“A revealing way of describing science fiction is to say that it is part of a literary mode which one may call ‘fabril’*. ‘Fabril’ is the opposite of ‘pastoral’. But while the pastoral is an established and much discussed literary mode, recognized as such since early antiquity, its dark opposite has not yet been accepted, or even named, by the law-givers of literature. Yet the opposite is a clear one. Pastoral literature is rural, nostalgic, conservative. It idealizes the past and tends to convert complexities into simplicity; its central image is the shepherd. Fabril literature (of which science fiction is now by far the most prominent genre) is overwhelmingly urban, disruptive, future-orientated, eager for novelty; its central image is the ‘faber’, the smith or blacksmith in older usage, but now extended in science fiction to mean the creator of artifacts in general – metallic, crystalline, genetic, or even social… What science fiction has been doing over the decades of this century has been steadily to extend the perceived boundaries of Culture (technology, government, social organization, all seen as affecting – if not absolutely determining – the way human beings act and feel), while at the same time becoming more and more aware of the immense scale of Nature, against which human beings are set and against which they are ultimately powerless… What science fiction has had to offer many readers is Truth.”

*As far as I am aware, this word has never been used in print. I owe it to Dr. James Bradley, of the University of British Columbia, who coined word and concept in his study of early Germanic smithcraft. Tom Shippy in his introduction to ‘The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories’ (Oxford University Press, 1992)