THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE FICTION
ON YOUNG READERS

by H. B. Starkey

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." –Albert Einstein

 

From historical fiction to high fantasy, young readers today are attracted to an unprecedented variety of literature found on bookshelves in libraries and stores across the country. The genre which has had the most influence on me as a young reader is science fiction. Science fiction, like all good writing, impacts its readers in many ways. Young readers seeking entertainment, adventure, and escape to a larger world than their everyday experience find it rewarding. However, science fiction’s greatest impact is on the imagination.

The publishing phenomenon of J. K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series has created a monumental rise in the young reading population, possibly more than any author in modern times. Harry Potter struck a chord with youthful readership around the world as well as many of those of us young in spirit. Harry’s adventures are pure fantasy. The reader’s imagination escapes reality into the world of magic, witches, wizards and the struggle between good and evil. Readers are quickly engaged in the lives of Harry and his comrades as they face dangers incredible enough to stretch anyone‘s imagination. In these novels the imagination is required to suspend belief in reality and become involved in an exercise of fanciful escape.

Science fiction, on the other hand, accesses the imagination in a different and unique way. It requires that the reader examine reality in a new and different light. It stimulates the imagination and ignites curiosity. In the young, that imagination is already very alive and active.

At a time when adolescent minds are seeking to make sense of the world around them, science fiction provides them with an alternate view of their reality. They are searching for ways of giving meaning to the world around them, challenging what they see and experience and while creating their own sense of order and understanding.

According to David G. Hartwell, senior editor for Tor/Forge Books, intelligent, skeptical, adolescents are science fiction’s ideal audience because they are hungry for alternative ways of looking at the world and will stop at nothing to be entertained. Hartwell goes on to indicate that the key age at which this adolescent audience starts finding science fiction intriguing is twelve, since that is the age at which most young readers become fans.

Many of the adult fiction reading population today began reading science fiction at a similar age. Many, such as myself, were first introduced to science fiction in the 1950’s during what is commonly called the golden age of science fiction. During this golden age much of the available science fiction was created by authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Heinlein. These authors created a future full of wonder and they framed that future as one that was not only possible, but entirely probable. Many of the technologies proposed in these novels took seed in the imaginations of this new generation of readers, sparked their curiosity and have become the reality of today.

The science fiction of the golden age has come to life today because of its ability to make science not only understandable, but real in young minds. Isaac Asimov himself, a professor of biochemistry and one of the all time great science fiction writers, credits science fiction with fueling his imagination, igniting his curiosity, and bringing home the concepts of science. In his biography, ITS BEEN A GOOD LIFE, he states in talking about his youth that, "The science-fiction magazines were the first pulp magazines I was allowed to read. That may have been part of the reason that, when the time came for me to be a writer, it was science-fiction that I chose as my medium. Another reason was science fiction’s more extended grasp on the young imagination. It was science-fiction that introduced me to the universe, in particular to the solar system and the planets. Even if I had come across them in my reading of science books, it was science fiction that fixed them in my mind, dramatically and forever."

It is this ability to grasp the imagination that attracts and holds the young reader. Even as science fiction of the golden age inspired the imagination of young readers of that day, so to does science fiction inspire the youth of today. It has been said that the science fiction of yesterday is today’s reality. The same is true today. The science fiction that is on the bookshelves and in the minds of writers today will form tomorrow’s reality. It will be the young readers of today that will create that reality. The alternate views of reality presented in the science fiction of today will be the fuel for the imaginations of those that will foster and create that future.

The primary element of these alternate views of reality and science fiction itself is the concept of change. Some science fiction writers suggests that the science fiction reader is encouraged by his reading not to fear or dread change, but rather to accept it as a fresh and exciting challenge. After all, science fiction seems to say, the winds of change -- however violent they may seem -- are of man's making in the first place, and it should be within man's power to temper them. It is the youth that seek and embrace change and are hungry to create this change. For the changes represented in science fiction are more than scientific and technological, they are also the changes in history, social and political order, and they encompass the intellectual questioning of the human condition. The very concepts that will form the future.

Science fiction aimed specifically at young adults is a recent phenomenon. In actuality, the demarcation between adult and young adult science fiction is nebulous at best. It is more a matter of the age of the protagonist than any other facet that determines which category the story will fall into. Much of adult science fiction is fascinating to the young reader as is young adult science fiction appealing to many of the more mature fans.

For the young adult reader, the fact remains that science fiction provides a unique access to the imagination and triggers curiosity about the reality of today and all the possible realities in this infinite universe. The future is in their hands.

This genre is vast with many sub-genre and it would be difficult to identify and recommend even a small sample of the exceptional books available for young adult readers. However, I would like to suggest that any well rounded science fiction collection for the youthful audience should include such authors and titles as:

THE XENOCIDE MISSION, by Ben Jeapes

CONTACT, by Carl Sagan

THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY, by Isaac Asimov

CHILDHOOD’S END, by Arthur C. Clarke

DUNE, by Frank Herbert

ENDER’S GAME, by Orson Scott Card

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, by Douglas Adams

DRAGONSONG, by Anne McCaffrey

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, by Michael Crichton

PATTERNMASTER, by Octavia Butler

STARSHIP TROOPERS, by Robert A. Heinlein

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, by Philip K. Dick

THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, by Ray Bradbury

The imagination of the young is more important than their knowledge. Science fiction is the fuel of that imagination.

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