that time there was still hope of finding life on them.

Although the main works of hard science fiction were written in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, many authors turned to this genre in the second half of the 20th century. For example, Arthur C. Clarke, in his series of books “A Space Odyssey,” relied on a strictly scientific approach and described the development of astronautics very close to reality. In recent years, according to Eduard Gevorkyan, the genre is experiencing a “second wind.” An example of this is the astrophysicist Alastair Reynolds, who successfully combines hard science fiction with space opera and cyberpunk (for example, all his spaceships are sublight).

Social fiction

The main goal of social science fiction is to reveal the laws of development of a society that finds itself in new and unusual conditions for humanity. A characteristic feature of the works of this genre is an attempt to show the development of a human society that finds itself in an unusual situation or a society radically different from the modern one, the development of themes of social engineering, social psychology or control over personality. This genre includes many utopias and dystopias.

Social science fiction has become especially widespread in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe (the works of Ivan Efremov, the Strugatsky brothers, Stanislav Lem).

Chronofiction

Chrono-fiction, temporal fiction, or chrono-opera is a genre that tells about time travel. Wells's The Time Machine is considered the key work of this subgenre. Although time travel had been written about before (for example, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), it was in The Time Machine that time travel was first intentional and scientifically based, and thus the plot device was introduced specifically in science fiction.

In the 20th century, the idea of time travel, and even tourism, developed. Science fiction writers have devoted many works to the analysis of time paradoxes that can be caused by traveling into the past or returning from the future to the present. This theme, for example, is raised in the famous story by Ray Bradbury “A Sound of Thunder.” Kir Bulychev used time travel in dozens of his books, including the Alice series.

Chrono-fiction is often combined with alternative history. One of the most popular plots in chrono-fiction is a hero from the present who finds himself in the past and changes the course of history. Twain's Yankees served as inspiration for many similar books.

The most famous “hit and miss” works are Leon Sprague de Camp’s “Let the Darkness Never Fall”, Harry Harrison’s “Revolt in Time”, Paul Anderson’s “Three Hearts and Three Lions”. There are also often books about parallel worlds formed due to different developments in time, and people traveling between them or even controlling their development. This idea lies at the heart of Anderson's Time Patrol, Andre Norton's Crossroads of Time, Asimov's The End of Eternity, Lukyanenko's Draft, and the television series Doctor Who.

Due to the overuse of these techniques in entertainment fiction, the genre has also received the nickname "chrono-opera" (by analogy with space opera). The hackneyed theme found a second wind in parodies and ironic fiction. Classic examples are the film trilogy “Back to the Future”, the film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession”, a fragment of the Strugatsky trilogy “Monday Begins on Saturday”.

Alternate history science fiction

Works that develop the idea that some event happened or did not happen in the past, and what could come out of it.

The first examples of this kind of assumptions can be found long before the advent of science fiction. Not all of them were works of art - sometimes they were serious works of historians. For example, the historian Titus Livy discussed what would have happened if Alexander the Great had gone to war against his native Rome. The famous historian Sir Arnold Toynbee also dedicated several of his essays to Macedonian: what would have happened if Alexander had lived longer, and vice versa, if he had not existed at all. Sir John Squire published a whole book of historical essays, under the general title “If Things Had Turned Out Wrong.”

In the 19th century, authors of patriotic utopias began to resort to alternative history in order to “rewrite history” in their favor.

The Frenchman Louis Geoffroy described a world in which Napoleon defeated all his opponents, the Englishman Nathaniel Hawthorne “left alive” his compatriots Byron and Keats, the American Castello Holford came up with an American utopia in which colonists find gold on the coast of Virginia. Like many other things, alternative history was introduced into science fiction by H.G. Wells. In his book Men Like Gods, Wells combined chrono-fiction, alternative history and patriotic utopia: he introduced the idea of many parallel worlds, branching from key points in history and each developing on its own. One of them reveals a utopian, prosperous England.

The most popular "key points" in alternative history are greatest battles and wars. The German victory in World War II is especially often described - usually in the form of a dystopian warning (Philip K. Dick - “The Man in the High Castle”, many books by Harry Turtledove, etc.). The results of the American Civil War (especially the Battle of Gettysburg), the Revolution and Civil War in Russia, the Battle of Hastings, and the Napoleonic Wars are often “rewritten.” At the same time, many authors, in order to please patriotic sentiments, rewrite history “in their favor.” It is noted that in current Russian science fiction many alternative histories and chrono-operas are published, where the history of Russia is rewritten in a patriotic spirit, in accordance with the author’s beliefs (for example, monarchist or socialist).

Separately, it is worth noting such types of alternative history as alternative geography and cryptohistory. Alternative geography is based on the assumption that the geography of the Earth is different from what we know, and changes in history are associated with this. A classic example is V. Aksenov’s novel “The Island of Crimea”: in it Crimea turns out to be an island, Frunze cannot storm Perekop and Baron Wrangel creates in Crimea independent state. Cryptohistory “changes” not the present and the future, but the past. It is based on the assumption that the real story is different from what we know, but has been forgotten, hidden or falsified. Andrei Valentinov is the author of a number of such books, for example, in his “Eye of Power” cycle, alien “puppeteers” are behind all significant events in the history of the Earth.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction

Closely related genres, the action of works in which takes place during or shortly after a catastrophe of a planetary scale (collision with a meteorite, nuclear war, environmental disaster, epidemic).

Apocalyptic fiction

A genre of science fiction that tells about the onset of some kind of global catastrophe

The first works of this genre appeared in the era of romanticism at the very beginning of the 19th century, but the real heyday of the genre came in “ cold war", in connection with which the classic plot of this genre tells about thermonuclear war.

The action takes place during a catastrophe: alien invasion, robot uprising, pandemic, volcanic eruption, etc.

Already in 1805, the prose poem “The Last Man” appeared, written by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grenville, in which technological progress leads humanity to destruction. The theme was continued in Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826), the first in a long series about the destruction of humanity by an epidemic. In Russia the theme is “ The last man"(perhaps not without the influence of Shelley) was embodied in the poems of Baratynsky ("The Last Death", 1827) and Fet ("Never", 1879).

In 1816, Byron's poem "Darkness" was published, which was later considered a prophetic description of nuclear winter.

In 1832, newspapers predicted the collision of the Earth with Halley's Comet - the first "scientifically predicted" cosmic catastrophe. These rumors were echoed in the stories of Edgar Poe “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” (1839), Vladimir Odoevsky “Two Days in the Life of the Globe” (1828 - a comet passes by, but after thousands of years the aged Earth falls into the Sun), Mikhail Pogodin “Galeev comet" (1833), in an excerpt from Ivan Guryanov's "Comet of 1832" (1832).

A possible collision with a comet was popularized in articles and in the novel “The End of the World” by Camille Flammarion. George Griffith's novel "Olga Romanova" and H.G. Wells' story "The Star" were written under his influence.

Post-apocalyptic fiction

A genre of science fiction in which the action develops in a world that has experienced a global catastrophe. Post-apocalyptic is also a creative style that carries a mood of desolation, loneliness and horror in the images of aged and abandoned equipment or buildings.

