Politics
Often the political focus of a science fiction novel is less on the social order, but how people maneuver and achieve their agendas within a given system. Many space operas rely on vast interstellar bureaucracies to drive their plots (see: Galactic empire). The Retief stories by Keith Laumer and the Chanur books by C. J. Cherryh have politics and political maneuverings as some of the main themes, and Frank Herbert's Dune books offer advanced explorations of human politics, including the dovetailing economics. Often this focus can descend into conspiracy and paranoia where the premise is that there are secret forces out to get the protagonists, the seminal example of which is the Illuminatus! Trilogy. Most commonly, science fiction deals with the political fallout of its own premises. A story will posit some new event or technology and explore its political dimensions; this includes most techno-thrillers but also encompasses a large body of traditional science fiction. An example is the Philip K. Dick story The Minority Report (upon which the film starring Tom Cruise is based), which introduces the idea of perfectly predicting a crime of violence so the perpetrator can be arrested before the crime is committed, and the political and legal ramifications of actually using such a system.
Read more about this topic: Political Ideas In Science Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“...to many a mother’s heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother’s kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“All you can be sure about in a political-minded writer is that if his work should last you will have to skip the politics when you read it. Many of the so-called politically enlisted writers change their politics frequently.... Perhaps it can be respected as a form of the pursuit of happiness.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)