(Though, weвЂ™ve included far less of this type of sci-f, what weвЂ™ll call вЂњnaturalistic sci-fi,вЂќ versus other, more traditional tech-driven sub-genres.)ДЄnd while loosening the sci-fi definition may open up just about the entire library, weвЂ™ve narrowed a list down to (in no particular order) some amazing reads. And so works centered on some вЂњextinction-like eventвЂќ-books like The Road, o r The HandmaidвЂ™s Tale, or The Leftovers-do, in effect, count as science-fiction.

The Device can be both a Thing or an Event. But would you not call something like X-Men science-fiction? Yes? You can see how tricky this becomes.) (You might then say, well isnвЂ™t вЂњthe ForceвЂќ this Device? Or is more of a вЂњpower,вЂќ closer to the superhero genre. The story cannot be the story without the Device. It must be its axis, itвЂ™s inciting incident, its reason for existence. No, the narrative must turn upon this make-believe conceit. And the Device cannot be peripheral, some incidental feature of the world. ItвЂ™s a thought experiment beginning with a вЂњwhat if XвЂќ or an вЂњimagine a world in which Y.вЂќ It has something we might call a Device. Fight us.) While other works that seem far from sci-fi (the early nineteenth-centuryвЂ™s Frankenstein, for instance) are the genreвЂ™s very DNA.ДЄt its core, science fiction is a conceit. Some works that seem obviously sci-fi (like Star Wars) are really not ( Star Wars is a space western inspired by myth and samurai films, damnit. We know what it means, intuitively, but not so much definitionally. вЂњSci-fiвЂќ is a term that says everything and nothing simultaneously. Defining вЂњ science fictionвЂќ (so that one can say, definitively, this book is a sci-fi book) is a little like defining вЂњspiritualвЂќ or some other vague belief category that includes so many contradictory and peripheral and quasi-mystical tenants and offshoots that your friend who swears by it probably has no idea what it really is.

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