Herbert, author of the best-selling Dune novels, says, “I decided quite early on that science fiction was the main stream, that you were too much confined by fiction that was restricted in its settings. Science fiction gives you unlimited settings in which to place your human beings... and it has no restrictions whatsoever, you have enormous elbow room, you can just let your imagination run. It also has the other function of putting you into a context where you can make social comments about things that are quite contemporary, but you do them in a setting where people will accept them, for the sake of the story, until they are caught by the story and they realize, ‘Hey, he’s talking about things that are going on around me all the time!’”
Clearly it is not literary excellence, in the academician’s sense, that has propelled science fiction onto the hardcover best seller lists. Nor do many best sellers of any kind rely on literary excellence for their popularity. It takes two things to make a best seller: the publisher’s decision to invest the effort and money that will allow the book to sell at least forty to fifty thousand copies in hardcover, and the public’s acceptance of the book.
Why is the hardcover book buyer turning to science fiction?
Anthropologist Helen E. Fisher, of the New School for Social Research and co-chairman of the New York Academy of Science’s anthropology department, sees the popularity of science fiction as part of the American public’s new-found interest in science itself.
“All of science is finding an audience,” says Dr. Fisher. Speaking of the boom in science-oriented magazines such as Omni, Science Digest, Discover and others that have appeared on the newsstands since 1978, she explained, “Suddenly we have... new magazines in popular science... several TV specials and series such as Nova... perhaps science fiction is a good gauge for an entire industry that’s doing well.”
When asked if she thought that science fiction helped readers to understand the possibilities and limitations of modern science, Dr. Fisher replied, “Totally. It’s like lateral thinking: if you can get out of your mind-set long enough to see other possibilities, then perhaps when you get back into the problems you’re trying to solve, you’ll be able to see new solutions.”
The nonfiction best seller lists support Dr. Fisher’s surmise. Books such as The Soul of a New Machine and Megatrends have surprised their publishers with their strong sales. Earlier, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff showed that there was an audience among book buyers who were eager to read about heroes—men who dare to accept challenges such as space flight, and succeed. And Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and earlier books about the wonders of science were staples on all the best seller nonfiction lists.
Physicist Heinz R. Pagels, executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, recalled that the Nobel Laureate physicist I. I. Rabi once scolded a gathering of his colleagues for their lack of interest in writing books about science for the general public. Rabi said that the general public owed more of its sense of excitement about science to science fiction writers than it did to scientists.
But in Dr. Pagels’ view, science fiction often distracts the reader from a realistic assessment of the future. While it is filled both with apocalyptic visions and the sense of progress—stemming from science and technology—he finds much of science fiction “shallow and inept,” filled with cardboard characters and shopworn ideas.
“I’ve always felt that science fiction writers are the moralists of our times, in a way,” says Dr. Pagels. “But they simplify the moral situation, a simplification that is so rudimentary it allows the reader to decide which are the good guys and the bad guys, and in fact most of our lives today are far more ambiguous and complex than you’ll find in the science fiction literature or any of
Clearly it is not literary excellence, in the academician’s sense, that has propelled science fiction onto the hardcover best seller lists. Nor do many best sellers of any kind rely on literary excellence for their popularity. It takes two things to make a best seller: the publisher’s decision to invest the effort and money that will allow the book to sell at least forty to fifty thousand copies in hardcover, and the public’s acceptance of the book.
Why is the hardcover book buyer turning to science fiction?
Anthropologist Helen E. Fisher, of the New School for Social Research and co-chairman of the New York Academy of Science’s anthropology department, sees the popularity of science fiction as part of the American public’s new-found interest in science itself.
“All of science is finding an audience,” says Dr. Fisher. Speaking of the boom in science-oriented magazines such as Omni, Science Digest, Discover and others that have appeared on the newsstands since 1978, she explained, “Suddenly we have... new magazines in popular science... several TV specials and series such as Nova... perhaps science fiction is a good gauge for an entire industry that’s doing well.”
When asked if she thought that science fiction helped readers to understand the possibilities and limitations of modern science, Dr. Fisher replied, “Totally. It’s like lateral thinking: if you can get out of your mind-set long enough to see other possibilities, then perhaps when you get back into the problems you’re trying to solve, you’ll be able to see new solutions.”
The nonfiction best seller lists support Dr. Fisher’s surmise. Books such as The Soul of a New Machine and Megatrends have surprised their publishers with their strong sales. Earlier, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff showed that there was an audience among book buyers who were eager to read about heroes—men who dare to accept challenges such as space flight, and succeed. And Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and earlier books about the wonders of science were staples on all the best seller nonfiction lists.
Physicist Heinz R. Pagels, executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, recalled that the Nobel Laureate physicist I. I. Rabi once scolded a gathering of his colleagues for their lack of interest in writing books about science for the general public. Rabi said that the general public owed more of its sense of excitement about science to science fiction writers than it did to scientists.
But in Dr. Pagels’ view, science fiction often distracts the reader from a realistic assessment of the future. While it is filled both with apocalyptic visions and the sense of progress—stemming from science and technology—he finds much of science fiction “shallow and inept,” filled with cardboard characters and shopworn ideas.
“I’ve always felt that science fiction writers are the moralists of our times, in a way,” says Dr. Pagels. “But they simplify the moral situation, a simplification that is so rudimentary it allows the reader to decide which are the good guys and the bad guys, and in fact most of our lives today are far more ambiguous and complex than you’ll find in the science fiction literature or any of
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