Il testo di questa appendice è tratto da Wolfe (109-111). Fornisce una lista cronologica di definizioni di Science Fiction.
 

Hugo Gernsback (1926, defining 'scientifiction') - "A charming romance intermingled  with scientific fact and prophetic vision."

J.O. Bailey (1947) - "A narrative of imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences and consequent adventures or experiences."

Theodore Sturgeon (1951) - "A story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content." Later commented that this was intended to be a description of a good science fiction story.

Kendall Crossen (1951) - "An imaginative exploration of any fact or theory within the realm of knowledge."

Isaac Asimov (1952) - "That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of science on human beings." Revised 1975 to read "deals with the with the reaction of human beings to science and technology" and again in 1978 to "literature that deals with human responses to changes in the level of science and technology."

John Campbell, Jr. (1953) - "The literature of speculation as to what changes may come, and which changes will be improvements, which destructive, which merely pointless."

Rosalie Moore (1953) - "Any fiction based on exploration of or application of any existing or imaginable science, or extrapolation from the same."

Basil Davenport (1955) - "Fiction based upon some imagined development in science, or upon the extrapolation of a tendency in society."

Robert Heinlein (1957) - "Realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."

 Kingsley Amis (1960) - "That class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin."

Sam Moskowitz (1963) - "A branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the 'willing suspension of disbelief' on the part of its readers by utilising an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science and philosophy."

Robin Scott Wilson (1970) - "A fiction in which science, or some credible extrapolation of science, is integrally combined with an honest consideration of the human condition."

Robert M. Philimus (1970) - A "rhetorical strategy" that "differs from other kinds of fantasy by virtue of the more or less scientific basis, real or imaginary, theoretical or technological, on which the writer predicates a fantastic state of affairs."

Thomas D. Clareson (1971) - "That type of fiction which results from and reflects, often topically, the impact of scientific theory and speculation upon the literary imagination - and therefore the effect of science on people."

Lester del Ray (1971) - "An attempt to deal rationally with alternate possibilities in a way which will be entertaining."

Harlan Ellison (1971) - "Anything that deals in even the smallest extrapolative manner with the future of man and his societies, with the future of science and/or its effects on us, with fantasy as an interpretation of the realities with which we are forced to deal daily."

Donald A Wolheim (1971) - "That branch of fantasy which, while not true of present-day knowledge, is rendered plausible by the reader's recognition of the scientific possibilities of it being true at some future date or at some uncertain period in the past."

Brian W. Aldiss (1973) - "The search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould."

Norman Spinrad (1973) - "Science fiction is anything published as science fiction."

Robert H. Canary (1974) - "A fictive history laid outside what we accept as historical reality but operating by the same essential rules as that reality."

Alan E. Nourse (1974) - "Predominantly a speculative literature in which the reader is invited to ponder some detail the effect that a given advance, change, discovery, or technological breakthrough might have upon society as we know it and upon human beings as we know them."

James Gunn (1975) - Fiction in which "a fantastic event or development is considered rationally."

Robert Scholes (1975, defining 'Structural Fabulation') - "A fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible by the implications of recent science."

Eric S. Rabkin (1976) - A work is science fiction "if its narrative world is at least somewhat different from our own, and if that difference is apparent against the background of an organised body of knowledge."

Paul A. Carter (1977) - "Science fiction is an imaginative extrapolation from the known into the unknown."

Darko Suvin (1979) - "A literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment."

Thomas H. Keeling (1979) - "a form of fiction that, unlike confessional or psychological fiction, focuses on man's relationship with his natural and man-made environments and that, unlike such works as The Faerie Queen assumes that the scientific perspective - even though it is imperfect and is the frequent cause of our crises - is still our best tool in dealing with those environments."

Algis Budrys (1980) - A "commercial genre" of stories "set in milieus where physical laws are held inviolate although the stories themselves may err,  or deliberately elide such laws in order to function as stories." (Alternatively, Budrys offers the definition of "a body of general literature" which the fans identify as science fiction.
 

W. Warren Wagar (1982, defining 'Speculative Literature') - "Any work of fiction, including drama and narrative poetry that specialises in plausible speculation about life under changed but rationally conceivable circumstances, in an alternative past or present, or in the future."

David Hartwell (1984, defining 'what science fiction means to insiders') - "The sum of all examples and all possible examples. Science fiction is every SF story written or to be written, the sum total of science fictional reality, past present and future - otherwise undefinable."

Northrop Frye, Sheridan Baker and George Perkins (1985) - "Fiction in which new and futuristic scientific developments propel the plot."
 

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Risorse Generali

Carnegie-Mellon University English Server
Oxford University, English Faculty Library
Postmodern Culture - Electronic Journal
Science Fiction Resource Guide
The World-Wide Web Virtual Library

Internet Movie Database
Movies.Net

Alien Trilogy/Terminator
Blade Runner

Arthur C. Clarke Unauthorized Homepage
Sci-Fi Channel
ABC-TV's Hot Chips Site (Rationale Page)