Gothic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that, as the name suggests, also involves gothic conventions.
Some of the more obvious examples of the subgenre feature vampires explained in a science fiction context, commonly that vampires are aliens or those infected by a disease as in (Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend), or products of parallel evolution (George R. R. Martin's novel Fevre Dream) or in (Kate Nevermore's novel Blood of the Living). Some feature entire planets of vampires, or vampire-like creatures (such as the comic book Vampirella).
In his history of science fiction, Billion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss contends that science fiction itself is an outgrowth of gothic fiction-- pointing to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein as an example." Science fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science) and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode." The blend can also be detected quite explicitly in Jules Verne's novel Le Château des Carpathes.
Other examples of the subgenre feature other traditionally gothic tropes in new settings, such as:
- Damsels in distress in faraway future
- Gothic planetary romance
- Gothic futuristic romance
Famous quotes containing the words science fiction, gothic, science and/or fiction:
“Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Current illusion is that science has abolished all natural laws.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)