By James Wallace Harris, Saturday, October 11, 2014
We like to think that science fiction has no limits. We love to believe that science fiction writers can imagine anything. But is that true? Reading your first few hundred science fiction stories, it does feel like the genre has unlimited avenues of exploration. However, after a lifetime of reading, over a thousand science fiction novels, and countless science fiction short stories, I’ve started feeling the genre is limited, and limited patterns are emerging. Even if there’s the potential for an infinite number of science fiction stories, there’s always the limitation of demarcation. We can divide things into what is science fiction, and what is not science fiction.
What if we classified science fictional ideas like biological classification where science fiction would be compared to how we classify life. What would be the domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species of science fictional ideas? How would we organize novels into a hierarchy? Has science fictional ideas evolved out of each other to present an evolutionary taxonomy? Or are there other structures that we can all agree on? I’m just opening this idea up for discussion and will present a test classification for consideration. I’d like to see other classification systems suggested, and amendments to mine. So post links and suggestions in the comments section. For instance, Wikipedia offers two classifications: lists and themes. Other ideas can be found in their outline of science fiction.
Here’s my first test classification. [Click to enlarge.]
I wanted to create the smallest number of domains possible, and I was hoping to find a single highly descriptive word for each. I flubbed on “Created Beings.” I’m not really fond of “Humanity” either. My system mainly thinks of science fiction as stories about the future – future Earth, future humans, meeting aliens, creating new life forms, and traveling through the universe. Most of the main themes of science fiction would be equal to biological kingdoms – robots, alien invasions, interplanetary travel, post-humans, etc.
Making the classification of science fiction be a perfect analogy to the biological classification of life would be a kluge, but it would be neat if we could map specific novels to be the equivalent of a species. If we could come up with a successful classification system it should be possible to select any science fiction novel or short story and put it into the structure – assuming we could classify SF stories as being about one topic.
Science fiction novels are usually about many ideas. For example. The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov. It could be classified under robots or galactic empires. However, it’s mostly about robots. Then again, some people might claim it’s mostly about agoraphobia and space colonies. And where would we put such a bizarre novel as Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein? Under my system I’d file it under Humanity, Mind and Philosophy, although Religion might work too.
If you wrote a novel about how intelligent robots create an Earthly utopia, would it be classified under Earth or Created Beings? There are animals that give biologists trouble when classifying, so we should expect problem novels too. On the other hand, we could think of a different way of looking at classification. Think of classifying books for library card catalog systems. These systems allow for multiple subject entries, but even in libraries, books are shelved under single subject groups. And I tend to think most writers ultimately think of their books as having a major theme.
Classifying science fictional ideas is an idle amusement, yet it’s a revealing way to think about science fiction. A way to give a big picture overview of the genre. Like having the mental ability to instantly distinguish between cats and dogs, such a classification system would define science fiction. For example, I would never file traditional vampire and werewolves stories into my classification of science fiction. Even though many people casually dump stories of the undead into the genre because they think science fiction is a dumping ground for anything weird, I believe we need to think of the genre in more precise terms.
We can also think of classifying fiction in general, so that fiction is the highest level, and the genres – literary, mystery, western, science fiction, romance, etc. – are the domains. This would make Science Fiction one branch off of Fiction. But if genre is Kingdom, do we need five layers of classification between it and the specific work which would be the Species? Is Fiction, Genre, Theme, Work enough? That makes me think of using Fiction, Genre, Theme, Time, Setting, Topic, Work. That way The Naked Sun would be classified as Fiction, Science Fiction, Robots, Future, Colony World, Conflicting Cultures, The Naked Sun.
Many themes from classifying general fiction can be applied to any of the specific themes of science fiction. Thus you could add romance or war to almost any of my SF categories.
As you can see, this could lead to all kinds of possibilities. A classification system really helped understand the organization of biological life. Would such a classification system help in the understanding of fiction?
[I use Xmind to create the mind map above. You can get this free program that runs under Windows, OS X and Linux if you want to create your own classification system.]
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 