Thinking about the formative books of my late teenage years several of them were science or speculative fiction. Ben Elton's Blind Faith, Orwell's classic 1984 and Ray Bradbury's off-kilter, chilling vision of parlour walls and firemen Fahrenheit 451 shaped my view of the world a lot. They also scared the living daylights out of me.
Strangely I believe that sci-fi manages to frequently go to darker places than any other genre. The horror of a spin-chiller is solely contained within the pages of the book. Although a few nightmares of monsters and murders may follow those terrors are primarily cathartic. We observe horror in film or read it in books, it maybe part of humanity we find distasteful or bestial, we can then examine it within the story and by the end we feel a release, a purging of the emotions associated with secret shames or untold fears. Not being a fan of scares like that I can only comment on other commentary I've heard on the matter (video game commentary actually of the likes of Silent Hill 2) but I think that is the basic psychology behind horror.
Science fiction does not offer that catharsis, if anything the reader is left with a sense of unease at what they have read.
Before I continue I should say that yes, not all science fiction does this. Space Westerns like Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly or serials like Doctor Who are a little more light-hearted and fanciful but even they manage social commentary in a futuristic or alternative technology setting. (No I will not go into whether Star Wars is true sci-fi right now. However, I will say that some of the more recent novels have certainly elevated the series with more social commentary than usual including elements such as what a Sith meritocracy looks like and whether the Dark Side is grounds enough to plea diminished responsibility to a murder).
Science fiction has often been viewed as the purview of the nerd, geek and cult follower. Things like The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy are often referred to as 'Cult Classics'. Most people will admit they have one favoured romance book, action flick, historical television show et cetera but science fiction may be dismissed in its entirety. Which is a shame because sci-fi is not just robots, mad scientists and aliens. In fact in what you would call 'hard' sci-fi these things might be present but not the focus. They are narrative devices. Sci-fi is probably one of the most 'message' heavy genres out there because a lot of it is allegory.
1984: Fears of communism
District 9: Apatite South Africa
Do androids dream of electric sheep?/Blade Runner: What makes a person human?
X-men: Social issues of race and sexuality oppression and phobia.
Ghost in the Shell: The internet as the new primeval pools of life and trans-humanism
Ender's Game: Are all things fair in (love and) war?
And that shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, far from it. Allegory is a way into thinking about issues by introducing them through a narrative.
Today I read in a newspaper (code name: The Tea-leaf-graph) that three Shakespeare plays now have to be taught as part of English before GCSE. Setting aside for a moment the limited selection of appropriate plays that one can teach to a 12 year old (is this a dagger I see before me?/A rose by any other name/ If he was in my books I would burn my study maybe?) I fear this is removing space for other genres to be taught.
(My next point requires a bit of set up, bare with me). Now I went through reading Lord of the Flies kicking and screaming (seriously, what is with that pig's head?!) and the less said about Cold Mountain the better, but Regeneration by Pat Barker was a revelation for me (yes I did actually do A Level English, non, je ne regrette rien). I was introduced to a kind of fiction I never thought I would enjoy. For those unfamiliar, Regeneration is a World War I semi-biographic work about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen during their time at Craiglockhart Mental Hospital. For me, the book was a way into Sassoon and Owen's real poetry and prose as well as giving me a better feel for life for the mentally ill at the time. It also taught me that just because a book might not sound my cup of tea doesn't mean a darn thing!
I really hope that perhaps a classic piece of sci-fi will make it's way into the English curriculum alongside the compulsory Shakespeare and give some young people the opportunity to discover a book, and genre, they probably never thought they'd like.
DVD extras:
Books I would suggest as one's to be taught in schools (with approximate age ratings):
1984 by George Orwell. 16 years and up for the best level of appreciation.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. 14 and up (younger if the children are fairly mature).
Star Wars: Truce at Bakura Kathy Tyers. (11 and up) Don't laugh! Everyone's seen Star Wars and this follows on directly for Return of the Jedi. It has some interesting ideas about the human soul and mind control.
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. (13 and up, or basically over an age where a child can hear the word 'sex' without giggling uncontrollably).
Anything by H.G. Wells or Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. (I wouldn't include my favourite non-Douglas-Adams sci-fi author in this list though, because Philip. K. Dick is a bit.... odd).
Scotty, beam me up!
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