Scientific romance
Encyclopedia
Scientific romance is a bygone name for what is now commonly known as science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

. The term is most associated with early British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science fiction. The earliest noteworthy use of the term scientific romance is believed to have been by Charles Howard Hinton
Charles Howard Hinton
Charles Howard Hinton was a British mathematician and writer of science fiction works titled Scientific Romances. He was interested in higher dimensions, particularly the fourth dimension, and is known for coining the word tesseract and for his work on methods of visualising the geometry of...

 in his 1886 collection. The term can, however, also refer to early science fiction from several other nations as well, in particular the works of French writers such as Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

 and Camille Flammarion
Camille Flammarion
Nicolas Camille Flammarion was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritism and related topics. He also published the magazine...

.

History and use of the term

Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...

, in The Science Romance in Britain: 1890-1950, argued that early British science-fiction writers who used this term differed in several significant ways from American science fiction writers of the time. Most notably, the British writers tended to minimize the role of individual "heroes", took an "evolutionary perspective", held a bleak view of the future, and had little interest in space as a new frontier. Regarding "heroes", several novels by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

 have the protagonist as nameless, and often powerless, in the face of natural forces. The evolutionary perspective can be seen in tales involving long time periods—two examples being The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles...

and The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...

by Wells and Star Maker
Star Maker
-External links:*...

by Olaf Stapledon
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.-Life:...

. Even in Scientific Romances that did not involve vast stretches of time, the issue of whether mankind was just another species subject to evolutionary pressures often arose, as can be seen in parts of The Hampdenshire Wonder
The Hampdenshire Wonder
The Hampdenshire Wonder is a 1911 science fiction novel by J. D. Beresford. It is one of the first novels to involve a wunderkind. The child in it is named Victor Stott and he is the son of a famous cricket player. This origin is perhaps a reference to H. G. Wells's father. The novel concerns his...

by J. D. Beresford
J. D. Beresford
John Davys Beresford was an English writer, now remembered for his early science fiction and some short stories in the horror story and ghost story genres. His Hampdenshire Wonder was a major influence on Olaf Stapledon. His other science-fiction novels includeThe Riddle of the Tower, about a...

 and several works by S. Fowler Wright
S. Fowler Wright
Sydney Fowler Wright was a prolific British editor, poet, science fiction author, writer of screenplays, mystery fiction and works in other genres...

. Regarding space, C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

's Space Trilogy
Space Trilogy
The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.The books in the trilogy...

 took the position that "as long as humanity remains flawed and sinful, our exploration of other planets will tend to do them more harm than good"; and most Scientific Romance authors had not even that much interest in the topic. As for bleakness, it can be seen in many of the works by all the already cited authors: humanity was deemed by them flawed—either by original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...

 or, much more often, by biological factors inherited from our ape ancestors.

Nonetheless, not all British science fiction from that period comports with Stableford's thesis. Some, for example, reveled in adventures in space and held an optimistic view of the future. By the 1930s, there were British authors (such as Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell was a British author best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States, in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction and other pulp magazines. Russell also wrote horror fiction for Weird Tales, and...

) who were intentionally writing "science fiction" for American publication. At that point, British writers who used the term "scientific romance" did so either because they were unaware of science fiction or because they chose not to be associated with it.

After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the influence of American science fiction caused the term "Scientific Romance" to lose favor, a process accelerated by the fact that few writers of Scientific Romance considered themselves "Scientific Romance" writers, instead viewing themselves as "just writers" -- or, on occasion, scientists—who occasionally happened to write a Scientific Romance. Even so, the Scientific Romance era writers' influence persisted in British science fiction, and indeed had some impact on the American variety.

Revival of the term

Starting in the late 1970s, the term began to be used again, this time for eccentric, usually (but not always) British science fiction that intentionally reflects a Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 or Edwardian
Edwardian period
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era...

 outlook. Christopher Priest
Christopher Priest (English novelist)
Christopher Priest is an English novelist and science fiction writer. His works include Fugue for a Darkening Island, Inverted World, The Affirmation, The Glamour, The Prestige and The Separation.Priest has been strongly influenced by the science fiction of H. G...

 (a member of the H. G. Wells Society
H. G. Wells Society
The H.G. Wells Society, founded in 1960, is an international association composed of people interested in the life, work and thought of the British writer and thinker Herbert George Wells , and encouraging a wider interest in his writings and ideas...

) has, for example, used or alluded to the term "scientific romance" in some of his novels. The contemporary use of the term also includes authors who, like the original "Scientific Romance writers", do not consider themselves to be science-fiction or scientific-romance authors. English historian Ronald Wright
Ronald Wright
Ronald Wright is a Canadian author who has written books of travel, history and fiction. His nonfiction includes the bestseller Stolen Continents, winner of the Gordon Montador Award and chosen as a book of the year by the Independent and the Sunday Times...

, for instance, wrote the Wells pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

 (or homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....

) A Scientific Romance: A Novel.http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312199996/

The modern use of the term might superficially seem related to the rise of the "Steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...

" sub-genre, but there are notable differences between the two: modern "scientific romances" typically take a distinctly more nostalgic or romanticized view of the era than Steampunk, and also often involve the future rather than the past, albeit a future based on Victorian or Edwardian sensibilities. Modern Scientific Romances are not of any form of "punk" or cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

.

External links

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