Post-apocalypticism originated at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. First classic This genre is Richard Jefferies's novel After London (1885), in which the action takes place thousands of years after the disaster. Jeffreys' scenario, according to which a period of barbarism follows immediately after the catastrophe, followed by a new (non-urbanized) feudalism, was used many times subsequently, including in The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, The Death of the Grass by John Christopher, and Maleville by Robert Merle, "The Land Without Men" by George Stewart. The heroes of “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are trying their best to prevent slides into this scenario.

Peculiarities

The main characteristic feature of post-apocalypticism is the development of the plot in a world (or a limited part of it) with a specific history. In the past of this world, civilization reached a high level of social and technical development, but then the world experienced some kind of global catastrophe, as a result of which civilization and most of the wealth it created were destroyed.

The following are most often used as a catastrophe that destroyed the world: third World War using weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical or biological), alien invasion, uprising of machines led by artificial intelligence (robots), pandemic, asteroid fall, appearance of prehistoric monsters, climate or other disasters.

A typical post-apocalyptic plot begins to develop, as a rule, a considerable time after the disaster, when its “damaging factors” themselves have ceased to act. In one form or another, the reader (viewer) is usually conveyed in a condensed form the history of society from the moment of the catastrophe: it is immediately followed by a period of savagery, then the survivors concentrate around the surviving sources of life support, and certain social structures are spontaneously formed. By the time the plot begins, this process is usually already completed, a certain conglomerate of communities has been created on a territory suitable for life, and a more or less stable balance of power has emerged. Common for post-apocalyptic events are:

· Rural communities or feudal farms producing food.

· Urban settlements are centers of trade and crafts, usually quite criminal, but living according to certain laws and having the power to maintain order.

· Gangs are purely criminal communities led by a strong leader, based on surviving technological objects that provide the minimum necessary for survival (ruins of factories, giant ships washed ashore or afloat, etc.), and living off robbery on trade routes, raids on settled settlements and illegal trade.

· Wild tribes, usually living in deserts, mountains, and other inaccessible areas and consisting of feral or mutated people.

· The presence of a colony surrounded by a high concrete wall (During a pandemic)

· High-tech compact communities formed on the basis of large military bases, scientific towns, and orbital stations. Usually described as relatively highly civilized (unlike most other societies, they did not restore social organization, but preserved and modified what they had before the disaster), but at the same time totalitarian, controlled by radical military men or scientists.

In their hands are the most dangerous technologies preserved from pre-catastrophic times. As a rule, they are strong enough to not only resist possible aggression, but also to pursue a policy towards their closest neighbors from a position of strength.

· Large cities or even more significant territorial entities, for one reason or another, were not affected or little affected by the disaster and have preserved the “old” way of life, gradually changing under the influence of circumstances.

The description of the scene usually contains:

· Vast deserts in place of previously inhabited territories.

· Abandoned, partially destroyed cities, enterprises, military installations.

· Territories that were previously on land, but as a result of the disaster were flooded by the sea. Buildings and man-made objects on the seabed.

· Mutated people, animals, plants, entire mutant forests.

· Numerous artifacts of a lost civilization, some dangerous, some useful, but usually just serving as background for the story.

The plot can be built around the adventures of the heroes in the world, in particular, a fairly common motif is the hero’s journey in search of a certain “Holy Grail” - a place or object that will provide him with a long and comfortable life, or can help in the revival of civilization. Sometimes the means and technologies that led to the disaster are considered forbidden in society, and the tranquility of such a pastoral society is undermined by young rebels who intend to revive the forbidden technology (already in the story of Stephen Vincent Bene "On the Rivers of Babylon" there is a hint of such a development, classic examples - " The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett and Abnormality by John Wyndham).

Often in one work, apocalypticism is combined with post-apocalypticism, a depiction of the disaster as such - with a depiction of its immediate consequences and its impact on the lives of survivors. Sometimes the narrative examines a cross-section of modern reality through the prism of the perception of distant generations. In literature, this genre is closely related and sometimes mixed with cyberpunk.

Images of places of “local disasters” can also be called post-apocalyptic - for example, abandoned territories that remained in abundance on the territory of the Soviet Union after its collapse - with dilapidated buildings overgrown with grass, with rusty skeletons of equipment and mechanisms lying here and there. Both the image of “deserted spaces” by Krapivin and the “Roadside Picnic” by the Strugatsky brothers belong to this branch of post-apocalypticism.

Utopias and dystopias

Genres dedicated to modeling the social order of the future. Utopias depict an ideal society that expresses the views of the author. In dystopias there is the complete opposite of the ideal, a terrible, usually totalitarian, social system.

science fiction cyberpunk steampunk

A genre of fiction, close to science fiction, describing a model of an ideal society, from the author’s point of view. Unlike dystopia, it is characterized by the author’s faith in the impeccability of the model.

The genre began with the works of ancient philosophers dedicated to the creation of an ideal state. The most famous of which is Plato’s “State”, in which he describes an ideal (from the point of view of slave owners) state, built in the image and likeness of Sparta, with the absence of such disadvantages inherent in Sparta as endemic corruption (and even kings and ephors), the constant threat of a slave uprising, a constant shortage of citizens, etc.

The genre reappears in the Renaissance, which is associated with the name of Thomas More, who wrote “Utopia.” After which the utopia genre began to flourish with the active participation of social utopians. Later, with the beginning of the industrial revolution, individual works in the dystopian genre, initially dedicated to criticism of the existing order. Even later, works appeared in the dystopian genre, dedicated to the criticism of utopias.

Classification and signs of utopia.

Many literary scholars and philosophers identify utopias:

· technocratic, that is, those where social problems are solved by accelerating scientific and technological progress.

· social, which involve the possibility of people changing their own society.

Among the latest utopias, egalitarian, idealizing and absolutizing principles of universal equality and harmonious development of individuals are sometimes distinguished (I. A. Efremov, “The Andromeda Nebula”) and elitist ones, defending the construction of a society stratified according to the principle of justice and expediency (A. Lukyanov, “Black Pawn” "). There is a widespread belief that utopias should not contain anti-humanistic elements, and represent a deliberately unrealizable beautiful dream of the future. Some utopias, on the contrary, are structured in the style of instructions for their practical implementation.

The main distinguishing feature of utopia, its specificity is that during its creation the restrictions were not taken into account real world. In particular, historical background. Therefore, utopia is often perceived in ordinary consciousness as something unrealizable, an unrealizable social ideal. This is also a design feature of utopia. From a general theoretical point of view, under certain conditions, utopia can be realized.

According to the opinion of Soviet ideologists about utopia, expressed by Konstantin Mzareulov in the book “Fiction. General Course”, described as “utopia and dystopia: ideal communism and dying capitalism in the first case are replaced by communist hell and bourgeois prosperity in the second.” What is noteworthy is that, according to such an ideologically savvy classification, almost all cyberpunk works turn out to be... utopias.

Dystopia

A movement in fiction and cinema, in a narrow sense a description of a totalitarian state, in a broad sense - any society in which negative development trends have prevailed.

The word “dystopian” as the opposite of “utopian” was first used by the English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill in 1868. The very term “dystopia” (English dystopia) as the name of a literary genre was introduced by Glenn Negley and Max Patrick in their anthology of utopias “In Search of Utopia” (1952).

In the mid-1960s, the term “dystopia” (anti-utopia) appeared in Soviet, and later in English-language criticism. There is an opinion that English anti-utopia and English dystopia - synonyms. There is also a point of view (both in Russia and abroad) that distinguishes dystopia and dystopia. According to it, while dystopia is “the victory of the forces of reason over the forces of good,” the absolute antithesis of utopia, dystopia is only a negation of the principle of utopia, representing more degrees of freedom. However, the term dystopia is much more widespread and is usually meant to mean dystopia.

