I can claim one positive triumph for science fiction, totally beyond the scope of so called main-stream fiction. It has prepared the youth of our time for the coming of the age of space. Interplanatary travel is no shock to youngsters, no matter how unsettling it may be to calcified adults. Our children have been playing at being space cadets and at controlling rocket ships for sometime now. Where did they get this healthy orientation? From Science Finction and nowhere else. Science Fiction can preform simillar services to the race in many other fields.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Science Fiction is a genre that can be useful in the class room. Historically it has been a genre that has been regarded as junk, escapist, and not worth being contemplated. It is equated with American pop sci-fi--a buff captian is fighting a slime monster with his ray gun to save some hot brainless damsel in distress. This is not a complete definition of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is much more then that stereotypical image. Science Fiction can make some profound statements about the world in which we live.
In answer to the critisim that the genre is escapist, J.R. Tolken said:
Yes . . . fantasy [and Science Fiction are] escapist, and that is it's glory. If a soilder is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape? The money lenders, the know-nothings, the authoritarians have us all in prision; if we value freedom of the mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escazpe, and to take as many peopl with us as possible.
(LeGuin, 23)
However, I agree with Ursala LeGuin, that it depends on what you are escaping wheather it is a good or bad thing.
There are two types of Science Fiction: Hard and Soft science. Hard Science deals with things like physics, math and so on. Soft Science deals with things like sociology, psychology, and anthropology.
Science Fiction can be elitist. This is because it has a special laungage, mythology, and icons of it's own which cannot be found elsewhere. If you are not familiar with the laungage then it is hard to understand. For example, if you are not familliar with Doctor Who, you probably wouldn't know what The Tardis, Time Lords, or cybermen are.
Traditionally, Science Fiction has been written for a white, middle class, male audience with a male hero and women not involved in the crisis except as a damsel in distress. However, this has been changing. According to Janice Tate's article "Sexual Bias in Science Fiction for Children," there are four catagories of character casting in Science FIction: the female dominated story; the sexes with equal roles story; a male main characther with a realistic female charachter in the story; and the male dominated story. Tate goes on t say that writers are realizing that girls are intrested in science, space travel, and the future as well as boys are and will read science fiction if they can find a significant character with whom they can identify(1064).
Readers and critics of young adult science fiction tend not to stick within the confines of YA sci-fi. There is a lot of crossover between adult and YA sci-fi. However, the writers themselves make the distinction. This point was presented in several of the articles in Young Adult ScienceFiction which was editied by C. W. Sullivan III(1999). The articles also points out that in history many books that were written for an adult audience have become childrens classics.