Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropology", and speculates about human behavior and interactions.
Exploration of fictional societies is a significant aspect of science fiction, allowing it to perform predictive (H. G. Wells, The Final Circle of Paradise) and precautionary (Fahrenheit 451) functions, to criticize the contemporary world (Antarctica-online) and to present solutions (Walden Two), to portray alternative societies (World of the Noon) and to examine the implications of ethical principles (the works of Sergei Lukyanenko).
Read more about Social Science Fiction: Social Science Fiction in English, The Genre in The Eastern Bloc, Examples From The 1940s
Famous quotes containing the words social, science and/or fiction:
“... social evils are dangerously contagious. The fixed policy of persecution and injustice against a class of women who are weak and defenseless will be necessarily hurtful to the cause of all women.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)
“Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.”
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)
“The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)