Differences between dystopia and utopia

Dystopia is a logical development of utopia and formally can also be attributed to this direction. However, if the classical utopia concentrates on demonstrating positive traits social order described in the work, then dystopia seeks to reveal its negative features. Thus, the difference between utopia and dystopia is only in the point of view of the author. An important feature of utopia is its static nature, while dystopia is characterized by attempts to consider the possibilities of development of the described social structures (usually in the direction of increasing negative trends, which often leads to crisis and collapse). Thus, dystopia usually works with more complex social models.

In Soviet literary criticism, dystopia was generally perceived negatively. For example, in the “Philosophical Dictionary” (4th ed., 1981) in the article “Utopia and Dystopia” it was said: “In dystopia, as a rule, a crisis of historical hope is expressed, the revolutionary struggle is declared meaningless, the inevitability of social evil is emphasized; science and technology are viewed not as a force that contributes to solving global problems and building a just social order, but as a means of enslaving people hostile to culture.” This approach was largely dictated by the fact that Soviet philosophy perceived the social reality of the USSR, if not as a realized utopia, then as a society possessing the theory of creating an ideal system (the theory of building communism). Therefore, any dystopia was inevitably perceived as doubting the correctness of this theory, which was considered an unacceptable point of view at that time. Dystopias that explored the negative possibilities for the development of capitalist society, on the contrary, were strongly welcomed, but they avoided calling them dystopias, instead giving the conventional genre definition of “warning novel” or “social fiction.” It is on this extremely ideological opinion that the definition of dystopia given by Konstantin Mzareulov in his book “Fiction. General course": "... utopia and dystopia: ideal communism and dying capitalism in the first case are replaced by communist hell and bourgeois prosperity in the second."

The most consistent thesis about the difference between a “reactionary” dystopia and a “progressive” warning novel was developed by Evgeniy Brandis and Vladimir Dmitrevsky. Following them, many other critics accepted it. However, such an influential historian of science fiction as Yuliy Kagarlitsky does not accept such a distinction, and even writes about Orwell, as well as about Zamyatin and Huxley, quite neutrally and objectively. 10 years later, a prominent sociologist and party official (at that time an employee of the apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee, assistant to the Secretary General during perestroika) Georgy Shakhnazarov identified himself with him.

Science fiction subgenres

Space Opera

One of the subgenres of adventure science fiction, which is usually defined by formal criteria: the action takes place in outer space and/or on other planets (in solar system or beyond) in a conventional (usually exotic) setting and, as a rule, includes a conflict between opponents using powerful (sometimes completely fictional) technologies; the characters are emphatically heroic, and the scale of their deeds is limited only by the imagination of the authors. Initially, works of this genre were purely entertaining, and the term was used in a negative sense, but subsequently the techniques of “space opera” were included in the arsenal of authors of artistically significant science fiction.

History of the genre

The term "space opera" was first coined in 1940 by Wilson Tucker, who used it to refer to hack commercial science fiction: Due to the fact that Tucker coined the term for an already established phenomenon at that time, it is impossible to clearly identify the "ancestors" of "space opera" " Formally, they can be considered any authors whose contribution to science fiction about space travel is undeniable. At the same time, the term “space opera” turns out to be equally applicable to works of a fairly wide genre range - for example, Burroughs’ “Martian” novels from the John Carter series; science fiction "galactic" novels by E. E. "Doc" Smith from the Space Lark and Lensmen series; Edmond Hamilton's novels about large-scale cosmic disasters, for which he was nicknamed "Destroyer of Worlds" or "Savior of Worlds"; space westerns, which became the signature genre of Astounding magazine in the early years of its existence; newspaper comics about Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and film series based on them - and so on. Most early work, corresponding to the “canons” of the genre, can be considered the novel by Garrett Seuvisse “Edison’s Conquest of Mars” (1898), a free continuation of H.G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds”, in which earthly scientists led by Edison fly to Mars and inflict a crushing retaliatory blow on the Martian civilization.

The "space opera" genre exploded in the 1940s as a genre of teen adventure literature (alongside conceptual science fiction in the vein of Campbell, which had its own "space opera" series, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series) and was commonly associated with magazines. Fantastic Adventures", "Amazing Stories", "Captain Future" and some others. During this period, such genre-defining works as Edmond Hamilton's Star Kings appeared.

A characteristic feature of the “space opera” of this period is the combination of futuristic and archaic elements of the setting - for example, spaceships and sword fights, nuclear technology and feudal social structure, etc. Such a free combination is unacceptable from the point of view of the canons of “strict” science fiction anachronistic realities at the same time contributed to the development of artistic freedom in fantasy and was subsequently regularly used even by the most significant authors of fantasy works (Ursula Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Samuel Delaney, Frank Herbert), which over time made the “space opera” genre much more respectable. During the same period, the obvious conventions of the genre were caustically parodied in a number of works - including Harry Harrison's novel Bill the Galactic Hero and Roger Vadim's film Barbarella (1968).

A landmark event for space opera was the release of George Lucas's Star Wars (1977), which used the conventions of the genre in combination with fundamental mythological archetypes. The success of the film, its sequels and the novels based on it significantly expanded the audience of the genre, giving new impetus to its development. In the following decades, the techniques of “space opera” were used by such famous authors as Lois McMaster Bujold (Barrayar series), Dan Simmons (Songs of Hyperion series), Vernor Vinge, Ian Banks (Culture series), David Weber (Culture series), "Honor Harrington") and others.

Although space opera is generally considered an entertaining genre, its techniques are also used by authors of more “serious” genres of SF. Thus, social science fiction and space opera are combined by “Dune” by F. Herbert, “Inhabited Island” by the Strugatskys, “Starship Troopers” by R. Heinlein, and “Hyperion” by D. Simmons. And Bruce Sterling, even at the founding of cyberpunk, combined it with space opera. Moreover, this trend of moving away from the traditional “romance of a sword and a starship” towards “spacepunk” was further developed in the 21st century - now a similar combination, in addition to Bruce Sterling, is also characteristic of the work of Yukito Kishiro, Alastair Reynolds and Andrei Livadny

Cyberpunk

Subgenre of science fiction. The term itself is a mixture of the words "cybernetics" (from the English cybernetics) and "punk" (from the English punk, garbage), first used by Bruce Bethke as the title for his 1983 story. Typically, works classified as cyberpunk describe a dystopian world of the near future, in which high technological development, such as information technology and cybernetics, is combined with deep decline or radical changes in the social structure.

Classic cyberpunk characters are marginalized, alienated loners who live on the fringes of society in a largely dystopian future where technological change, a ubiquitous infosphere of computerized information, and invasive modifications have rapidly invaded everyday life. human body.

Cyberpunk stories are often built around conflict between hackers, artificial intelligence, and megacorporations, and gravitate towards the "near future" of Earth more often than the far future or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Dune » Frank Herbert. Cyberpunk worlds are typically post-industrial dystopias, and describe a society on the cusp of rapid social and cultural change, where technology is used in ways not intended by its creators (“the street will find its own use for things”). Some of the genre's atmosphere echoes the style of film noir, and literary works of the genre often use detective techniques.

