On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Lesley Hall wrote:
> I get the impression that there are several historians on this list: am I
> right? (count me as one of them.) Any reason why historians in particular
> might like science fiction? Possibly some of the same quality of estrangement
> as good historical fiction?
> Lesley
> Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com
>
Kim Stanley Robinson has argued that science fiction is primarily an
historical fiction: writing the imagined history of the future, or,
sometimes, an altered past. _Reading_ science fiction is like being an
actual historian: reconstructing the world in which the action is set from
the clues provided by the text.
Edward James
Dept of History etc etc, U of Reading, UK
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