විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ
විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ වශයෙන් හැඳින්වෙන්නේ විද්‍යාත්මක පරිකල්පනයන් රසවත් කථාන්දර ලෙසින් ඉදිරිපත් කිරීම තුළින් බිහි ව ඇති සාහිත්‍යය යි. මෙහි දී බොහෝ විට විද්‍යාවේ සහ තාක්ෂණයේ විස්මයජනක අනාගත වර්ධනයන්, අභ්‍යවකාශ තරණය (space exploration), වෙනත් ග්‍රහලෝක පද්ධති ජනාවාස කිරීම (space colonization), දුරස්ථ ග්‍රහලෝකවල පැවතිය හැකි බුද්ධිමය ජීවීන් (extraterrestrial/alien life), කාලතරණය (time travel), සමාන්තර විශ්ව (parallel universes) වැනි පවතින අනාගතවාදී (futurism) සහ විද්‍යාත්මක තේමා ඇසුරු කරගනිමින් කථා ලියැවෙනු දැකිය හැකි ය. 

මෙම සාහිත්‍ය විසින් විද්‍යාත්මක සහ තාක්ෂණික නව සොයාගැනීම් පිළිබඳ පරිකල්පනයන් නැතිනම් අනාවැකි ඉදිරිපත් කිරීම මෙන් ම ඒ ආශ්‍රිත ව සමාජය මුහුණ දිය හැකි අභියෝග පිළිබඳ ව සාකච්ඡා කිරීම ද සිදු වේ. ඓතිහාසික ව ගත්විට විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ සාහිත්‍යය අද දවසේ යතාර්ථයක් ව ඇති ඇතැම් විද්‍යාත්මක නිපැයුම් පිළිබඳ සාර්ථක අනාවැකි ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට ද සමත් වී ඇති අතර වත්මන් සමාජයේ පවතින විෂමතා ආදිය පිළිබඳ විවේචන සහ ඒවාට විකල්ප ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට ඇතැම් ලේඛකයන් විසින් යොදාගෙන තිබේ.

විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධය සහ එය සබැඳි සෙසු ප්‍රවර්ග වන සමපේක්ෂණාත්මක ප්‍රබන්ධය (speculative fiction), ෆැන්ටසිය වැනි ප්‍රවර්ගවලින් එය වෙන්කෙරෙන බෙදුම් කඩනය ඇතැම් විට ඉතා සියුම් නොපැහැදිලි මායිමක් වන අතර මේ හේතුවෙන් ම ඇතැම් කෘති විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ සහ ෆැන්ටසි යන ප්‍රවර්ග දෙකට ම අයත් ලෙස සැලකීම මෙන් ම ඇතැම් කෘති අයත් වන ශානරය පිළිබඳ විචාරකයන් හා පාඨකයන් අතර විවාද පැවතීම ද දැකිය හැකි ය. 

විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලේඛක සහ පාඨක ප්‍රජාව තුළ ගැඹුරු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ (hard science fiction) සහ සැහැල්ලු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ (soft science fiction) වශයෙන් බෙදීමක් ද දැකගත හැකි ය. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් ගත්විට භෞතික විද්‍යාව වැනි විෂයයන් ආශ්‍රිත විද්‍යා සංකල්ප ගැඹුරින් සාකච්ඡාවට බඳුන් කරන කෘති ගැඹුරු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලෙස සැලකෙන අතර ජීවවිද්‍යාව ඇසුරු කරගන්නා හෝ විද්‍යා කරුණු කථාවට පසුබිමක් වශයෙන් පමණක් යොදාගන්නා කෘති සැහැල්ලු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලෙසත් සැලකිය හැකි ය. සැහැල්ලු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධවල මූලික ම ලක්ෂණයක් වන්නේ විද්‍යා නවොත්පාදනයක භෞතික අභියෝගවලට වඩා එහි සමාජ බලපෑම සාකච්ඡාවට ලක්කිරීම යි. කෙසේනමුත් ගැඹුරු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධය සහ සරළ විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධය යන මේ බෙදුම ද ඇතැම් විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලේඛක ලේඛිකාවන්ගේ විවේචනයට ලක් ව තිබේ. 