History of the genre

The word cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke, who published a story of the same name in 1980. The story is not directly related to cyberpunk as such. It’s just that one of the heroes of the story, a hacker, wears a characteristic punk hairstyle.

However, this very word was used by editor Gardner Dozois in his review of the novels of William Gibson. Later, it was this word, and precisely in the sense in which Dozois generalized Gibson’s style, that became the definition of cyberpunk as a genre. It is known as the Dozois criterion: “High tech. Low life" ("High technology, low standard of living"). The second part of the criterion refers not only to poverty, but also to insecurity, lack of rights, and lack of prospects.

Cyberpunk as a science fiction genre was popularized in the early 1980s by Canadian science fiction writer William Gibson. After publishing the novel Neuromancer (English Neuromancer, 1984, sometimes translated as “Neuromancer”), William Gibson became the most famous writer in this genre. Then many gifted and very different in style American science fiction writers turned to cyberpunk, among whom are Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker and Michael Swanwick. A peculiar post-cyberpunk style is also characteristic of the futuristic novels of Neal Stephenson.

Some believe that cyberpunk emerged largely in opposition to utopian fiction, and that its emergence was influenced by the development of information technologies in the early 1980s, which was not adequately reflected in traditional science fiction of the time. Cyberpunk, on the other hand, was aimed mainly at the near future, was technically accurate and required the reader to be well-versed in the development of technology, especially computer and network technology.

Basically, cyberpunk works are aimed at a youth, protest audience. The plot of cyberpunk works is often the struggle between hackers and powerful corporations. Main positive character often presented as a cybercriminal, a marginalized person without a systematic education. And the motivation of negative characters is connected with their belonging to ruling world transnational corporations or dependence on them. A common feature of the best works of the genre is that the artistic world embodied in them is represented by a technological dystopia. In the world of cyberpunk, high technological development often coexists with deep social stratification, poverty, lawlessness, and street anarchy in urban slums. After a number of commercially successful film adaptations, images and motifs of cyberpunk were developed in cinema, alternative music, graphic works (especially anime) and computer games.

Style and character

The most prominent representatives of cyberpunk in literature are William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley; Many also consider Philip Kindred Dick to be a representative of cyberpunk or one of his predecessors, who does not fit into the chronological framework of cyberpunk. In the 1980s, cyberpunk came to cinema, leaving a noticeable imprint on many science fiction films made since then. Since the 1990s, certain trends in music and fashion have also begun to be associated with cyberpunk, and in the world of computer and board games appeared role-playing games in cyberpunk style. By the beginning of the 21st century, elements of cyberpunk are found in a large variety of works of science fiction.

Cyberpunk world

Typical elements of a cyberpunk world are:

· cyberspace

· a virtual reality

· artificial intelligence

· cyborgs, biorobots

· city slums in post-apocalyptic style

· influential large corporations, so-called. zaibatsu

· crime syndicates, mafia

cybercrime, cyberterrorism

· nanotechnology, bioimplants

· the quantum physics

· Genetic Engineering

drugs and survival medications

In some cyberpunk works, much of the action takes place in cyberspace, blurring the line between reality and virtual reality. Such works describe the direct connection of the human brain to computer systems. This type of cyberpunk depicts the world as a dark, sinister place in which the Internet controls every aspect of people's lives. Giant, transnational corporations are replacing governments, wielding political, economic and even military power.

The theme of the struggle of outsiders against totalitarian or quasi-totalitarian systems is typical of science fiction and cyberpunk in particular, although in traditional science fiction totalitarian systems are orderly and governmental.

Among the main characters in cyberpunk works there are usually computer hackers, personifying the idea of a lone struggle against injustice. Much more often these are powerless, immoral, “non-heroic” people who find themselves in emergency than remarkable scientists or spaceship captains looking for adventure. One of the prototypes of cyberpunk characters was Case from Gibson's novel Neuromancer. Case is a “console cowboy”, a hacker who betrayed the mafia. Deprived of his gift due to an injury, Case unexpectedly receives a unique opportunity to recover, subject to participation in an illegal operation with his newly minted companions.

Like him, many cyberpunk protagonists are used by other people or AI. They find themselves in almost hopeless situations in which they understand nothing. These are the anti-heroes of the new world, losers, second-class citizens who are given a chance to change the world.

Cyberpunk works are often used as a metaphor for contemporary anxieties caused by corporate failures, government corruption, the rise of surveillance, and alienation. Cyberpunk aims to excite readers and call them to action. This is often expressed through rebellion, which can be described as counterculture countercultural science fiction.

Cyberpunk is also sometimes presented as a description of the evolution of the Internet. Virtual worlds often perform to different names, such as "cyberspace", "Network" or "The Matrix". It is important to note that early descriptions of global communication networks predate the spread of the World Wide Web, while science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke predicted their emergence.

Cyberpunk also presents the possibility of the existence of civil rights and responsibilities for AI, like a human mind uploaded into a computer, with reason and introspection. This again raises the question that having a mind comparable to that of a human should give such substances human-like rights and status.

Steampunk

Or steampunk is a direction of science fiction that models an alternative version of human development, in which the technology of steam engines and mechanics were perfectly mastered. As a rule, steampunk implies stylization of the era of Victorian England (second half of the 19th century) and the era of early capitalism with a characteristic cityscape and contrasting social stratification. The “punk” component of steampunk includes a special emphasis on “low human nature”, driven by low passions - lust, anger, vanity, greed and envy. The general style of steampunk often looks cynical (rudely frank) and pessimistic (dystopian), however (thanks to the comic possibilities of retro-stylistics and alternative history), humorous and parody motifs are also widespread. Elements of steampunk style (“vintage” cars, locomotives, telephones, etc., anachronistically inscribed in a more (or less) “vintage” setting; flying airships; mechanical robots) are also included in simplified fairy-tale, openly children’s works.

Currently in public environment and mass culture there are phenomena that allow us to talk about steampunk as an emerging subculture. Convincing establishment is hampered by the localization and fragmentation of communities of adherents, as well as the relative high cost of the necessary paraphernalia.

Origin of the term

The term "steampunk" was coined in 1987 by writer Kevin Jeter, and was originally a parody of "cyberpunk". Often modern technologies“steam” analogues were sought: a computer - Babbage's machine; programmer - claqueur; robot - automatic winding mechanism, etc.

The publication of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (commonly known as The Difference Engine, The Differential Calculator) (1990) brought a lot of attention to the genre, and it was after this novel that steampunk began to gain increasing popularity among readers.

Steampunk classification

· Alternative historical steampunk - based on stylization of the real historical world of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most typical are stylizations of Victorian England or America of the Wild West era.

· Fantasy steampunk - describes fantasy worlds technologically reminiscent of 19th century Europe. In these worlds, magic and fantasy races (gnomes, orcs, elves) coexist quite well with the steam engine.

Typical elements of the world

Characteristic elements of the steampunk world can be considered:

· Technologies based on the principles of mechanics and steam engines that have reached high degrees of development: steam locomotives, steam turbine locomotives, civil and warships steam-powered, including very large ones (ocean liners and dreadnoughts), steam buses, steam carriages, airships, primitive airplanes (often steam-powered) and other (often very mysterious) mechanisms made of riveted metal, copper pipes and wood . The machines are abundantly equipped with levers and instruments with analogue dials and arrows. The appearance of the cars, as a rule, is maintained in the style of Victorian England.

