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How has science fiction changed your view of the world?

Eric Ringham June 8, 2012, 5:00 AM Jun 8, 2012

This week saw the death of author Ray Bradbury, considered one of the writers most responsible for helping bring science fiction into the American mainstream. Today’s Question: How has science fiction changed your view of the world?

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Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

Hiram

Oh, sure. Isaac Asimov’s “The Foundation Trilogy” pretty much defines it.

Deborah

How has it not!

I learned, as a young girl, reading Bradbury’s October Country, to see wider, farther, deeper. I learned there are possibilities, unseen to be seen, unknown to know.

Steve the Scenic

Childhoods End by Arthur C. Clarke, the first of many science fiction novels that were introduced me to by a great teacher in Jr. High.

There’s no paradox a good work of science fiction can’t resolve.

GregX

in substantive ways. Ray Bradbury introduced me to the veneer of familiarity that overlies many good and evil things. Jules Verne showed me that vision isn’t a dream but a plan. Arthur Clarke taught me to expect that life is full of wrinkles and that there are aliens here and afar. Dougls Adams helped me reconnect humor and the inane with the the benefits of science. Ursula K. Le Guin and Isaac Azimov made whole societies ,warts and halos, real. Science fiction is what we call it today, history is what we call it tomorrow.

Jim G

Bradbury’s 451 and Martian Chronicles were seminal to my visualization of the human universe we inhabit. We have the capacity to soar among the stars, but so often settle for imaginary control of our environment, both physical and spiritual. The best of science fiction stands with the ancients’ creation myths from the distant past. Bradbury believed our best chance for living forever is to channel our species constant warfare into an eternal exploration of the outer boundary. I agree with him.

JasonB

It hasn’t really changed my view, but it has reaffirmed it.

When I was younger I enjoyed science fiction/fantasy stories for their creative imaginings, but I couldn’t appreciate the insight of their social commentary. The old Twilight Zone series is a good example. Rod Serling and his writers had a particularly keen eye for social norms and behaviors, and were also adept at criticism of those behaviors.

Philip

Changed my view of the world?

If I were Captain Kirk then I’d get all the green women I wanted.

Henry

I hear beyond the range of sound,

I see beyond the range of sight,

New earths and skies and seas around.

Timothy

Science is all metaphor.

Metaphors be with you.

Tom Mundahl

Science fiction has loosened up my Lutheran imagination. Whether it is technically-oriented or culture-focused, it gives us a laboratory to explore options we need more than I had ever anticipated. And, there are those nuggets from writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, who reminded us in THE DISPOSSESSED that “excess is excrement.”
red bottom shoes

Good day! This post could not be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!