About a year ago I was invited to take part in a science fiction evening. I normally write poems and short stories that are very realistic, but I thought I’d write something special for this evening so I asked the man in charge, “What is science fiction?”
He said, “Think of Dune for example.”
I said, “I’m sorry but for me Dune isn’t science fiction because it’s very much based on the nomadic tribes of Arabia, the characters use the Arab language, and if instead of spice they would have fought of gold or oil, it might have been very realistic.”
“But you can’t say it about Asimov, can you?” He asked.
“Well I can because I admit that I have not read much of the 60’s science fiction but from what I’ve seen, in order to debate philosophical questions they take moral issues from the everyday news, and stretch the reality to the edge, the only thing that is fiction in this sort of science fiction is that the writer believes that the future is nothing but an extreme present, and does not take the trouble to imagine that the world can really change. There are but a few books that imagine a brave new world, and they are normally very wrong because the Achilles’ heel of every science fiction book is its link to the present that is ever-changing.”
The thing I love the most about science fiction is satires like The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy because in this kind of book, the joke is on us. The failure to predict the future is inherent and I can truly enjoy the jokes and not to take the predictions very seriously.
“Do you actually claim there’s no science fiction?” He asked, after a long silence.
“Well, I don’t know. Science fiction is like asking the question, ‘Could God create a rock he could not lift?’ In the end you can’t describe anything that is not built on the basis of what God and Man have created, and you cannot imagine the unimaginable.”

What is science fiction? Is it a merely genre packed with moralistic books? By the same token, does this make detective stories philosophy? Do we have greater freedom once we declare something as science fiction? Does it even have to be related to science? Does it even have to contain a moralistic thread at all? Or is it pure escapism? What do you think?