Science Fiction: 101

2 annotations • data

First annotation on Aug 2nd, 2025.

You will find such a set of perceptions and assumptions underlying the world created by Lewis Carroll, the one created by J.R.R. Tolkien, and those created by Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. They may be wildly fantastic assumptions—should be, in fact. But they must have a strict inner reality of their own. Without it, fantasy becomes too easy, and thus incomprehensible, and thus boring.
A subliminal knowledge of the feel and texture of true science fiction, as defined in a circular and subjective way from long acquaintance with it. The term "science fiction," Damon Knight once wrote, "means what we point to when we say it."