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The Science Fiction Culture
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SOME DEFINITIONS OF "SCIENCE-FICTION"

By "scientifiction" I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story--a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision.

Hugo Gernsback, editorial in Amazing Stories (April 1926)

 

Science Fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the 'willing suspension of disbelief on the part of its reader by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy.

Sam Moskowitz, in Explorers of the Infinite (1963)

 

A piece of science fiction is a narrative of an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences and consequent adventures and experience.

J.O. Bailey, Pilgrims through Space and Time (1947)

 

Science fiction is that branch of literature that deals with the human responses to changes in the level of science and technology.

Isaac Asimov, column in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (March-April 1978)

 

Science fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of scientific knowledge, and is cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.

Brian Aldiss, Billion Year Spree (1973)

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