Science Fiction
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"The psychological appeal of true science fiction, it has often been said,
is the so called 'sense of wonder' -the pleasurable shock of the new,
the readers' sense, real or illusory, that this stuff is causing their own consciousness to mutate
as it surfs along the cutting edge of onward evolution.
And this effect is to be obtained
within the constraints of the physical laws of the universe,
so that the readers can be
induced to believe that these wonders exist in the very same universe
that they occupy, that given
luck and time, such transformational events just might really happen to
them.
Thus the core appeal of science
fiction is that it offers the thrill
of transformation, evolution,
revolution, change, the overthrow of the given by the new,
within the realm of the scientific
and psychological possible."
from Essay by Norman Spinrad, Science Fiction Age, Nov 93
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