නූතන විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධයේ ආරම්භය ජූල්ස් වර්න්ගෙන් (Jules Verne) ඇරඹුණු බව සැලකෙන අතර ඔහු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධයේ පියා ලෙස හැඳින්වෙයි. කෙසේ නමුත් ඊට පෙර රචනා වුණු ජොහැන්නස් කෙප්ලර්ගේ සොම්නියම් (Sominum), මාරි ෂෙලීගේ ෆ්‍රැන්කන්ස්ටයින් (Frankenstein), ජොනතන් ස්විෆ්ට්ගේ ගලිවර්ස් ට්‍රැවල්ස් (Gulliver's Travels) වැනි කෘති ද විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලෙස සැලකෙයි. නූතන විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධයේ මහා දැවැන්තයන් තිදෙනා (Big Three) ලෙස අයිසෙක් ඇසිමොව් (Issac Asimov), ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් (Arthur C. Clarke) සහ රොබර්ට් ඒ. හෙයින්ලෙයින් (Robert A. Heinlein) හඳුන්වනු ලැබෙති. මුල්කාලීන විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ රචකයන් අතර ජූල්ස් වර්න්, එච්. ජී. වෙල්ස්, එච්. පී. ලව්ක්‍රාෆ්ට්, එඩ්ගාර් රයිස් බරෝස් කැපී පෙනේ. 

පසුකාලීන විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ ලේඛකයන් අතර අයිසෙක් ඇසිමොව්, ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක්, රොබර්ට් ඒ. හෙයින්ලෙයින් (Robert A. Heinlein), පෝල් ඇන්ඩර්සන් (Poul Anderson), මයිකල් ක්‍රිච්ටන් (Michael Crichton), ස්ටැනිස්ලාෆ් ලෙම් (Stanislav Lem), ලැරී නිවෙන් (Larry Niven), ඩේවිඩ් බ්‍රින් (David Brin), ස්ටීවන් බැක්ස්ටර් (Stephan Baxter) පිලිප් කේ. ඩික් (Philip K. Dick), උර් සුලා කේ. ලේ ගයින් (Ursula K. Le Guin), ඔක්තාවියා ඊ. බට්ලර්, රේ බ්‍රැඩ්බරි (Ray Bradbury), ග්‍රෙග් බෙයාර් (Greg Bear), ග්‍රෙගරි බෙන්ෆෝඩ් (Grgary Benford), ඔර්සන් ස්කොට් කාඩ් (Orson Scott Card), පීටර් වොට්ස් (Peter Watts), ග්‍රෙග් එගන් (Greg Egan) කැපී පෙනෙති.

නිර් වචනය  
ඇමරිකානු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ රචකයකු සහ සංස්කාරකවරයකු වන ලෙස්ටර් ඩෙල් රේ පවසන පරිදි "විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධ සාහිත්‍යය දැඩි ව ඇසුරු කරන රසිකයකුට පවා විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධය යනු කුමක් ද යන්නට තනි පිළිතුරක් දීම අපහසු විය හැකි ය." මෙසේ "සතුටුදායක නිර් වචනයක්" නොතිබීමට හේතුව වන්නේ "පහසුවෙන් දැක්විය හැකි මිනුම් දඬු විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධයට නොතිබීම ය."   

අයිසෙක් ඇසිමොව්ට අනුව "විද්‍යාවේ සහ තාක්ෂණයේ වෙනස්වීම්වලට මානව වර්ගයා දක්වන ප්‍රතිචාරය සමග ගනුදෙනු කරන සාහිත්‍යය ප්‍රභේදය ලෙස විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධය හඳුන්වා දිය හැකි ය." 

රොබට් ඒ. හෙයින්ලෙයින් පවසා ඇති පරිදි "සෑම විද්‍යා ප්‍රබන්ධයක් ම ඇතුළත් කරගන්නා කෙටි සතුටුදායක නිර්වචනයක් පහත පරිදි විය හැකි ය. එනම්, තථ්‍ය ලෝකය, අතීතය සහ වර්තමානය පිළිබඳ නිසි ශක්තිමත් දැනුමක් සහ විද්‍යාත්මක ක්‍රමයේ පිළිබඳ ගැඹුරු අවබෝධයක් මත පදනම් ව විභව අනාගත සංසිද්ධි පිළිබඳ යථාර්ථවත් පරිකල්පනයන් ඉදිරිපත් කිරීම යි." 

Part of the reason that it is so difficult to pin down an agreed definition of science fiction is because there is a tendency among science fiction enthusiasts to act as their own arbiter in deciding what exactly constitutes science fiction.  Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it." David Seed says it may be more useful to talk around science fiction as the intersection of other, more concrete, genres and subgenres.

