Saturday 14 May 2011

Science fiction classics "not science fiction"?

From the British Library description of their Out of this World exhibition (starting in London next Friday):
The exhibition will challenge what people think of as Science Fiction and show that it is not a narrow genre, but embraces works of utopian and speculative fiction that people may not consider as 'Science Fiction', such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, George Orwell’s 1984 and Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time-Traveler’s Wife.
Does anyone really think that any of those novels is not science fiction? I want to hear someone say so. (Someone other than Margaret Atwood, please.)