Social science fiction

Social science fiction is a term used to describe a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with gadgets and space opera and more with speculation about human society. It was championed in the U.S. pulp magazines of the 1940's by authors such as Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. The term was coined by Asimov, and used to describe his own work, in an essay appearing in Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future, eds. Reginald Bretnor and John Wood Campbell, 1954. The term is not often used today except in the context of referring specifically to the changes that took place in the 1940's. In the former Soviet bloc, the term social fiction was used for a similar type of science fiction focusing on utopias and dystopias, and often containing veiled or overt commentaries on communism.

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Space opera - Isaac Asimov - Robert A. Heinlein - Social fiction

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