Theory of Bastards - Q1: Is this a Science Fiction Novel?
Theory of bastards is marketed as a Science Fiction novel, and while it is full of science, and is fiction, is it Science Fiction?
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Theory of bastards is marketed as a Science Fiction novel, and while it is full of science, and is fiction, is it Science Fiction?
Comments
I'd say yes! It happens to be very-near-future, and there's much more of a focus on biology and behavioural science rather than physics or engineering, but I don't see why you wouldn't classify it as such.
Maybe, but I think a better description of it would be "dramatised pop-science." Is there anything about the behavioural or medical aspects that's fictional? There are a couple of bits of technological extrapolation, such as the AR devices and the surgical tools are better, but those are definitely background. The climate change part of the plot is an extrapolation of current trends, but this isn't a book about climate change.
I think I’d feel more comfortable calling it SF if it had somehow brought home the title theme to tie in with the setting better. How did they relate? What conclusions did the main character reach about society at large?
Yes this is a very good way of putting it. The various ideas didn't seem to gel into an overall whole ut remained separate all the way through.
Again an interesting point. I recently read Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land which (a bit like Cloud Atlas) consists of multiple threads loosely linked by means of an assumed discovery of a Greek text - one thread is supposed to be in the future, but as SF it failed (for me at least) on multiple levels. And neither the author nor the editor seemed bothered by this, so I ended up thinking as you have hinted here, that (some) literary authors seem to think that they can just use a future date and some hand waving to produce SF. Theory of Bastards came over to me as much more coherently thought through than Cloud Cuckoo Land so in this case it was more the overall structure that nagged at me rather than the ideas being proposed.
I am in full agreement there. It's not NOT science Fiction...