ඉතිහාසය

Some scholars assert that science fiction had its beginnings in ancient times, when the line between myth and fact was blurred. Written in the 2nd century CE by the satirist Lucian, A True Story contains many themes and tropes characteristic of modern science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life. Some consider it the first science-fiction novel. Some of the stories from The Arabian Nights, along with the 10th-century The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Ibn al-Nafis's 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus, also contain elements of science fiction.

Written during the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1634), Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), Athanasius Kircher's Itinerarium extaticum (1656), Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657) and The States and Empires of the Sun (1662), Margaret Cavendish's "The Blazing World" (1666), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Ludvig Holberg's Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741) and Voltaire's Micromégas (1752) are sometimes regarded as some of the first true science-fantasy works. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Somnium the first science-fiction story; it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earth's motion is seen from there.

Following the 17th-century development of the novel as a literary form, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped define the form of the science-fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction. Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories considered to be science fiction, including "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835), which featured a trip to the Moon. Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy, especially in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). In 1887, the novel El anacronópete by Spanish author Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau introduced the first time machine.  An early French/Belgian science fiction writer was J.-H. Rosny aîné (1856–1940).  Rosny's masterpiece is Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (The Navigators of Infinity) (1925) in which the word astronaut, "astronautique", was used for the first time.

Many critics consider H. G. Wells one of science fiction's most important authors, or even "the Shakespeare of science fiction." His notable science-fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). His science fiction imagined alien invasion, biological engineering, invisibility, and time travel. In his non-fiction futurologist works he predicted the advent of airplanes, military tanks, nuclear weapons, satellite television, space travel, and something resembling the World Wide Web.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, published in 1912, was the first of his three-decade-long planetary romance series of Barsoom novels, which were set on Mars and featured John Carter as the hero. In 1924 We by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, one of the first dystopian novels, was published. It describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre.

In 1926, Hugo Gernsback published the first American science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. In its first issue he wrote:

In 1928, E. E. "Doc" Smith's first published work, The Skylark of Space, written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby, appeared in Amazing Stories.  It is often called the first great space opera. The same year, Philip Francis Nowlan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419, also appeared in Amazing Stories. This was followed by a Buck Rogers comic strip, the first serious science-fiction comic.

In 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, an event that is sometimes considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, which was characterized by stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress. In 1942, Isaac Asimov started his Foundation series, which chronicles the rise and fall of galactic empires and introduced psychohistory. The series was later awarded a one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series."  The "Golden Age" is often said to have ended in 1946, but sometimes the late 1940s and the 1950s are included.

Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human (1953) explored possible future human evolution. In 1957, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by the Russian writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov presented a view of a future interstellar communist civilization and is considered one of the most important Soviet science fiction novels.  In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers marked a departure from his earlier juvenile stories and novels. It is one of the first and most influential examples of military science fiction, and introduced the concept of powered armor exoskeletons. The German space opera series Perry Rhodan, written by various authors, started in 1961 with an account of the first Moon landing and has since expanded in space to multiple universes, and in time by billions of years. It has become the most popular science fiction book series of all time.

In the 1960s and 1970s, New Wave science fiction was known for its embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously "literary" or "artistic" sensibility. In 1961, Solaris by Stanisław Lem was published in Poland. The novel dealt with the theme of human limitations as its characters attempted to study a seemingly intelligent ocean on a newly discovered planet. 1965's Dune by Frank Herbert featured a much more complex and detailed imagined future society than had previous science fiction.

In 1967 Anne McCaffrey began her Dragonriders of Pern science fantasy series. Two of the novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight, made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo or Nebula Award.  In 1968, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was published. It is the literary source of the Blade Runner movie franchise. 1969's The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin was set on a planet in which the inhabitants have no fixed gender. It is one of the most influential examples of social science fiction, feminist science fiction, and anthropological science fiction.

In 1979, Science Fiction World began publication in the People's Republic of China. It dominates the Chinese science fiction magazine market, at one time claiming a circulation of 300,000 copies per issue and an estimated 3–5 readers per copy (giving it a total estimated readership of at least 1 million), making it the world's most popular science fiction periodical.  In 1984, William Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, helped popularize cyberpunk and the word "cyberspace," a term he originally coined in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome. In 1986, Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold began her Vorkosigan Saga. 1992's Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson predicted immense social upheaval due to the information revolution.

