NARRATOR: Man, modern day
to day life sure is dull.
Here I am sitting, in
traffic during my commute.
And I'm like, where's
my flying car.
I was promised flying cars and
food that comes in pill forms
and robot servants.
And all I got was Twitter.
Where's my robot?
But with the question
of where's my robot,
there also comes
follow up questions,
like what if my robot
develops consciousness.
Will the robots have
feelings about Twitter?
What if the robot starts
tweeting their feelings?
Such hopes and anxieties inspire
the wide and wonderful world
of science fiction, a genre
that is just as much worried
about the future as it is
easier for the hurry up already.
We need to colonize Mars, stat.
In the words of sci-fi
writer Isaac Asimov,
"science fiction writers
foresee the inevitable.
And although problems and
catastrophes may be inevitable,
solutions are not."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Stories, tales, and myths from
all around the world posing
speculative questions
about technologies
have existed long before Ray
Bradbury and Frank Herbert.
From the time-traveling Japanese
fairytale "Urashima Taro"
to some of the speculative
elements of "1001
Arabian Nights."
But there are a
few eras that began
to shape what we've come to
know as science fiction today.
First, the Age of
Enlightenment, an 18th century
philosophical
movement that elevated
reason and empirical
observation as the nexus
for human knowledge
rather than, say,
religious doctrine or monarchy.
Then there was the
Industrial Revolution,
a period of innovation
that brought
so many watershed technological
changes to the world,
like steam engines and smog.
Throw in a dash of the
hot new romantic subgenre
of Gothic fiction,
add in a few still
popular philosophical ideas
like the concept of utopia
and mankind's great
fall, and you've
got the scene for the
birth of a new modern genre
with what is widely considered
its first prominent work, Mary
Shelley's 1818 novel
"Frankenstein."
Shelley was partially
inspired to write
this from the Prometheus myth
in which a Greek deity steals
the forbidden knowledge
of fire from the gods
and gives it to mankind.
And while a Victorian
novel might not
be the first thing that
springs to mind when we think
of science fiction, we see
a lot of somatic hallmarks
of sci-fi within the text, such
as science being limited only
by humankind's imagination, i.e.
Victor Frankenstein
wish to end mortality,
the moral and ethical
considerations
in the advent of
new technologies,
and the rubric for
science fiction
as an exploration
of our anxieties
of the present and the future.
By the mid to late
19th century, we
see the emergence of
two of science-fiction's
seminal authors, HG
Wells and Jules Verne.
Jules Verne pioneered the
adventure-driven romantic
sci-fi opera.
His most famous works
are dashing adventures
that send us beyond the
reach of the known world
before actual science
had yet to catch up.
Meanwhile, HG Wells'
novels are over here taking
a much more moralizing tone.
In "The Time Machine,"
humankind has
devolved into either
childlike, naive beings
or complete monsters.
And eventually, Earth ends up
as a dried out seasonless husk.
Thanks for the vote
of confidence, HG.
By the mid-1920s, pulp magazines
and novels are en vogue.
And it's here where
science fiction really
begins to go mainstream,
for better or worse.
Authors are paid by
the word and rewarded
for quantity over quality, so
science fiction is pretty much
grouped with other
so-called low art,
like comic books and
serialized romances.
But then World War
II comes along,
and the United States falls
into a decades-long conflict
with the USSR.
And the atomic bomb
comes with all sorts
of horrifying
existential implications.
Oh, and also we flew
to the moon, NBD.
All of this coincides with the
so-called golden age of science
fiction and its prominent
authors, Robert Heinlein,
author of "Starship
Troopers" and "Stranger
in a Strange Land,"
Ray Bradbury, author
of "Fahrenheit 451" and
the "Martian Chronicles"
and a genuine cool
dude, Isaac Asimov,
who focuses on
artificial intelligence
and the ethical questions
that come with that,
and George Orwell, whose
"1984" is very worried
about the future,
particularly the idea
of big brother using technology
to keep us all in line.
From these inspirations follows
the next generation of writers,
with Philip K Dick popularizing
the nascent subgenre
of cyberpunk in which
technology continues to advance,
but societal inequities continue
to exist or even get worse.
Ursula K LeGuin pens one
of the first mainstream
sci-fi books to explore
a genderless society.
And frank Herbert gave us
"Dune" and memes, so many memes.
The rise of personal
computers, video games,
and the very beginnings
of the internet
inspires Orson Scott Card, who's
"Ender's Game" series, which
is one of my favorites,
even though the author
of those books isn't, predicted
all sorts of fun things
like how the
internet would shape
the discourse and the
gamification of warfare.
Then there's Michael Crichton,
a commercial sci-fi writer
who often reads like a modern
day Mary Shelley, in that it
warns of the dangers of
irresponsible science,
except swap that creature
out for dinosaurs.
And then there's
Octavia E Butler,
the grande dame of this genre.
Her works like "Parable of
the Sower," "Lilith's Brood,"
and the Patternist
series all featured women
of color as protagonists,
hitherto grossly
under-represented in the genre.
But Butler was seminal to the
development of the Afrofuturism
subgenre.
Afrofuturism is, well,
exactly what it sounds like.
Think the concept albums of
Janelle Monae or Ryan Coogler's
"Black Panther."
Women and people of
color have always
been writing science
fiction, ahem.
But now they're getting more
and more mainstream attention.
And more diverse worldviews just
makes for a more interesting,
more dynamic fiction scape.
Science fiction
may have its roots
in reactionary
motifs and worries
about the myriad ways
civilization might fall.
But there exists also a
more nuanced exploration
of the human condition and its
relationship to technology.
Technologies in fiction
can just as often
be a tool to effect
social change
as it is a scary thing
destined to destroy
traditional societies
as we know them.
Here's looking at you, HG Wells.
So what is your
favorite sci-fi book?
What themes do you
wish were more explored
in science fiction?
Be sure to leave us a comment.
The Great American
Read is a new series
on PBS about why we
love to read leading up
to a nationwide vote on
America's favorite novel.
Who decides America's
favorite novel, you ask?
Well, that would be you.
So head to
PBS.org/GreatAmericanRead
to vote on your favorite book.
Check the link in the
description for more details.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
