I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that the mind, like the author’s, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and itinspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness. Philip K. Dick
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Science fiction at its best should be crazy and dangerous, not sane and safe. - Paul Di Filippo
  2. As many authors have said, if the writer is not surprised by events, then chances are that the reader will not be either, and grow bored. - Paul Di Filippo
  3. The emotional tone or affect of the tale should be hot and engaged, not remote and dispassionate. - Paul Di Filippo
  4. That was asking a lot of my readers, I realized, but I was trying to write the novel I would most enjoy decoding. - Paul Di Filippo
  5. We realized that among us, among all the races, we had a staggering fund of knowledge and of techniques - that working together, by putting together all this knowledge and capability, we could arrive at something that would be far greater and more significant than... - Clifford D. Simak
More Quotes By Philip K. Dick
  1. You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of...
  2. To live is to be haunted.
  3. If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.
  4. This is a mournful discovery.1) Those who agree with you are insane2) Those who do not agree with you are in power.
  5. Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And...
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