In 2007, Liu Cixin's novel, The Three-Body Problem, was published in China. It was translated into English by Ken Liu and published by Tor Books in 2014, and won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, making Liu the first Asian writer to win the award.

Emerging themes in late 20th and early 21st century science fiction include environmental issues, the implications of the Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology, nanotechnology, and post-scarcity societies. Recent trends and subgenres include steampunk, biopunk, and mundane science fiction.

Social influence
Science fiction's rapid rise in popularity during the first half of the 20th century was closely tied to the popular respect paid to science at that time, as well as the rapid pace of technological innovation and new inventions. Science fiction has often predicted scientific and technological progress. Some works predict that new inventions and progress will tend to improve life and society, for instance the stories of Arthur C. Clarke and Star Trek. Others, such as H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, warn about possible negative consequences.

In 2001 the National Science Foundation conducted a survey on "Public Attitudes and Public Understanding: Science Fiction and Pseudoscience." It found that people who read or prefer science fiction may think about or relate to science differently than other people. They also tend to support the space program and the idea of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations. Carl Sagan wrote: "Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction."

Science fiction tries to blend fiction and reality seamlessly so that the viewer can be immersed in the imaginative world. This includes characters, settings, and tools and perhaps most critically, the scientific plausibility and accuracy of technology and technological concepts. Sometimes, science fiction forecasts real life innovations and discoveries.  Science fiction has predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon. In the 2020 series Away astronauts use a real-life Mars rover called InSight to listen intently for a landing on Mars. Two years later in 2022 scientists used InSight to listen for the landing of a real spacecraft.
In the Jurassic Park franchise, dinosaurs are created from ancient DNA and 18 years later, real life scientists found dinosaur DNA in ancient fossils.

Brian Aldiss described science fiction as "cultural wallpaper." Evidence for this widespread influence can be found in trends for writers to employ science fiction as a tool for advocacy and generating cultural insights, as well as for educators when teaching across a range of academic disciplines not limited to the natural sciences.  Scholar and science fiction critic George Edgar Slusser said that science fiction "is the one real international literary form we have today, and as such has branched out to visual media, interactive media and on to whatever new media the world will invent in the 21st century. Crossover issues between the sciences and the humanities are crucial for the century to come."

As protest literature

Science fiction has sometimes been used as a means of social protest. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is an important work of dystopian science fiction.  It is often invoked in protests against governments and leaders who are seen as totalitarian. James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar was intended as a protest against imperialism, and specifically the European colonization of the Americas.

Robots, artificial humans, human clones, intelligent computers, and their possible conflicts with human society have all been major themes of science fiction since, at least, the publication of Shelly's Frankenstein. Some critics have seen this as reflecting authors’ concerns over the social alienation seen in modern society.

Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender, and the inequitable political or personal power of one gender over others. Some works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.

Climate fiction, or "cli-fi," deals with issues concerning climate change and global warming. University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi, and it is often discussed by other media outside of science fiction fandom.

Libertarian science fiction focuses on the politics and social order implied by right libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and private property, and in some cases anti-statism.

Science fiction comedy often satirizes and criticizes present-day society, and sometimes makes fun of the conventions and clichés of more serious science fiction.

The potential for Science Fiction as a genre is not just limited to being a literary sandbox for exploring otherworldly narratives but can act as a vehicle to analyze and recognize a society's past, present, and potential future social relationships with the Other. More specifically, Science Fiction offers a medium and representation of Alterity and differences in social identity.

Sense of wonder

Science fiction is often said to inspire a "sense of wonder."  Science fiction editor and critic David Hartwell wrote: "Science fiction’s appeal lies in combination of the rational, the believable, with the miraculous. It is an appeal to the sense of wonder." Carl Sagan said: "One of the great benefits of science fiction is that it can convey bits and pieces, hints, and phrases, of knowledge unknown or inaccessible to the reader . . . works you ponder over as the water is running out of the bathtub or as you walk through the woods in an early winter snowfall."

In 1967, Isaac Asimov commented on the changes then occurring in the science fiction community: "And because today’s real life so resembles day-before-yesterday’s fantasy, the old-time fans are restless. Deep within, whether they admit it or not, is a feeling of disappointment and even outrage that the outer world has invaded their private domain. They feel the loss of a 'sense of wonder' because what was once truly confined to 'wonder' has now become prosaic and mundane."

