| 释义 |
ˈscience ˈfiction
[f. science + fiction.]
Imaginative fiction based on postulated scientific discoveries or spectacular environmental changes, freq. set in the future or on other planets and involving space or time travel. Also attrib.
Quot. 1851 shows an isolated use. The expression did not come into general use until the end of the 1920s.
1851W. Wilson Little Earnest Bk. upon Great Old Subject x. 137 (heading) Science-Fiction. Ibid., We hope it will not be long before we may have other works of Science-Fiction, as we believe such works likely to fulfil a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail. Ibid. 139 Campbell says that ‘Fiction in Poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanting resemblance.’ Now this applies especially to Science-Fiction, in which the revealed truths of Science may be given, interwoven with a pleasing story which may itself be poetical and true—thus circulating a knowledge of the Poetry of Science, clothed in a garb of the Poetry of Life.
1929Science Wonder Stories June 89 The editor of this publication [sc. H. Gernsback] addressed a number of letters to science fiction lovers. The editor promised to pay $50.00 for the best letter each month on the subject of ‘What Science Fiction Means to Me.’ 1933Astounding Stories Dec. 142/1 The..science-fiction fan does not care for stories of the supernatural... Intelligent people, as a rule, will read science fiction. 1949, etc. [see fantasy, phantasy n. 4 f]. 1954A. Huxley in Encounter Feb. 5/1 These make up a tale which no self-respecting reader, even of Science Fiction, should be asked to swallow. 1958Listener 20 Feb. 334/3 The Naked Sun is a happy wedding of the two great pseudo-literary forms of the century—science fiction and the 'tec. 1964C. S. Lewis Discarded Image vii. 142 The theory of the Four Zones taught that the equatorial region was too hot for life. The other hemisphere of the Earth was to us wholly inaccessible. You could write science-fiction about it, but not geography. 1972Sci. Amer. Sept. 38/2, I for one would rather command a computer through a keyboard than talk to it, even if that science-fiction dream were possible. 1977N.Y. Rev. Bks. 13 Oct. 13/4 The mind produces meaning like a plant branching out in a science-fiction movie. 1979Guardian 18 Aug. 10/1 Science Fiction fans..have chosen April 1926 as their sacred date and nominated Hugo Gernsback for the title of Father of Science Fiction. 1980N. Babson Dangerous to Know viii. 56 The long open-plan Newsroom..always gave me a science-fiction feeling of being the last man alive.
Hence science-fictional, science-fictive adjs., pertaining to or characteristic of science fiction; science-fictionalized a., made into science fiction; science-fictioneer, science-fictionist, a writer or connoisseur of science fiction; science-fictioner, a film script upon a science-fictional theme.
1939Astounding Science-Fiction Oct. 155 The Jekyll-science-fictionist stands for experimental truth, for logic, for proof. 1950Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. IX. 197 In a ‘science-fictionalized’ review of Arthur Clarke's book ‘Interplanetary Flight’, the Daily Mirror gave the astonishing news that British atomic scientists are now waiting for the go-ahead..to build an atomic engine which could be used as a rocket propulsion unit. 1953C. Ryan Conquest of Moon i. 3 The ships the explorers will use for the long journey through space will bear little resemblance to those depicted by the science-fictionists. 1954J. W. Campbell in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 5 That science-fictional device ‘the planet-wrecker’ bomb. 1955Britannica Bk. of Year 490/1 Science Fictioner was coined to describe a film play of the science fiction type. 1959C. Fadiman in A. C. Clarke Across Sea of Stars p. ix, Some science fictioneers are plain old-style typewriter hacks. 1960K. Amis New Maps of Hell v. 129 That science-fictional uneasiness appears, attaching itself to an existent or incipient neurosis about overcrowded streets and buildings as well as to the rational fear of global overpopulation. 1976I. Murdoch Henry & Cato ii. 222 The glossy hexagonal glasses which looked here like the appurtenances of some science fictional spaceman. 1977Times Lit. Suppl. 14 Jan. 26/1 Put one science-fictioneer on a desert island and he will start a magazine. 1980Ibid. 7 Nov. 1265/4 Yet Silverberg's Majipoor, where humanity..finds its future home, is about as science-fictional as Tolkien's Middle Earth. |