Social science fiction


Exploration of fictional societies is one of the most interesting aspects of science fiction, allowing it to perform predictive (H.G. Wells, The Final Circle of Paradise) and precautionary (Fahrenheit 451) functions, to criticize the contemporary world (Antarctica-online) and to present solutions (Walden Two), to portray alternative societies (World of the Noon) and to examine the implications of ethical principles (Lukyanenko).

Social science fiction in English

Some roots of the genre may lie in such social speculations as utopian and dystopian fiction, which could be considered as extreme special cases of the genre.

One of the first writers who used science fiction to explore sociological topics was H.G. Wells, with his classic The Time Machine (1895) revealing the human race diverging into separate branches of Elois and Morlocks as a consequence of class inequality: a happy pastoral society of Elois preyed upon by the Morlocks but yet needing them to keep their world functioning. The Sleeper Awakes (1899, 1910) predicted the spirit of the 20th century, technically advanced, undemocratic and bloody.




The modern era of social science fiction began with the 1960s, when authors such as Harlan Ellison, Brian Aldiss, and Ursula K. Le Guin wrote novels and stories that reflected real-world political developments. Ellison's main theme was the protest against increasing militarism. LeGuin in The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) explored non-traditional sexual relations. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), which used the science fiction theme of time-travel to explore anti-war, moral, and sociological themes. Frederik Pohl's series Gateway (1977 — 2004) combined social science fiction with hard science fiction. Among the finest modern exponents of social science fiction in the Campbellian/Heinlein tradition is L. Neil Smith, who is considered the heir to Robert A. Heinlein's individualism and libertarianism in science fiction, and who wrote both The Probability Broach (1981) and Pallas, which dealt with alternative "sideways in time" futures and what a libertarian society would look like.

Kim S. Robinson explored different models of the future in Three Californias Trilogy (1984, 1988, 1990).

Joss Whedon's Firefly (a 2002 television series) and its 2005 sequel Serenity (a feature film) conjured up a world where freedom, rebellion against centralized authority, and western as well as Chinese cultural influences shape a society 500 years in the future. The hardware (space ships, space travel) is secondary (except for the widespread use of guns for self-defense, which shapes the society's social customs. As Heinlein himself said, "An armed society is a polite society.")


The genre in the Eastern Bloc

All science fiction of the Soviet era had to subscribe to communist ideology, or else the author could face serious consequences — from a ban against being published to death under Stalin, imprisonment or psychiatric treatment under Brezhnev. There were poor and opportunistic works, there were works of talent touched by ideology (e.g. 1923 Aelita or 1926 The Garin Death Ray by Alexei Tolstoy), there were non-ideological works describing the happy future of humankind (some works of Kir Bulychev and Ivan Efremov), but also such writers as Bulgakov, Shvarts and Strugatsky who chose the hard way of "balancing" on the edge, struggling not to betray their views while avoiding punishment for expressing them.

The 1920s brought Platonov and Zamyatin, but it was not until the time of Perestroika that their works were published in the Soviet Union.

An "exception which proves the rule" is an example of critique under Stalin — Evgeny Shvarts play The Dragon (1944), showing how totalitarianism thrusts its roots into the hearts of the people.

The next period of science fiction in the Soviet Union was shaped by the greater liberalization of the Khrushchev regime, advances of science, and the beginning of the space age.




Social science fiction turned out to be a powerful means to respond to real situation in communist countries. While communist rules didn't allow any critique, one of possibilities was to veil it as that some science fiction-ish world. In the 1980s the genre called 'sociological fantasy' (fantastyka sociologiczna) arose in the People's Republic of Poland. It focused on the development of societies, generally dominated by totalitarian governments. This genre was represented by writers like Janusz A. Zajdel (Limes Inferior, Paradyzja), Edmund Wnuk-Lipiński (Apostezjon trilogy), Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg or Marek Oramus. Books from that genre were based in different times (usually in future), and usually were pretext for analysing structures of the described societies, having been full of allusions to reality. After the revolutions of 1989, when using real world examples became as safe in former Eastern Bloc countries as in their Western counterparts, this genre mostly transformed itself into a political fiction, represented by writers such as Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz.

Post-Soviet social science fiction

Anti-communism was a sort of national idea in Russia only for several years — it was well explored so usually you can find only bits and bobs of it:






"Eurochinese humanist" Holm van Zaichik (pen name of Vyacheslav Rybakov and Igor Alimov) is known for the world of Orduss, a fictionary country unifying China, Russia, Near East, forming a humane society with rich culture.

Examples of social science fiction from the 1940s

See also


Further reading


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