I guess that the answer depends critically on your definition of science fiction. Can you offer one to get the conversation started?

Here is the definition offered by _The Oxford English Dictionary_ online version, Colleague Ronan. I also recommend that definition given at _The Science Fiction Encyclopedia_.

LINK: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/definitions_of_sf

If you message me your email address, I will given you the login to that happy throng, privileged to hear Wolf Forrest (Sf historian and Poe Scholar) address these and other topics. Wolf is more entertaining than a dictionary.

1.

1851

† Fiction or poetry depicting some aspect of current scientific knowledge. Obsolete. rare.

• literature
• 2.a.1881† An apparently unlikely scientific theory or assertion. Obsolete. rare.1881I wonder who really believes that science-fiction about the earth being so much more powerfully attracted that it really leaves the waters behind, and so produces the rise of water on the opposite side of the earth. Daily News 16 April 7/1
• 2.b.1897–A work of science fiction (see sense A.3).Apparently rare before the mid 20th cent.1897My last remembrance had been of reading Mr. [J. U.] Lloyd's Etidorhpa... The complete arrest of bodily function and tissue waste which the central figure of that remarkable science-fiction achieved at the point where gravitation ceases, somewhere between here and China, impressed me deeply. H. B. Mason in Pharmaceut. World 20 May 592/1

1954

Interest in fiction centers on historical novels and science fictions.

News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan) 27 February 1/1

1961

Can any writer in the audience name a science fiction by Voltaire, or show a single example of it having influenced 20th-century s-f in any way?

J. Blish, Letter in Xero November 117

1993

We are the characters in a science fiction by Jean Baudrillard.

S. Bukatman, Terminal Identity (2003) ii. 181

2004

There are Huxley's ritualistic group sex and bottle babies, Skinner's boxes, and various minor science fictions—written by men, I hasten to add—in which women devour their mates or paralyse them and lay eggs on them, à la spiders.

M. Atwood, Writing Utopia in Writing with Intent (2011) xii. 95

3.

1898–

Fiction in which the setting and story feature hypothetical scientific or technological advances, the existence of alien life, space or time travel, etc., esp. such fiction set in the future, or an imagined alternative universe. Abbreviated sci-fi n., S.F. n. Cf. speculative fiction n.

Originally with reference to literature; now also to film, television, etc.

Occasionally used more narrowly to designate fiction based on possible or probable advances in technology; frequently in contrast to science fantasy n. 2b.

1927

Remember that Jules Verne was a sort of Shakespeare in science fiction.

Amazing Stories January 974/2

1933

Intelligent people, as a rule, will read science fiction.

Astounding Stories December 142/1

1942

Science fiction was headed for a blind alley until the realization came that even science fiction must remain fiction, and fiction is basically about people, not subatomic blasters nor time warps.

‘H. H. Holmes’, Rocket to Morgue 51

1951

For the last story on the Solar System, one has been chosen which many people will call science fantasy rather than science fiction... It deals with a world which man, by his very nature as living matter composed of chemical bonds, will never be able to explore.

G. Conklin in Possible Worlds Science Fiction 177

a1963

The theory of the Four Zones taught that the equatorial region was too hot for life. The other hemisphere of the Earth was to us wholly inaccessible. You could write science-fiction about it, but not geography.

C. S. Lewis, Discarded Image (1964) vii. 142

1982

Only science fiction allows the freedom to create a ‘laboratory’ world where one can experiment with matriarchal societies that dominate entire nations.

T. Staicar, Feminine Eye p. vii

1990

People to whom science fiction meant bad monster movies.

Thrust Winter 28/3

1997

So-called quantum computers, still the stuff of science fiction, which can exploit the property of sub-atomic particles to be, as it were, in two places at once.

Scotsman (Nexis) 10 May 17

2008

An idea often played with in science fiction, a problem of causality and time travel known as the grandfather paradox.

New Yorker 24 March 71/3

• literature
• adjective(chiefly attributive). 1929–Of, relating to, or characteristic of science fiction (sense A.3).1929Air Wonder Stories is a revelation in Science Fiction Stories of the Air. Popular Mechanics September (Advertising section) 46/2

1953

It's not that science fiction characters are stereotypes; it's that they are a limited choice of stereotypes.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists July 209/1

1972

I for one would rather command a computer through a keyboard than talk to it, even if that science-fiction dream were possible.

Scientific American September 38/2

1980

The long open-plan Newsroom..always gave me a science-fiction feeling of being the last man alive.

M. Babson, Dangerous to Know viii. 56

2012

Advertisements for computers had been so terrified of scaring off potential customers that they had avoided mentioning anything that was too science fiction, too threatening.

L. Dormehl, Apple Revol. viii. 228

Isn't it best to hear what Wolf Forrest has to say before coming down against his talk, though? My Literary Theory prof. always said first read with the text, and only then offer a crit of that text.

