Reading sci-fi for pleasure

At the risk of sounding like a nerd, I'm beginning to think science fiction's actually quite good.

Fiction, yes, but a little short on science: Blade Runner
Science fiction doesn't get a lot of respect - and quite possibly it doesn't deserve it. But don't take it from me, take it from one of the genre's most productive stalwarts Philip K Dick:


Even though that's probably overstating the case, I can imagine quite a few readers of this blog nodding in agreement. There's something about science fiction that just doesn't appeal. Even though I've long recognised that I'm a bit of a geek, I just find much of it too nerdy. I have a strong negative reaction to all the warp-speed jargon, the masturbatory fantasies about alien sex queens and the frequent intrusion of half-baked mathematical theories.

When science fiction is bad, it's really bad. Like a one-way amphetamine fuelled conversation with the kid who always sat at the front of your bus, went crazy at even the slightest whiff of orange juice, preferred to be called Gandalf, and in later life was undone in an incident in a local park that demonstrated a marked lack of social awareness. In short, it just isn't cool.

But, of course, "coolness" is not really a valid test for literary worth (or anything else for that matter, except trousers). That's why recently, for the first time since I hit puberty, I've been battling to overcome my prejudice and started seriously reading books labelled as science fiction. A slow but steady course from the excellent SF Masterworks series has helped me to realise that at its best, science fiction can quite literally open up new worlds. It's also made me realise that I've actually been reading science fiction for years, but just didn't regard it as such.


To see what I mean, try drawing up a list of the best sci-fi authors. If it's anything like mine when I started thinking about this subject, it will be topped off by names like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and Philip K Dick. There's nothing wrong with any of those writers, of course, no matter what Philip K Dick himself may say to the contrary. Often they are profoundly interesting. However - and here's the catch - they're not half as impressive as the authors on the second list I drew up: Kurt Vonnegut, Angela Carter, JG Ballard and Thomas Pynchon.

The thing here is that it took a real shift in thinking to include the latter four writers as sci-fi. Their books all include strong elements of science fiction. There are parallel universes, time shifts, robots, people with names like Zog, Zoyd, Brock Vond and Dr Hoffman. There are strange machines and philosophical musings on the nature of reality.

Even so, my first instinct would be to give them some other label, as if their beautiful prose alone has made them transcend the genre.

I know I'm not alone in this, because in almost every bookshop I've been in I've found even the most "sci-fi" of Carter, Ballard and Pynchon's books far away from the Science Fiction ghetto, listed under 'classics' or 'contemporary fiction'. Kurt Vonnegut, meanwhile, is the exception that proves the rule, because his earlier less impressive works like 'The Sirens Of Titan' still linger in sci-fi while stone-cold classics like Timequake and Slaughterhouse 5 have moved on, even though they're no less sci-fi than the others.


Over to you.