· Gas and partially candle lighting of streets and houses.

· The initial level of development of electricity - telegraph, primitive arc lamps, experiments with electricity in the style of the works of Nikola Tesla

· Weapons of the Industrial Revolution and variations on their theme: revolvers, single-shot and repeating rifles, early examples of automatic rifles, early examples of machine guns (the Gatling gun is very popular), rifled artillery guns, early examples of tanks, balloons, airships, early examples of aircraft may be present . Limited use edged weapons, such as swords, sabers, knives. A special accessory is a blade placed inside the cane.

· Weapons of the Industrial Revolution and variations on their theme: revolvers, single-shot and repeating rifles, early examples of automatic rifles, early examples of machine guns (the Gatling gun is very popular), rifled artillery guns, early examples of tanks, balloons, airships, may include early examples of aircraft . Limited use of edged weapons, such as swords, sabers, knives. A special accessory is a blade placed inside the cane.

· There is also a kind of prosthetics - lost limbs are replaced with mechanical parts of the body.

· Information technologies of the Victorian era: street newspapers, reminiscent of cash registers, non-electronic calculating machines (arithmometer, Babbage computer, etc.), telegraph, in some cases - pneumatic mail and pneumatic transport.

Steampunk in world culture

The presence of a specific art form in steampunk led to the emergence of a certain steampunk style in world culture. Its manifestations include all sorts of moddings of modern household items “in the style of steampunk”, specific accessories and decorations, replete with polished metal and gears, some elements of clothing, which are mainly stylizations on the theme of the Victorian era (a characteristic accessory is safety glasses - "goggles" of various types and shapes). A number of artists and designers work in a style that they themselves identify as steampunk. At the same time, it is too early to talk about steampunk as an established subculture.

Periodically in different countries Events dedicated to the steampunk style are held. For example, in the summer of 2010, the all-American festival STEAMfest 2010 was held in Avondale Estates (Atlanta, USA). Information about steampunk events held in different parts of the world periodically appears on specialized websites.

As for similar events in Russia, for example, on October 7-10, 2010, at Ilya Sorokin’s Oldtimer Gallery, the Internet portal Steampunker.ru presented “the largest steampunk exhibition ever exhibited in Russia.”

Post-cyberpunk

Under the genre of science fiction, which developed from cyberpunk, which, like its predecessor, describes the technical development of society in the near future and the processes occurring during this (universal penetration of information technology, genetic and molecular engineering, technologies for modifying the human body, etc.), however, Unlike “classic” cyberpunk, the main characters of the works actively strive to improve social conditions or, at least, prevent the degradation of society.

In post-cyberpunk we can roughly distinguish two directions - biopunk and nanopunk.

A direction in science fiction (a type of post-cyberpunk), dedicated to the social and psychological aspects of the use of genetic engineering and the use of biological weapons.

The beginning of the genre is Ribofunk, in which “non-humans” are created through genetic engineering, specially created as ideal servants, as well as living toys. This world is dominated by transnational corporations, terrorists from the Transgenic Liberation Front are active, and the Last Jihad is being waged. And the story of the transgenic and intelligent Peter Rabbit on McGregor's farm has parallels with the revolution in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

An example of a work in the biopunk genre is “Genome” by Lukyanenko, which describes methods that make it possible to change a person’s genotype in such a way as to adapt it to a certain activity. A similar operation (“specification”) is performed on the unborn child 9 months before birth on the order of the parents, who thus decide once and for all who he will be. The person to whom the specification has been made is called a "specialist", unmodified people are called "naturals". The cost of the specification, the possibility of providing a loan for payment and other conditions depend on how great the need for specialists in a given profession is on a given planet.

Specialists are genetically compatible with naturals - the specialist retains an unmodified genotype, and the specified characteristics are transmitted to the offspring only when both parents possess them, but even in this case their transmission can be blocked at the request of the parents. However, an even more successful example is the film Gattaca, released 2 years earlier, from which Lukyanenko clearly borrowed almost all of the ideas listed above for Genome.

Nanopunk

A trend in science fiction (a type of post-cyberpunk) dedicated to the social and psychological aspects of the use of nanotechnology.

Nanopunk examines the possibilities of manipulating matter at the molecular and atomic level, including the creation of substances with programmable properties (“smart matter”), as well as the creation of useful viruses that can provide a person with imaginary or obvious perfection in the form of a zombie or other form of post-human. The prospects and dangers associated with the use of programmable molecular devices - nanorobots, etc. - are shown. “matter collectors” engaged in the nanofabrication of material macro-objects. This is how the novel Ribofunk describes the death of the world from uncontrollably multiplied siliconrobes (nanobots).

In Western science fiction, one of the first works in the nanopunk genre can be considered the novel “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson (1995) and Paul Di Filippo’s “Ribofunk” (1996). Historically, it replaced cyberpunk, and therefore contains a number of its elements - transnational corporations and secret developments in secret laboratories; street riots; quarantine services; epidemics, search for vaccines.

In Russian science fiction, works with nanopunk elements were created by Alexander Tyurin: the novel “Are Computers Afraid of Hellfire?”, 1998, the stories “Cyberozoic Era” and “The Fate of Koshchei in the Cyberozoic Era,” the story “ Patriotic War 2012".

Definition of genre

Fantasy is a term that has ancient Greek origins and literally translates as “the art of imagining.” In literature, it is usually called a direction based on a fantastic assumption in the description of the artistic world and heroes. This genre tells about universes and creatures that do not exist in reality. Often these images are borrowed from folklore and mythology.

Science fiction is not only a literary genre. This is a whole separate movement in art, the main difference of which is the unrealistic assumption underlying the plot. Usually another world is depicted, which exists in a time other than ours, living according to the laws of physics different from those on earth.

Subspecies

Science fiction books on bookshelves today can confuse any reader with their variety of themes and plots. Therefore, they have long been divided into types. There are many classifications, but we will try to reflect the most complete one here.

Books of this genre can be divided according to plot features:

Science fiction, we’ll talk about it in more detail below.
Dystopian - this includes “Fahrenheit 451” by R. Bradbury, “Immortality Corporation” by R. Sheckley, “The Doomed City” by the Strugatskys.
Alternative: “The Transatlantic Tunnel” by G. Garrison, “Let the Darkness Never Fall” by L.S. de Campa, “Island of Crimea” by V. Aksenov.
Fantasy is the most numerous subspecies. Writers working in the genre: J.R.R. Tolkien, A. Belyanin, A. Pekhov, O. Gromyko, R. Salvatore, etc.
Thriller and horror: H. Lovecraft, S. King, E. Rice.
Steampunk, steampunk and cyberpunk: “War of the Worlds” by H. Wells, “The Golden Compass” by F. Pullman, “Mockingbird” by A. Pekhov, “Steampunk” by P.D. Filippo.

Genres often mix and new varieties of works appear. For example, love fantasy, detective, adventure, etc. Let us note that fantasy, as one of the most popular types of literature, continues to develop, more and more of its directions appear every year, and it is almost impossible to somehow systematize them.

Foreign books of the fantasy genre

The most popular and famous series of this subtype of literature is “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien. The work was written in the middle of the last century, but is still in great demand among fans of the genre. The story tells of the Great War against Evil, which lasted for centuries until the dark lord Sauron was defeated. Centuries have passed peaceful life, and the world is once again in danger. Only the hobbit Frodo, who must destroy the One Ring, can save Middle-earth from a new war.

