Question

Science fiction is sometimes considered to be of a lower literary quality than other fiction genres. In fact, literary scholars often classify highly literary works of science fiction as something other than science fiction. What is your opinion of science fiction? Do you think it is a form of serious literature? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Your answer might include some of the following scenarios and details.

If you claim that science fiction is not serious literature, you might support your position with these opinions:

Many novels in the genre are published each year, but few are of high quality—their quantity exceeds their quality.

Characters are largely stereotypical, and there is little emphasis on human interaction and emotions, so the characters are flat.

Science fiction repeats the same few themes: time travel, aliens, intergalactic war, etc. The treatment of these themes is shallow and serves to increase the sensationalism in the story.

The vision of new worlds is often poor, with no deep exploration of the social and political realities in the fantasy setting. For instance, even though different fantastical races are created, there is hardly any realistic exploration of the themes of racism and privilege.

If you claim that science fiction is comparable to other forms of literature, you might support your position with these opinions:

Science fiction introduces readers to new ways of thinking and viewing the world by exploring new ideas and potential futures.

Like other forms of literature, science fiction explores important questions and issues that affect people in their everyday lives or humanity as a whole.

Like other forms of literature, science fiction writers make use of language and style to reflect and develop their themes. Authors often create highly developed alien languages with detailed grammar and syntax, for example the Klingon language from Star Trek.

Science fiction has well-developed characters who reflect the emotions, fears, and hopes of real people. Science fiction envisions new worlds to explore social and political realities in a fantasy setting. For example, a dystopia or dying world may be used to show how destruction of the environment will lead not only to ecological disasters but also to the collapse of human society.

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

I like science fiction, in fact it is one of my favorite genres. I think it is absolutely fascinating because usually the topics are things that could rarely or never occur in real life, so its pretty exciting material to read.

I do think science fiction is a form of serious literature because it takes a lot more effort to be created than other works, like biographies, it takes imagination, creativity, wonder and perseverance to achieve a good science fiction novel, its not as easy as everyone thinks it is and even if it doesn't have drama in the plot, I would still consider it a form of serious literature.