Science fiction studies

The study of science fiction, or science fiction studies, is the critical assessment, interpretation, and discussion of science fiction literature, film, TV shows, new media, fandom, and fan fiction. Science fiction scholars study science fiction to better understand it and its relationship to science, technology, politics, other genres, and culture-at-large. Science fiction studies began around the turn of the 20th century, but it was not until later that science fiction studies solidified as a discipline with the publication of the academic journals Extrapolation (1959), Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction (1972), and Science Fiction Studies (1973), and the establishment of the oldest organizations devoted to the study of science fiction in 1970, the Science Fiction Research Association and the Science Fiction Foundation. The field has grown considerably since the 1970s with the establishment of more journals, organizations, and conferences, as well as science fiction degree-granting programs such as those offered by the University of Liverpool and the University of Kansas.

Classification

Science fiction has historically been sub-divided between hard science fiction and soft science fiction, with the division centering on the feasibility of the science central to the story. However, this distinction has come under increasing scrutiny in the 21st century. Some authors, such as Tade Thompson and Jeff VanderMeer, have pointed out that stories that focus explicitly on physics, astronomy, mathematics, and engineering tend to be considered "hard" science fiction, while stories that focus on botany, mycology, zoology, and the social sciences tend to be categorized as "soft," regardless of the relative rigor of the science.

Max Gladstone defined "hard" science fiction as stories "where the math works," but pointed out that this ends up with stories that often seem "weirdly dated," as scientific paradigms shift over time. Michael Swanwick dismissed the traditional definition of "hard" SF altogether, instead saying that it was defined by characters striving to solve problems "in the right way–with determination, a touch of stoicism, and the consciousness that the universe is not on his or her side."

Ursula K. Le Guin also criticized the more traditional view on the difference between "hard" and "soft" SF: "The 'hard' science fiction writers dismiss everything except, well, physics, astronomy, and maybe chemistry. Biology, sociology, anthropology—that's not science to them, that's soft stuff. They're not that interested in what human beings do, really. But I am. I draw on the social sciences a great deal."

As serious literature

Respected authors have written science fiction. Mary Shelley wrote a number of science fiction novels including Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and is considered a major writer of the Romantic Age. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) is often listed as one of England's most important novels, both for its criticism of modern culture and its prediction of future trends including reproductive technology and social engineering. Kurt Vonnegut was a highly respected American author whose works contain science fiction premises or themes. Other science fiction authors whose works are widely considered to be "serious" literature include Ray Bradbury (including, especially, Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and The Martian Chronicles (1951)), Arthur C. Clarke (especially for Childhood's End), and Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, writing under the name Cordwainer Smith. In his book "The Western Canon", literary critic Harold Bloom includes Brave New World, Solaris, Cat's Cradle (1963) by Vonnegut, and The Left Hand of Darkness as culturally and aesthetically significant works of western literature.

David Barnett has pointed out that there are books such as The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy, Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell, The Gone-Away World (2008) by Nick Harkaway, The Stone Gods (2007) by Jeanette Winterson, and Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood, which use recognizable science fiction tropes, but whose authors and publishers do not market them as science fiction. Doris Lessing, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, wrote a series of five SF novels, Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983), which depict the efforts of more advanced species and civilizations to influence those less advanced, including humans on Earth.

In her much reprinted 1976 essay "Science Fiction and Mrs Brown," Ursula K. Le Guin was asked: "Can a science fiction writer write a novel?" She answered: "I believe that all novels ... deal with character, and that it is to express character–not to preach doctrines [or] sing songs... that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved. ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise, they would not be novelists, but poets, historians, or pamphleteers." Orson Scott Card, best known for his 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game, has postulated that in science fiction the message and intellectual significance of the work are contained within the story itself and, therefore, does not need stylistic gimmicks or literary games.

Jonathan Lethem, in a 1998 essay in the Village Voice entitled "Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction," suggested that the point in 1973 when Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow was nominated for the Nebula Award and was passed over in favor of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, stands as "a hidden tombstone marking the death of the hope that SF was about to merge with the mainstream." In the same year science fiction author and physicist Gregory Benford wrote: "SF is perhaps the defining genre of the twentieth century, although its conquering armies are still camped outside the Rome of the literary citadels."

මේවා ද බලන්න

ආශ්‍රිත නාමාවලිය 

සාහිත්‍යය‍
සාහිත්‍ය
විද්‍යාව