Many people seem to think that science fiction is typified by the covers of some of the ol

d pulp magazines. This is unfortunate because it demeans and degrades a worthwhile and even important literary endeavor. In contrast to this unwarranted stereotype, science fiction rarely emphasizes sex, and when it does, it is more discreet than other contemporary fiction. Indeed, the basic interest of science fiction lies in the relation between man and his technology and between man and the universe.

The question is: what is science fiction？ And the answer must be, unfortunate, that there have been few attempts to consider this question at any length or with much seriousness; it may well be that science fiction will resist any comprehensive definition of its characteristics. To say this, however, does not mean that there are no ways of defining nor that various facets of its totality cannot be clarified. To begin with, the following definition should be helpful: science fiction is literary subgenre which postulates a change (for human beings) from conditions as we know them and follows the implications of these changes to a conclusion. Although this definition will necessarily be modified and expanded, and probably changed, in the course of this explosion, it covers much of the basic groundwork and provides a point of departure.

The first point--that Science fiction is a literary sub-genre--is a very important one, but one which is often overlooked or ignored in most discussions of science fiction. Specifically, science fiction is either a short story or a novel. There are only a few dramas, which could be called science fiction, with Karel Capek's RUR (Rossum's Universal Roots) being the only one that is well known; the body of poetry that might be labeled science fiction is the only slightly larger. To say that science fiction is a sub-genre of the prose fiction is to say that it has all the basic characteristics and serves the basic functions in much the same way as prose fiction in general-- that is, it shares a great deal with all other novels and short stories.

Everything that can be said about prose fiction, in general applies to science fiction. Every piece of science fiction, whether short story or novel, must have a narrator, a story, a plot, a setting, characters, language, and the theme. Themes in science fiction are constructed and presented in exactly the same ways that themes are dealt with in any other kind of fiction. They are the result of a particular combination of narrator, story, plot, character, setting, and language. In short, the reasons for reading and enjoying science fiction, and the ways of studying and analyzing it, are basically the same as they would be for any other story or novel.

Science fiction is called a literary sub-genre because _______.

A．It is not important enough to be a literary genre

B．It cannot be made into a dramatic presentation

C．It has its limits

D．It shares characteristics with other types of prose fiction