Another excellent example of fantasy is “A Song of Ice and Fire” by J. Martin. To date, the cycle includes 5 parts, but is considered unfinished. The novels take place in the Seven Kingdoms, where long summer replaced by the same winter. Several families are fighting for power in the state, trying to seize the throne. The series is far from usual magical worlds, where good always defeats evil, and knights are noble and fair. Intrigue, betrayal and death reign here.

The Hunger Games series by S. Collins is also worthy of mention. These books, which quickly became bestsellers, are classified as teenage fiction. The plot tells about the struggle for freedom and the price that the heroes have to pay to get it.

Science fiction is (in literature) a separate world that lives by its own laws. And it appeared not at the end of the 20th century, as many people think, but much earlier. It’s just that in those years such works were classified as other genres. For example, these are books by E. Hoffman (“The Sandman”), Jules Verne (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Around the Moon”, etc.), H. Wells, etc.

Russian writers

Domestic science fiction authors have also written many books in recent years. Russian writers are slightly inferior to their foreign colleagues. We list here the most famous of them:

Sergei Lukyanenko. A very popular cycle is “Watches”. Now not only its creator, but also many others are writing about this series around the world. He is also the author of the following wonderful books and series: “The Boy and the Darkness”, “No Time for Dragons”, “Working on Mistakes”, “Deeptown”, “Sky Seekers”, etc.
The Strugatsky brothers. They have novels of various types of fiction: “Ugly Swans”, “Monday Begins on Saturday”, “Roadside Picnic”, “It’s Hard to Be a God”, etc.
Alexey Pekhov, whose books are popular today not only in his homeland, but also in Europe. Let us list the main cycles: “Chronicles of Siala”, “Spark and Wind”, “Kindrat”, “Guardian”.
Pavel Kornev: “Borderland”, “All-Good Electricity”, “Autumn City”, “Radiant”.

Foreign writers

Famous foreign science fiction writers:

Isaac Asimov is a famous American author who has written more than 500 books.
Ray Bradbury is a recognized classic not only of science fiction, but also of world literature.
Stanislaw Lem is a very famous Polish writer in our country.
Clifford Simak is considered the founder of American science fiction.
Robert Heinlein is an author of books for teenagers.

What is science fiction?

Science fiction is a movement in fantasy literature that takes as its plot the rational assumption that unusual things happen due to the incredible development of technical and scientific thought. One of the most popular genres today. But it is often difficult to separate it from related ones, since authors can combine several directions.

Science fiction is (in literature) a great opportunity to imagine what would happen to our civilization if technological progress accelerated or science chose a different path of development. Typically, such works do not violate the generally accepted laws of nature and physics.

The first books of this genre began to appear in the 18th century, when the formation of modern science took place. But science fiction emerged as an independent literary movement only in the 20th century. J. Verne is considered one of the first writers to work in this genre.

Science fiction: books

Let's list the most famous works this direction:

“Master of Torture” (J. Wolfe);
"Rise from the Dust" (F.H. Farmer);
"Ender's Game" (O.S. Card);
“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” (D. Adams);
"Dune" (F. Herbert);
“Sirens of Titan” (K. Vonnegut).

Science fiction is quite diverse. The books presented here are only the most famous and popular examples of it. It is almost impossible to list all the writers of this type of literature, since they are last decades several hundred appeared.

Collection output:

SCIENCE FICTION - PROBLEMS OF DEFINITION (LITERARY REVIEW)

Akramov Shukhrat Rakhmatovich

trainee researcher-applicant 1 year of study

Uzbek University of World Languages,

Fiction is one of the main types of art. It has always reflected and continues to reflect the most important problems of social life, developing along with it. The role of literature in understanding life and educating people is very significant.

Together with the creators of wonderful literary works, readers are introduced to the high ideals of truly human life. The creative work of a writer is always individual, both in the ways of artistic knowledge of the world and in the ways of expressing his worldview and understanding of the world.

According to literary critic L.G. Abramovich, literary development is inextricably linked, on the one hand, with all the multiplying and becoming more complex species and genre forms of artistic works, on the other hand, with the emergence and change of artistic methods.

Today, world fiction not only has traditional specific and genre forms of works of art, but is also enriched by the development of other forms.

One of these very interesting phenomena on modern map world literature is the birth of a new genre - science fiction. Although the famous literary critic R. Ibragimova claims that this is a genre of literature, in our opinion, this is a type of fantastic literature, because only a certain type of work can be called a genre - a novel, short story or tale.

Thus, science fiction is today recognized as one of the most popular literary forms. Currently, this type of fiction, arousing universal interest, has eclipsed all other types and attracted the widest readership. The reasons for this phenomenon are obviously due to the successes of science and technology, which have proven their power and necessity in modern society.

Data on the history of the emergence of science fiction in available publications turned out to be sparse.

Scientist, physicist, mathematician and astronomer, Y. Perelman first proposed the term “sci-fi”, who in 1914 wrote and published an additional chapter “Breakfast in a Weightless Kitchen” to the novel by J. Verne “From a Gun to the Moon” in the magazine “Nature” and people." In 1923, the science fiction writer H. Gernsbeck also used the term “scientifiction” for the first time in his magazine “Science and Invention” to mean “science fiction,” combining the words “science” and “fiction.” Subsequently, this term became fixed in the English language in the form of “science fiction”.

It is with the definition of the object of research and the classification of available material that any science begins. It must be admitted that there is no generally accepted definition of the term “science fiction”. Many definitions have been proposed, both by literary critics and science fiction writers themselves, as well as editors of various kinds of encyclopedias.

In 1926, H. Gernsbeck defined that science fiction (SF) is a type literary prose, which was written by J. Verne, G. Wells and E.A. Po, these are lovely exciting romantic stories, implicated in scientific data and prophetic foresight.

In our opinion, stories in which the theme of love appears as the main one can be called romantic. Most American and English researchers associate SF with romance, and the understanding of romance is ambiguous. On the one hand, this tendency to shape the world anew, on the other, everything that we usually understand by the concept of “romance”. Such duality in meaning of this word N. Hawthorne also contributed when contrasting the romantic novel with the realistic novel. A supporter of romanticism in SF was also the historian F. Bruce, who argued that “to compile a complete list of the forerunners of science fiction, it would be necessary to tell all the stories about amazing discoveries and extraordinary travel in time and space and stories about strange physical phenomena, utopian fantasies.”

B. Davenport defined SF as “a unique phenomenon with its own language.” In 1947, R. Heinlein proposed a short definition for science fiction - “literature of speculation.” The name turned out to be catchy and convenient and indeed explained, albeit partially, the originality of science fiction and, therefore, was readily accepted. Another science fiction writer, A. Clark, gave a definition: SF - “literature of change,” and this definition became as famous as R. Heinlein’s definition (“literature of reasoning”).

Another definition and understanding of SF very similar to this famous author I. Efremova: science fiction is “literature of logical considerations,” and according to the Japanese writer K. Abe, SF is “literature of hypothesis.”

You can often come across the statement (B. Robert) that science fiction is a “literature of ideas,” or a “system of ideas,” as D. Wollheim writes. In his opinion, fiction “has much more to do with ideas than with literary styles.”

In our opinion, the definitions of SF by the above authors (R. Heinlein, A. Clark, I. Efremov, K. Abe, B. Davenport, B. Robert and D. Wollheim) are identical.

