tasy. Except by a few of us who knew better. Today the
concept is known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star
Wars. Billions of dollars are being spent on it. Passionate
arguments have been waged over it among scientists, politi-
cians, pundits, and even science fiction writers. But in the
early 1970s the only place that such an idea could be explored
seriously in print, outside of classified technical publications,
was in the medium called science fiction.
To the large majority of the public, science fiction is
regarded as a field that deals with the fantastic, as far
removed from reality as fiction can be. In truth, science
fiction examines reality, and explores it in ways that no other
form of literature possibly can. I must admit, though, that I
am speaking now of my kind of science fiction, the kind that I
v
write and the kind that I published when I was an editor.
There are many other types of stories being marketed under
the name of "science fiction." They may deal with unicorns or
video games, barbarian swordsmen or robot killing machines.
It is these types of stories, and the films and TV shows made
from them, that convince most of the public that science
fiction has no connection with reality.
My kind of science fiction examines the future in order to
understand the present. It is social commentary of a new
kind, a variety of literature that has been developed and
sharpened in this century mainly by a handful of writers in the
United States and Europe who are familiar with the physical
sciences, their resultant technologies, and the impact of these
technologies on society. Those of us who practice this art are
agreed that modern technology is the major force of change in
society todayчand will continue to be, for the foreseeable
future.
It seems clear that technological developments, from
nuclear bombs to birth control pills, are the driving force in
our civilization. The engines of change begin with the scien-
tists and engineers. Then come the industrialists, churchmen,
politicians, and everybody else. In our fiction we attempt to
examine how science and technology bring change. We do not
try to predict the future so much as to describe possible
futures. We are not prophets warning of doom or describing
Utopias, We are scouts bringing reports of the territory up
ahead, so that the rest of the human race might travel into the
future more safely and happily.
In Millennium, the concept of using lasers mounted
