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Introduction

There is a tendency for many people who don't know any better to classify science fiction as just one roup of specialized literatures that include mysteries, westerns, adventures, sports stories, love stories, and so on

This has always seemed odd to those who know science fiction well, for sf is a literary response to scientific change, and that response can run the entire gamut of the human experience Science fiction, in other words, includes everything

How does one differentiate between a science fiction story and an adventure story, for instance, when so much sf is so intensely adventurous as to leave the ordinary stories of the type rather pale? Surely a trip to thekind, whatever else it is

I have seen excellent science fiction stories that fall into unusual classifications and bring great enrichhtful 'western' -but it took place under the sea, and it had dolphins in place of cattle Its nae,' however, and it fitted

Clifford D Simak wrote 'Rule 18' which is a pure sports story, but one that involved time-travel, so that the coach of Earth's teaame with Mars

In 'The Lovers,' Philip Jose Far a sober andtale of love that crossed the boundary line, not of religion or color, but of species

Oddly enough, it was the amate with science fiction Surely this is unexpected One would think that science fiction would blend easily with the mystery Science itself is so nearly a mystery and the research scientist so nearly a Sherlock Holmes

And if ant to reverse things, are there not mysteries that make use of the 'scientific mind'? R Austin

Freeman's Dr Thorndyke is an example of a well known and successful (fictional) scientist-detective And yet science fiction writers seemed to be inhibited in the face of the science fiction mystery

Back in the late 1945, this was finally explained to me I was told that 'by its very nature' science fiction would not play fair with the reader In a science fiction story, the detective could say, 'But as you know, Watson, ever since 2175, when all Spaniards learned to speak French, Spanish has been a dead language How canificant words in Spanish!' Or else, he could have his detective whip out an odd device and say, 'As you know, Watson,the hidden jewel in a trice'

Such arguments did not impress me It seemed to me that ordinary mystery writers (non-science-fiction variety) could be just as unfair to the readers They could deliberately hide a necessary clue They could introduce an additional character fro over which they had been reat deal of fuss, andThe point was, though, that they didn't do anything They stuck to the rule of being fair to the reader Clues ht ht be thrown out casually, but they were thrown out The leader was remorselessly misdirected, misled, and mystified, but he was not cheated

It seeranted that the sa new devices on the reader and solve the e of future history to introduce ad hoc phenomena In fact, you carefully explain all facets of the future background well in advance so the reader may have a decent chance to see the solution The fictional detective can make use only of facts known to the reader in the present or of 'facts' of the fictional future, which will be carefully explained beforehand Even soht to be mentioned if they are to be used-just to make sure the reader is aware of the world now about him

Once all this is accepted, not only does it becohly acceptable literary form, but it also becomes obvious that it is a lot round that is fascinating in itself quite apart from the mystery

But talk is cheap, so I put my typewriter where my mouth was, and in 1953 wrote a science fiction mystery novel called The Caves of Steel (published, 1954) It was accepted by the critics as a good science fiction novel and a good mystery and after it appeared I never heard anyone say that science fiction mysteries were impossible to write I even wrote a sequel called The Naked Sun (published, 1957) just to show that the first book wasn't an accident

Between and after these novels, moreover, I also wrote several short stories intended to prove that science fiction ths

These shorter science fictionsome boarderline cases) are included in this volue for yourself