B. Aldis proposed calling science fiction “literature that depicts the environment.” This is most likely explained by the persistent interest of science fiction writers in the 20th century not in man as such, but in technology, in space, the objects and phenomena surrounding it, and the properties of time and space. But here the question arises: perhaps the specific subject of depiction in science fiction is also the artificial environment created by man himself.

However, B. Aldis means not just the environment, but changes in the surrounding world and their impact on humanity, which may also undergo certain changes. Some researchers and critics write about scientific discoveries and their impact on humans, about the impact of scientific and technological progress on human society. This is exactly what the science fiction writer A. Azimov had in mind in 1953, proposing to call this type of literature “social science fiction.” The social consequences of scientific discoveries have been repeatedly considered as main subject reflection of reality in SF by critics of the countries of the former USSR.

In terms of A. Asimov, “social science fiction” and B. Aldis, “literature depicting the environment,” they say the same thing - science fiction tells about catastrophic changes growing in human society, which are the result of scientific and technological progress in its ideal (knowledge of the world) and material (technology, invention) expression, and these changes inevitably affect the destinies and psyche of people.

Thus, it can be noted that the basis for the definition of SF by the last two authors is the development of scientific and technological development and its close connection with science fiction.

The aforementioned science fiction writer and editor H. Gernsbeck defined science fiction: “literature of foresight in the sphere of material progress.” The view of SF as a kind of futurology was expressed in criticism in the 1920s, when it was believed that it depicts the future, often the technology and science of the future, and tries to predict certain specific features of the future. This point of view finds like-minded people even today. For example, D. Levingston defines science fiction as “an essential part of futurology,” and the writer L. Del Rey claims that the main thing in the nature of science fiction is prediction and foresight.

So, analyzing the statements of these writers, we can assume that SF seeks to directly predict the future, its specific appearance.

But a huge number of critics hold a different opinion, which, in our opinion, is close to the truth: in works about the future they see direct prophecies and foresights, a showing of a “different” world, different from today’s, changed ambitions, preparing a person for probable changes, the formation of a more stable and flexible human psyche. A. Clark, explaining his definition of SF as “literature of change,” notes that this type of literature contributes to the adaptation of readers to the world, the coming and already coming. Similar opinions were expressed by critics of the countries of the former USSR.

R. Conquest proposed to qualify SF as a “literature of possibilities,” because science fiction depicts supposed, possible changes, rather than real ones, thereby helping the human psyche not to be taken aback by real changes. One of his articles in the collection “Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow” is called: “Science Fiction and Human Adaptation to Change.”

For example, the science fiction writer R. Heinlein proposed a detailed definition of science fiction in 1959: “realistic reasoning about possible future events, based strictly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and a full understanding of the nature and meaning scientific method". According to his colleague R. Sterling, “fantasy makes the impossible possible, science fiction makes the incredible possible.” R. Del Lester notes that the reason for the lack of a universally satisfactory definition of SF is that it is not easy to delineate the boundaries of science fiction.

The interpretation of the term “scientific” in relation to science fiction still raises many questions. For example, E. Kovtun proposed changing the word “scientific” to the word “rational”, citing several reasons. The main one is that in the term “science fiction” the adjective “scientific” is not entirely correct.

The term “rational fiction,” in his opinion, more accurately reflects the most important aspect, the originality of this type of fantastic literature: the rational, as opposed to the “supernatural” motivation of the fantastic premise, traditional for previous fiction.

According to E. Kovtun, rational fiction (RF) is a somewhat broader concept than SF, because it consists of equal two subtypes of fiction with a logical premise, which has various patterns of artistry: namely scientific (it is called “hard”, or scientific -technical) and social fiction. Next, he gives his definition of rational fiction: “Rational fiction denotes a type of prose that narrates a situation that is impossible in the reality we know, but is hypothetically probabilistic and related to certain discoveries in technology and science.”

We consider the definition proposed by G. Gurevich more promising: “Scientific fiction is considered to be the one where the extraordinary is created by material forces: by man or nature, through technology and science.”

But it should be clarified: the fantastic component in science fiction (not at all necessary) should be strictly “scientific” in the academic interpretation of this term, since some facts are extremely difficult to explain, for example, on what science are the ideas of a hyperspace starship, a time machine, individual immortality based, antigravitator. Many science fiction ideas are based on fictional scientific disciplines, rather than real scientific ones: psychohistory, bipolar mathematics, etc. Apparently, the main requirement of being scientific in this sense is the absence of any contradictions with current science. For example, in the works of the Strugatsky brothers, interstellar flights are accomplished through a certain effect, called by writers “epsilon-deritrination”, A. Azimov proposes a “hyper jump”, S. Snegov introduces the idea of “Tanev theory”, etc. Of course, none of these the proposed, fictitious theories cannot contradict current scientific worldviews, since it cannot be ruled out that in the near future such ideas and hypotheses may well be worked out and implemented in real life.

Thus, the main criterion of science fiction, according to science fiction writer K. Mzareulov, is the scientific justification of the fantastic component.

He gives the following definition of SF, arguing that it is “a special type of fiction, the works of which contain components that have a scientific basis, do not contradict reliably established facts of reality and a materialistic view of nature, and the differences between the described events and phenomena from reality are immediate a consequence of the influence of the fantastic component."

Based on the above, we join the opinion of the last author (K. Mzareulov) that SF should be based on real scientific discoveries and technical progress.

Science fiction writers V. Obruchev and A. Belyaev believe that the main purpose of SF is to bring knowledge to the reading masses and prepare them for scientific work. A. Osipov in his book “Fiction from A to Z” proposed the following formulation: “Science fiction is literature of figurative expression of scientific, social, aesthetic hypotheses and hypothetical situations about the past, present and future (on issues that concern man and society in many ways) , logically projected from the phenomena of modernity or the modern worldview and therefore probabilistic or permissible within the framework of an artistic experiment, which is the work. The peculiarity of works of science fiction is that they tell, as a rule, about something that does not yet exist in reality, but does not, in principle, contradict the laws of its development or can arise due to a combination of certain circumstances. What makes science fiction is that certain of its assumptions or assumptions are built on the basis logical conclusions, either from modern phenomena, or from the sum of little-known facts about the past, acquiring probabilistic characteristics within the framework of an artistic model.” For example, flights to distant stars have not yet been undertaken, but these flights are fundamentally possible in the future - this is a matter of technology.

The literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts gives the following definition of science fiction: “Science fiction is a type of fantastic literature based on an assumption of a rational nature, according to which, with the help of the laws of scientific discoveries, technical inventions or nature, not contradicting the natural scientific views of that time, the work creates the extraordinary or supernatural.”

G. Oldie also speaks about fantastic assumptions in his definition of science fiction - SF is a genre in cinema, literature and other types of art. SF is based on fantastic assumptions that do not go beyond the scientific understanding of reality, both in the humanities and natural sciences. From this it follows that novels, stories, stories and essays based on assumptions that are non-scientific belong to other genres (fantasy or mysticism).

G. Oldie divides science fiction assumptions into humanities and sciences and natural sciences. In the first type, an assumption is introduced in the field of history, sociology, ethics, religion, psychology and even philology. In the second type, new laws of nature and invention are introduced into the work. It should be noted that it is also possible to find a combination of different types of assumptions simultaneously in one narrative.

