Neal Stephenson |
Stephenson has written a number of science fiction stories and is a widely recognized author in that genre, yet he also wrote the trilogy that included Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World, all of which read more like historical novels about scientists, Isaac Newton among them. Yet these massive novels are full of cool ideas, and sci-fi fans loved them.
So many novels — literary novels, romance novels, mystery novels, etc. — are about the human condition in one way or another. They may be original, yet for the most part they lack original ideas. There's not much there to grab the attention of science fiction fans. As Stephenson puts it, "In arty lit, it's become uncool to try to come to grips with ideas per se."
Stephenson, in a lecture given at Gresham College in 2008 and published in his book Some Remarks, expands science fiction to include any fiction with original, mind-bending ideas.
Many thrillers qualify. He especially mentions The Da Vinci Code.
The novels of Matt Haig are not grouped with science fiction in bookstores. Yet they are filled with sci-fi-like ideas. In The Midnight Library, a woman relives different versions of her life in an attempt to find one in which she is happy. In The Humans, a being from space visits Earth and takes the body of a mathematician, discovering what human beings are like.
Things in Jars, a mystery by Jess Kidd but not normally classified with either mysteries or science fiction, is about a girl who may be a mermaid.
Spirit Crossing, a William Kent Kruger mystery, tells of a murder investigation aided by the spirits of victims.
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger describes a future where bodies are floating in Lake Superior and a large medical ship uses captives as guinea pigs.
In Cassandra in Reverse, a novel by Holly Smale that I hope to read soon, a woman discovers she can go back in time and reverse her mistakes.
None of these books are considered science fiction in the usual sense, yet all qualify as Stephenson defines the term. So are such classics as Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Pinocchio and Lost Horizon. Where there's an original idea that produces wonder, there one can find science fiction.