Review of Science Fiction: lots of photos <UPDATED>
Journey to the Edge of Imagination
It seems a long time ago now, but back in December I visited this fascinating exhibition at the Science Museum in London. My review has appeared in Schools Week magazine (link below), but I thought you might like to see some of the photos I took there (perfectly legally, I should add).
Update: the exhibition has been extended from May 4th to August 20th 2023.
Here’s how my review starts:
Why review a science fiction exhibition in an educational publication? Come to that, why even have such an exhibition in the first place? Perhaps we can venture the beginnings of an answer by noting that science fiction is more than Star Wars or Daleks, enjoyable though these are. An alternative term for ‘science fiction’ is ‘speculative fiction’, and this extended exercise in ‘what if?’ is both a fantastic stimulus for thought and expression and a seminal literary genre with a catalogue stretching over centuries.
You can read the full review here:
Really interesting post and review, Terry! I haven't read much science fiction, and it's not really my favourite genre of either book or film - although I did enjoy reading 'Prey' by Michael Crichton, and 'Back to the Future' is one of my three favourite films, so maybe I enjoy it more than I'd thought I do - hmmm! The exhibition sounds great - a lot to get stuck into and to think about.
Since I’m teaching a course on how to get started writing here: https://marytabor.substack.com/s/write-it-how-to-get-started, I’ll explain here why science fiction and so much of it that’s being written today by new writers is far from “literature,” meaning too much of this hit or miss getting-started writing doesn’t hit the reader’s heart the way it should and the reader can tell that it also doesn't hit the writer’s heart on the journey of invention. The problem is that the bar is actually higher than for heightened reality fiction that I’m talking about in this essay: https://marytabor.substack.com/p/autobiography-and-fiction-get-ready and that I’ll discuss more soon in Lesson 16 of this online course (only $5) to get the inside scoop that you’re, thank you!, reading. I’ll put this post here and on your comment in the course. Here goes: John Gardner in The Art of Fiction explains the writer’s task: “…[W]hile verisimilar fiction may be described generally as fiction that persuades us of its authenticity through real-world documentation, using real or thoroughly lifelike locations and characters—real cities or cities we believe to be real although their names have been changed, real-life characters with actual or substituted names, and so forth—the line-by-line bulk of a realist’s work goes far beyond the accurate naming of streets and stores or accurate description of people and neighborhoods. He must present, moment by moment, concrete images drawn from careful observation of how people behave and he must render the connections between moments, the exact gestures, facial expressions, or turns of speech that, within any given scene, move human beings from emotion to emotion, from one instant in time to the next.”