A Mirror & A Lens: Why I Love Science Fiction

Why do I love science fiction? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot and thought it would be a good time to commit an answer to writing. In my first post, Why This Blog? Why Now? I wrote that I love science fiction but didn’t really elaborate on that point. In another post, I’ve written about why I love robots, but that only covered part of my love of the genre.

So here goes.

I love science fiction because it’s a mirror and a lens through which we can look at ourselves, at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.

It’s a lens because we’re looking at the human condition through a different set of circumstances than our own. Whether those circumstances are a futuristic world with crazy cool technology, or just our current world revved up a little. And this placement of characters into worlds unfamiliar to us actually makes us more familiar to ourselves.

And it’s a mirror because it has the ability to reflect who we are and what we’re doing back to us in a way that offers us clarity and insight into the human condition.

Bring these two together, the mirror and the lens, and we gain the ability to truly see ourselves and see the truth about ourselves. As Neil Gaiman says, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things.”

The genre also gives me hope. Even a dystopian novel gives me hope because I see it as a guide to what not to do, and as a chance to discuss ideas pertaining to right and wrong, good and evil, and so much more.

Reading and writing are magic, plain and simple. The dissemination of stories and ideas are how we connect with people we’ve never met in places we’ve never been. Stories are a thread from the author’s heart straight to the reader’s.

And science fiction does that really well.

And, of course, crazy cool technology is just super cool.