Rob Hansen

In our modern world, thinking and writing about the future is now commonplace. Whether it be something positive (spaceflight, medical advances, new forms of energy, discoveries in astronomy, the benefits to be gained from new technologies, better ways of living, new art forms) or negative (the dangers of spaceflight, medical disasters, the risks of new forms of energy, or the perils of different ways of living, new art forms), people have been thinking about how science and technology can change our lives and writing about it since the latter part of the nineteenth century. When that writing uses fiction as its means of putting over hopes or fears, the result is science fiction.

Much about our lives now that we accept as normal would have been considered as science fiction in the past. And yet, there is a massive trend amongst otherwise intelligent people to dismiss science fiction and those who read it. A novelist or a film-maker will give an interview about their latest work, about (say) a world ravaged by climate change, or a dystopian future governed by artificial intelligence, and they will often say "It's not science fiction, it's a warning about how [some technological change] might impact our own lives very soon" - as if this were not a broad definition of a lot of science fiction.

Worse still is the stereotyping of readers and enthusiasts for science fiction as obsessive social misfits, suffering from arrested social development and incapable of making real relationships but preferring to live in a fantasy world. This depressingly common set of stereotypes is trotted out at regular intervals, not only by hack journalists but often by otherwise intelligent people who ought to know better. It is almost never based on any actual knowledge or experience, though trying to expose some journalists to more positive examples of science fiction fans all too often results in the journalist only seeing what they expect to see.

Rob Hansen has been collecting materials on the history of the UK science fiction fan community since the late 1980s. He has now assembled a book of biographies of fans world-wide who made an impact on culture and politics beyond the science fiction field and who give the lie to the lazy stereotype. He omits (with a handful of exceptions) areas such as science, engineering and publishing; or the large number of fans who have made successful careers as professional authors. So for instance, there's no mention of Professor Jack Cohen, designer of aliens for film, tv and novelists; and Malcolm Edwards only gets mentioned when there are relevant quotes from his fanzine output. The story of how he went from being a branch librarian in Harrow to the CEO of HarperCollins, in which fandom played a reasonable part, is kept for another time.

In this book will be found accounts of political activists, peace campaigners, musicians, artists, film makers and critics, clandestine pilots, senior civil servants, and a politician, a professor of law and the Pope's astronomer. There is a chapter devoted to fans who went to fight in World War 2, and to those who did not return. There is a lot of detail about how fanzines (small-circulation amateur magazines, produced using the duplication technology of the day) spawned offspring in music and "the counterculture". There is a discussion of the early days of some of the biggest names in music, the making of a controversial film, and the origin of "Nudge Theory".

Some might say that many of the examples given show science fiction fans who "moved on" to more "adult" activities, who relegated science fiction to their youth but "grew out" of it. But these people retained a love of the genre even if they no longer followed it as assiduously; and in any case, their experiences within fandom were essential grounding to the skills and abilities they displayed later. Fandom set them on the path to their success in later years.

Hansen closes the book with the slogan of the hacker collective Anonymous - "We Are Everywhere". I also think of the physicist Michio Kaku, who once gave a speech at a major literary festival which he started by asking the audience "How many people here read science fiction?" About a third of the hands - in an auditorium tent housing perhaps a thousand or more people - went up. "Great!" he enthused. "The rest of you - GET WITH THE PROGRAMME!!"

This book ought to be essential reading for any cultural commentators trying to fathom out the modern world. Its appearance in a print-on-demand or ebook format will make it hard to find by the people who need to read it the most.

(The reviewer purchased his own hard copy of the book and has received no consideration for this review. To obtain a copy, visit https://taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=BeyondFan)… (lisätietoja)