Here's what we know about Wolf's talk on Zoom.

He has assembled less-well-known stories that both involve what was then current science and satirize some of the hyperbolic claims of that day's pseudoscience.

Dear Colleague Ronan, please message me your email so you can LOGIN.

May the best of 2023 be the worst of 2024!

Gloria Lee Mcmillan – Interesting collection of ideas! It seems to me the problem is in the question, not the answer! Indeed, why Poe? What fascinates me more about Poe is his belittlement by the english-speaking mainstream academia and his sensational impact on french thought, literature and music. Ravel rated him as one of his three teachers.

How do you pull together a category labelled "science fiction"?

At one extreme you have, essentially, cowboys and injuns in space. The science in this kind of fiction rarely strays from upgraded versions of already-familiar things. Wars in Star Wars are fought by ground troops armed with inaccurate rifles or by pilots time-snatched from the battle of Britain. And Star Trek uses the trope to play out human, social and often ethical dramas, with a clear intent of presenting us with a morality play. Though add in Michelle Yeoh and I'll happily watch it!

At another other end is Connie Willis, whose only science-fiction element is her use of time travel, whose writing stands with the best of contemporary writing, regardless of genre.

At a third pole is writing that extrapolates trends in science to imagine their societal consequences. This is Asimov territory, whose fascination with the social and moral implications of robots has proved prescient. Not to mention the powerful ambiguities of Do Androids dream…

And what of dystopian literature? Extrapolation of social and environmental trends? The Handmaid's Tale? The Road? Ridley Walker? A Canticle for Leibowitz?

Is all of this science fiction? Yes, I say. But what sort of definition encompasses them?

While Poe was not a science fiction writer in the modern sense, he contained glimmerings of the genre's spirit within his Gothic imagination. In works like "The Balloon-Hoax" and "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," Poe grafted sensational science-like elements onto his tales to achieve a greater verisimilitude.

Yet his scientific romances operated more as hoaxes than as attempts to rationally speculate on technological futures. Poe exploited public fascination with science's expanding frontiers not to earnestly imagine possible inventions, but for theatrics feeding the appetite for wonder.

At his core, Poe relished ornate scenes of terror, mystery, and the macabre. His scientific interests were in service of plumbing the depths of human psychology through uncanny tales. He shared not the pioneer spirit of later sci-fi authors, but rather delighted in eliciting horror through pseudo-scientific plausibility.

Nonetheless, Poe's flair for crafting chilling fiction using cutting-edge science as motive force showed early glimmers of the inventive sense of wonder which bloomed in successors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Though not a sci-fi author himself, his influence on the genre as the wellspring of speculative fiction remains assured. Poe reminds us imagination often precedes innovation.

Dear Colleagues Karima Abdedaim and Ronan Conroy,

Thanks for this comment, Calleague Karima. I will share it with Wolf Forrest, if you do not mind.

He will cover some of what you say and also the role of satirizing pseudoscience in some of Poe's texts.

If you message me here at RG, I will add you, Colleague Karima, to our list for Zoom login information about Wolf's talk. Collegaue Conan Conroy already sent his email and should have received the login information.

Cheers,

Gloria

Honestly, this question is what JSTOR was made for.

https://www.jstor.org/journal/edgallpoerev

https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/poe-studies-history-theory-interpretation

Happy Science Fiction Day to all Sci–Fi lovers out there!

If the author’s influence on science fiction is considered Poe was clearly a forefather RG er of the genre in his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Read the brilliant Wikipedia Article on that novel. Jules Verne was strongly influenced by Poe, for example.

Dear Colleague Jim Drummond,

That is what--some of what--our speaker Wolf Forrest thinks and will present.

Can you please message me your email (one of them) and then I can send you the LOGIN so you can attend live?

This event is today! Please message me for the login.

it is at -7 hours GMT.

If you want to be added to our e-list for notification of coming events--see list below!--just message me here at RG, please.

Gloria McMillan

Zoom Wizard and organizer of the Hard-Science Science Fiction Zoom Group

As soon as Zoom processes the video file I will publish that file to our Hard-Science Science Fiction Channel. That viewers anywhere can see it anytime. I was so bury, I have not seen all those beautiful slides myself.

Wolf's 60-minute talk was vividly covered with images and an array of new information documenting what Poe actually did, his career of satirizing "fake" science and the popular pseudo-science beliefs of his day, how his work dovetailed and influenced several famous later SF writers. That includes Ray Bradbury (famous for the novel Fahrenheit 451) whose Martian-set story "Usher II" makes use of Poe's tropes.

See it on link in my next post...

Now you can all see this talk by Wolf Forrest at our Hard-Science Science Fiction Channel at YouTube!

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrkP0ccHrRA

COMMENTS are very welcome, as are subscribes.