Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
I would have to disagree. Science fiction was used back in the 1930s
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Actually I found references on the web to the term "science fiction" being used as far back as 1830, or some year around that time. I forget exactly what it said. But there was pretty general agreement that the term wasn't generally known and used till the mid to late 1950s.
In the case of "1984" we can be sure that Orwell's intent wasn't to write science fiction since his name for the book was "1948" and he was writing it as an allegory about the current state of the world. His publisher, fearing controversy, thought that putting it in the future would be safer.
Gene Roddenberry did the same thing with Star Trek to be able to tell stories about such things as racism in a way that was acceptable to TV networks. Anybody remember "East Side, West Side", a very popular and critically acclaimed TV series with 2 little known actors at that time (George C. Scott, Cecily Tyson) that was taken off the air because the networks thought it dealt with topics that were too controversial. It's not nice to mess with mother network.
Barry