Science fiction has been defined by Roberts as ‘a genre or division of literature distinguishes its fictional worlds to one degree or another from the world in which we actually live: a fiction of the imagination rather than observed reality, a fantastic literature.’ (2000:1)
Dick’s theory of dysrecognition theorises that science fiction, like most fiction, attempts to do something new with fiction, realist writers wanted to mirror the life of society so that people would recognise and relate to the text, whereas Science fiction gives readers the dysrecognition of a world unlike the one the reader lives in. Real life is not trying to be shown in science fiction novels but rather an unreal life, sci-fi texts are usually set in a world that does not exist at the time and therefore allows readers to see the world as real and fictional. As Roberts states ‘Where the realist writer needs to focus on accuracy, the SF author can use her imagination to invent things not found in our world.’ (2000:2).
Donna Haraway argues that
By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorised and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism: in short, we are Cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation.
(Haraway 2000:292
There is no longer a distinction between human and machine. We have become so complacent with technology that we are no longer separate from it. Humans can now be seen as technological beings that can be altered and adjusted according to culture and society. Trends and fashion can change the way we look and act. We are in an era of advanced technology and science that have taken over our lives, yet at the same time saved our lives. The scientific and technological advance of medicine means that we no longer have just our bodies to rely on to keep us alive. We now have machines that literally breathe for us, prosthetic limbs in case something happens to our own. We live in such an advanced society at the moment that science fiction, whilst showing us a world we don’t know, could actually be making predictions for our future, and with the huge advances we have seen so far it may not be a world so far away as we may think.
