SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?

[Tom Beshear]

SF fans have long debated questions like these. No answers satisfy everyone. 
Speculative fiction is probably a better term for alt history than science 
fiction, but people can't agree on a definition for science fiction either. 
It's as much a marketing term as anything; i.e., where to shelve this stuff 
in a bookstore.

To the best of my knowledge, most alternate histories are written by people 
associated with science fiction and/or fantasy. When historians write them, 
they're called "counterfactuals." When Philip Roth writes one, it's called a 
best-seller. Alt history goes through cycles -- in late 80s through mid-90s, 
the field was inundated by alt history short stories, then the readers and 
writers got burned out. There has been a resurgence recently, especially in 
the subset known as steampunk. Some -- especially Brits -- contend the 
grammatically correct term is alternative history.

The only definition of science fiction I like is from Damon Knight --  
"Science fiction is what we point to when we say it."

Tom


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: <kelber at mindspring.com>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?


On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 10:53 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Are alternate history stories necessarily science fiction? Certainly, 
> they're speculative fiction, but shouldn't there be something science-y in 
> a sci-fi book? Ditto for time travel. By Robinson's definition, 
> Slaughterhouse Five and Time and Again(Jack Finney) are science fiction. I 
> guess I've automatically considered The Man in the High Castle to be 
> sci-fi, simply because it's written by PKD, but there's nothing 
> particularly science-y about it.

... this is a valid, even a good, question, though do noite that,
generally, time travel stories do in deed generally deploy some sort
of fictional(ized? can there be "fictional" science is another valid,
perhaps even good, question) science (e.g., The Time Machine), but not
always (does A Connecticut Yake in King Arthur's Court count?  but,
again, Time and Again)..  Atternate histories often (e.g., The Guns of
the South) do so as well, but not always (e.g., Bring the Jubllee) do
so as well (The Difference Engine as an example of an alternate
history via an alternate/fictional science?).

Does history (or, perhaps, more properly, historiography?) count as (a) 
science?

... this may the point @ which "speculative fiction" becomes the
preferable term (though ithe is to beg the question, what precisely
separate "speculative" from ":fiction"?) ...

Meanwhile:http://www.uchronia.net/