Because Sci-Fi Doesn't Lie

At first glance, I doubt you’d peg me as a science fiction connoisseur. However, I do truly enjoy the genre — especially in short story form.

I’ve started to notice just how much I gravitate toward sci-fi lately, and it’s led me to wonder what is it about sci-fi that keeps me coming back to read more.

It’s not a casual, fleeting question because over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. The more science fiction I read, the more I want to read, and the more often I ask myself the question: What is it about the genre that sucks me in? I did some deep thinking and a little soul-searching and finally figured it out.

It’s because sci-fi doesn’t lie.

If you’re thinking right about now something along the lines of “Um, ma’am … sci-fi … is a pretty big stretch sometimes,” then you’re right. It absolutely is, but it doesn’t lie.

To get a little more specific, sci-fi authors don’t sugarcoat situations.

They are blunt and state the harsh, and often dire, truth just as it is.

For example, in Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson, the sun’s about to supernova. Everyone is working to save humanity, and in the process, very harsh and blunt truths are revealed about the way we humans handle venturing into the unknown.

In Zero Hour by Ray Bradbury, no one listens to the children, our greatest truth-tellers, when they absolutely should.

In Hey, You Down There by Harold Rolseth the husband is … well … kind of garbage. Like, seriously. He’s an awful human to his wife and the rest of the world, but I’ve seen his treatment of his wife reflected in the world more times than I care to admit.

In The Veldt by Ray Bradbury our dependence on technology and its influence on our children when left unchecked is cause for concern.

Douglas Adams tackles the biggest question of all in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — What’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything?

And that’s why I love Sci-fi. It pulls no punches. It asks the big questions. It lays it all out there, and I’ve always been someone who would rather hear the truth and have it hurt a little than be told a fluffy lie.

I think the honesty that sci-fi brings to the table now comforts me in a way that it hasn’t before. The reason for that comfort is we live in a time when words seem to rarely match actions and motives are complicated because they are often politically/monetarily motivated.

I think that now, more than ever, I take comfort in someone telling me the truth about the world and all that’s in it, even if the truth about our society, oddly enough, is being revealed by a work of fiction.

So, if you and your students are feeling stressed and like the world doesn’t quite make as much sense as it once did, you all might also find comfort in the world of science fiction literature.

Until next time! Lauren

(If you want to teach any of the Sci-fi stories I mentioned above in your classroom, you can find resources for them here.)