M. Galina writes the following in her article: “It is usually assumed that SF is a type of literature where the plot revolves around a fantastic but scientific idea. It would be more correct to say that science fiction, from the very beginning, narrates reality, reality, events, phenomena and images that are internally consistent and logical. In SF, the plot is based on one or several scientific-like (or seemingly scientific) assumptions, for example, movement in space faster than light, superdimensional tunnels, a time machine, telepathy, etc.

As the literary critic R. Ibrokhimova writes in her book “Vokelik va Fantastika” (“Realism and Fantasy” - author): “The opinions expressed regarding the term science fiction are largely correct in their own way, since, no matter what it is called, it is based on life problems. But defining the genre of a work as science fiction is a relative concept, because the writer does not guarantee that the fantastic theme raised in the work is 100% scientific. And, in general, he does not set himself the goal of drawing up a specific project, but only tries to logically and scientifically substantiate the idea in the form of an image, a hypothesis.”

As stated in the same aforementioned “Literary Encyclopedia of Terms and Concepts”, the difficulty of defining SF is due to the fact that for a long time it was studied separately, in isolation from realistic literature. However, if realistic literature describes a world that is familiar and familiar to the reader, then science fiction shows a probabilistic world, which is a model of possible reality, realistically accurate (convincing) in detail, the degree of realism of which is generally determined by the depth and relevance of the contemporary issues raised in the work.

According to the statements of the above latest authors(V. Obruchev, A. Belyaev, G. Oldi, R. Ibrokhimova), as well as the literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts, it can be noted that science fiction undoubtedly arouses readers’ deep interest in scientific and technical discoveries, with the help of which it creates the possibility of incredible change our existing world, our reality, that is, “make a fairy tale come true” and bring science-fiction ideas or hypotheses to life.

Thus, having analyzed the definitions of science fiction by numerous authors of world literature on various stages its development, we can conclude that science fiction is a type of fantastic literature (and not a genre, since a genre is a specific type of work - a novel, short story or story) with a material view of reality, which is based on various scientific discoveries and has two functions: educational and prognostic, the first awakens the reader’s interest in mastering science and technology, fosters feelings of humanism and justice, the second anticipates future scientific discoveries.

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one of the types of fiction that tells about the imaginary past or future of humanity (or the inhabitants of other planets), paying special attention to technical achievements, scientific discoveries, and opportunities that modern man is deprived of. Conflicts associated with these new possibilities and their uncontrolled use often form the content of science fiction. Science fiction does not include works of fantasy, where fantasy is based on fairy-tale motifs - the participation of monsters, imaginary creatures, etc. (however, there are works that combine fairy-tale and science-fiction motifs - for example, “Monday begins on Saturday” and “ The Tale of Troika" by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky), also socio-fantastic utopias do not belong to science fiction (or only partly belong) (for example, "We" by E. I. Zamyatin, "1984" by J. Orwell ). The main feature of science fiction in comparison with other areas of fiction is rationality; when depicting fictional life, it uses scientific rather than mystical explanations of various kinds of miracles: the invention by scientists of spaceships, devices for transmitting thoughts at a distance, etc.; Another motif very often used in science fiction is aliens visiting Earth. In various works of science fiction, incredible things happen, often much more incredible than the miracles of fairy tales, but at the same time they are considered the achievement of intelligence - either earthly or alien. Science fiction is actually based on a picture of an atheistically minded world that believes in the achievements of human science, which is why its heyday occurs in the 20th century.

At the origins of Russian science fiction was V.V. Mayakovsky, who in the play “The Bedbug” depicted the resurrection of a person in the distant future, when it becomes possible to resurrect the dead; M.A. Bulgakov, who showed in the story “Fatal Eggs” the discovery of the “ray of life” and the catastrophe that resulted from the authorities’ too hasty attention to it and careless handling of it. In classical Russian 19th century literature writers paid little attention to science fiction (in part, V. F. Odoevsky’s unfinished novel “The Year 4338” and the utopian “Vera Pavlovna’s Fourth Dream” from N. G. Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be Done?” can be attributed to it). The rise of science fiction in Russian. literature dates back to the 20th century, when the works of A. S. Green (“The Shining World”), A. N. Tolstoy (“Aelita”, “Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin”), V. A. Obruchev (“Plutonia”, “ Sannikov Land"), A. R. Belyaev ("Amphibian Man", "The Head of Professor Dowell"), I. A. Efremova ("Andromeda Nebula"), A. N. and B. N. Strugatskikh ("It's Hard to Be God”, “Roadside Picnic”), A. P. Kazantsev (“Planet of Storms”, “Moon Road”), K. Bulychev (“The Secret of the Third Planet”), etc.

The beginning of foreign science fiction is associated with utopias written during the Renaissance (T. Campanella, T. More). Then in the 19th century. science fiction works appear in the works of many writers - E. Poe, M. Shelley, M. Twain, A. K. Doyle, especially in the novels of J. Verne and H. Wells. In the 20th century achievements in the genre of science fiction belong to R. Bradbury (“Fahrenheit 451°,” the collection “The Martian Chronicles”), S. Lem (“Solaris”) and others.

Many works of science fiction are classified as children's literature because of their entertaining nature - they depict a life that is unlike modern life, filled with all sorts of technical innovations that the characters perceive as something completely ordinary. However, most works of this type of fiction attempt to answer serious questions. The task of science fiction is to “prepare” a person for the future, to show what problems he will face and what he will be responsible for. One of the main questions: what will humanity be like when it has more opportunities than it has now? What can change, first of all, in moral and spiritual terms? This is discussed, for example, by R. Bradbury (the story “The Veldt,” where a child’s room, guessing wishes, ultimately leads to the death of the parents; the story “Crime without Punishment,” where a virtual murder turns into a real one, etc.). Science fiction is trying to find an answer to another question that has long troubled humanity: are we alone in the Universe? One of the most common plots is a collision with alien civilizations, the perception of people by them or by people of them. Such a conflict allows us to show the different qualities of people against the background of representatives of other civilizations. In some cases, earthlings turn out to be more moral, understanding, tactful and incapable of violence (for example, in the story by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky “It’s Hard to Be a God”), in others, aliens turn out to be more “humane” than people (“Concrete Mixer” by R. Bradbury). The moral test of meeting aliens, changes in man himself are also the theme of many works of science fiction; for example, the story “Roadside Picnic” by A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky is devoted to this. The external side of the plot is the “visit” of aliens to the Earth and various kinds of mechanisms and devices unknown to earthlings, left behind by them. The main conflict unfolds around the possession of these things, their speculation, and the manifestation of a person’s moral qualities. The philosophical problem of human responsibility for his cosmic deeds is also discussed in the novels of S. Lem.

Science fiction is at the intersection of different areas of literature: on the one hand, the psychological authenticity of characters and conflicts makes it similar to realism; interest in exceptional situations and events combines with romanticism; It is also easy to find in it elements of a fairy tale, adventure literature - incredible situations, a dynamic plot full of events, etc.

The entertaining nature of science fiction and the reader's interest in all sorts of miracles and amazing things lead to the creation of many short-lived works, where the writer does not pose serious problems, but is carried away by a detective plot, a description of fictional creatures and devices.

Science fiction has had a great influence on cinema - many films have been made based on science fiction works using images characteristic of science fiction (space flights, aliens, discoveries, etc.).

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