"If you want pure science, crack open a textbook or buy a journal. Fiction is about people. To foreground people as opposed to science does not weaken the genre, it opens it up. Insisting on one incarnation of a phenomenon is antiscientific. Science observes phenomena and incorporates new manifestations into the corpus. “Real” science fiction reminds me of certain academics who are ossified in their little knowledge fiefdoms. The human factor is messy. The human factor cannot be quantified with P-values and Confidence Intervals. This horrifies some readers and writers, but I love it. There is nothing wrong with foregrounding science, but there is room in genre for every flavour. More variety leads to more fans. That can’t be a bad thing."
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Novelists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandScience fiction authorsShort story writers from EnglandPsychiatrists from England
Original Language: English
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On the argument that science fiction should make the science incidental rather than central in “An Interview with Tade Thompson” in Interfictions Online (October 2016)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tade_Thompson
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Tade Thompson
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