TRP and the Science Fiction Connection

[Burgess, John]

Your definition of SF is an interesting one, but not at all in line with 
most of the more common ones.  Perhaps the best (paraphrased) def. I've 
found is that it's fiction that treats science as a major element of the 
story, usually through a projection of a real trend (vs. a fantastic, 
e.g. "fantasy", element such as brownies or elves).  The sense of the 
"alien" doesn't really have to be there, though it often is.

A short story, like "Cold Equations," (IMO, one of the very best of the 
genre) involves two humans and a vaguely personalized colony of humans 
living on a distant planet.  The only thing alien in that story is the 
harshness of scientific fact... alien, that is, to a lot of people with 
unexercised thinking skills.

Do I think TRP read SF?  Beyond a doubt.  Is GR SF?  Not by any normal 
definition of the term.  Lots of SF aspects to it, fersher, but on the 
whole, no.

May I enquire about your reference to the "Rachel Owlglass episode on the 
John Laroquette show?"  Huh?  I don't live in the US, so if this is real, 
I'd love to know more about it.  If it's not real, it still boggles the 
mind.