1 The Genre and the World: Some Notes on Science Fiction A. Giridhar Rao (rao.giridhar@apu.edu.in ) Azim Premji University March 2018 An ancestor of this paper appeared in 2006. That was presented at the English Department of University of Hyderabad. The seminar was in honour of my teacher, Professor Sudhakar Marathe. It was his generosity of spirit that allowed me in the mid- 1980s to work on science fiction. In the 1980s, science fiction was a barely respectable genre in India. So, this essay is as much about the past and present as it is about the future. It is also as much about Hyderabad as it is about outer space. In other words, as much about the here-and-now as about elsewhere and elsewhen. So, back to 2006. When I told my daughter, who was then 8 years old, that I was going to speak at the university on aliens and spaceships, she immediately said, “Can I help? I know all about aliens!” Indeed, think “science fiction” and what comes to mind? Here's a sampling of associations: ● First, aliens, who (or which) come in three popular flavours: ○ cute aliens -- “Mummy, there's a furry little creature in the garden!” ○ or monstrous aliens – a single scream should do nicely, “Mummmmmy!” ○ or even aliens that are both cuddly and deadly -- “Mummy! That cute furry monster just ate our dog!” ● Second, gadgets; usually, weapons of mass destruction, as menacing and mythical as the ones in Iraq, and deployed pretty much for similar, imperialistic ends. Here's the hero of Robert Heinlein's 1957 novel Citizen of the Galaxy: “I used,” Thorby stated, “a Mark XIX one-stage target-seeker, made by Bethlem- Antares and armed with a 20-megaton plutonium warhead. I launched a timed shot on closing to beaming range on a collision-curve prediction” (183). Sami Ahmad Khan's Red Jihad (2012) is in this tradition. Arthur C. Clarke (1989) called