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Brian Aldiss (essay date 1976)

SOURCE: "On Being a Literary Pariah," in Extrapolation, Vol. 17, No. 2, May, 1976, pp. 168-71.

[In the following essay, Aldiss comments on his innovative and often controversial view that science fiction is "only a department of fantasy" fiction.]

And of course literary pariahs don't hang around the perimeter howling to be let in. They're daring everyone inside to come out . . .

Science fiction does not form the future; it is the future which forms sf.

A truism to begin with, to lull everyone into a false sense of security. All is change—an eternal truth always having to be relearned, often with tears, and re-emphasised in this present decade with the shifting power-balances of the world, such as the enormous growth of Soviet military power, the steady ascendancy of China, the Power Crisis (linked with the new-found political consciousness of the Arab World), the events in Africa, the rise of...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Brian Aldiss (essay date 1976)
   2. Richard Mathews (essay date 1977)
   3. David Wingrove (essay date 1979)
   4. Thomas M. Disch (review date 1980)
   5. Philip Smith (review date 1982)
   6. Michael R. Collings (essay date 1985)
   7. Michael R. Collings (essay date 1986)
   8. Rosemary Herbert (review date 1986)
   9. Philip E. Smith II (essay date 1986)
   10. Gary K. Wolfe (review date 1993)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright