University and college courses on science fiction have proliferated in recent decades—and no wonder. From H.G. Wells to H.P. Lovecraft, from Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury to Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, and from Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler to N.K. Jemisin, the genre offers a rich lode of literary material that engages readers’ attention, provokes deep reflection, and prompts lively discussion. Understandably enough, most such courses focus primarily on novels and short stories from the past one hundred years. Beyond, perhaps, a glance at Frankenstein and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, there is rarely time in a single course to explore, for example, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works of proto–science fiction. Nor is it usually possible to explore many works that fall into gray areas—works from many eras that might be described as science fiction, but that might also be described, depending on the particular work, as fantasy novels, or as adventure stories, or as lost world narratives, or as horror stories, or as philosophical fiction.
This site is designed to facilitate an exploration of those gray areas. Of the selections here, only those by H.G. Wells, Clare Winger Harris, and the AI-authored story are works of fiction that almost anyone would unequivocally declare to be works of science fiction, pure and simple. The rest are works of proto–science fiction, or mixed-genre works, or works that might arguably be described as speculative fiction or utopian fiction rather than science fiction.
If we are mapping the genre of science fiction, where should we mark its borders? How broadly can we (or should we) define the genre? This website aims to encourage such discussion. In addition to twelve works of fiction, the site includes a full list of the Broadview Editions that can be considered science fiction, and a list of links to other relevant online resources.
The final fiction selection, “The Last Draft,” may also prompt questions about the future edges of science fiction writing, in what is rapidly becoming an AI world.
