Science Fiction runs the gamut as it burns across the genres. You might think an SF story has to be robots, spaceships, time travel or people out in space talking to squids. But Science Fiction is a wily beast that can take any other genre and flip it, creating a science fictional version of that type of story. The result will both the other and SF.
Space Opera
Probably the easiest version of this is one kind of SF that mimics another, such as the monumental Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert. This massive book can be seen as a mere Space Opera (if you squint). Herbert takes Space Opera to new levels of political and environmental commentary.
Sword & Sorcery
A similar action can be seen in “Not Long Before the End” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1969) by Larry Niven, which appears at first to be that staid sample of the Sword & Sorcery genre, of wizard versus warrior conflict. Niven parodies that plot and offers a Science Fictional version of the tale, in a world where magic is a resource. Larry insists the story is NOT Fantasy.
Horror
Another related or interconnected theme is Horror. The very first SF novel is also a Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley. Despite this origin story, other writers have managed to remain remain in the horror camp while doing Sf things. After Shelley, the most famous is “Who Goes There?” (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1938) by John W. Campbell (as Don A. Stuart). Campbell didn’t shy away from horrific topics. He also published Fear (Unknown, July 1940) by L. Ron Hubbard, a horror novel with no real horror in it. Like much of what he published in Unknown, it is a horror tale for those who don’t like horror.
Ghost Story
The ghost story or haunted house story got its masterpiece in “Nightflyers” (Analog, April 1980) by George R. R. Martin. Martin wanted to create a haunted house in space, offering at least three different explanations for ghostly terror. Is it the psychic, the computer or the aliens that are killing everybody?
Detective
Isaac Asimov became famous (all over again!) when he wrote the first play fair detective novel, The Caves of Steel in 1954. Detectives did appear in SF before this, like Frank Belknap Long’s John Carstairs, but the point was never to produce an actual Mystery story that readers had to solve. Asimov wrote three of these starring his human and android detectives, Lij Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. Another author of note here is Leigh Brackett, who didn’t write solvable mysteries but borrowed the language of Raymond Chandler. Her space operas have a crisp feel to them that suggests Hammett and Chandler even when it isn’t about detectives.
Crime
A Crime story, as opposed to a Mystery story, is a tale of criminals and their lives. While related to detective tales, they often don’t bother with who dunnit? The Magnus Ridolph stories of Jack Vance all follow Magnus in his shady dealings with shadier people. The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison would give us another intriguing con-man in Slippery Jim D’Gris. The Anthony Villers novels of Alexei Panshin, inspired by Leslie Chateris’s The Saint, also falls here.
Spy
The Dominic Flandry series by Poul Anderson, The Agent of Vega series by James H. Schmitz and other Space Opera type books all followed in the tradition of the E. E. Doc Smith’s Lensmen novels. Here agents, James Bonds of the future, must save the universe over and over. The Cap Kennedy books by E. C. Tubb also fall here.
Political Thriller
Novels about politics, even inter-galactic ones, are pretty dull. The good ones aren’t. Isaac Asimov wrote his Foundation series about Hari Seldon and how politics would unfold in a thousand years. Double Star (Astounding Science Fiction, February March April 1956) by Robert A. Heinlein has an actor take on the guise of a mighty ruler. Even some short stories can be penetrating into political matters such as “Oh, To Be a Blobel” (Galaxy, February 1964) by Philip K. Dick, which blows the Cold war out of the water. Keith Laumer’s Retief stories and novels concern a political diplomat and how he navigates interstellar crisis, usually with great humor.
Western
The cowboy in space has become its own sub-genre known as Space Westerns but earlier books took on the ranch and the herd in A Planet For Texans (1958) by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire. Early Astounding fiction like “Hawk Carse” (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November 1931) by Anthony Gilmore was modeled on the Western (the writers didn’t really know how to write SF). You can almost smell the cow pies as the hero saunters past the corral full of unicorns.
War
Starship Troopers (Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1959) by Robert A. Heinlein is probably the most famous SF war novels. It polarized readers back in the 1960s. Love it or hate it, the book was foundational for another sub-genre, Military SF. Other great examples include “Second Variety” (Space Science Fiction, May 1953) by Philip K. Dick. Jack Dann collected some stories in Future War (1999) and Space Soldiers (2001).
Romance
A love interest can be found in some Science Fiction (and not at all in many others) but one novel that works as a Romance and SF is Bid Time Return (1975) by Richard Matheson. Movies like The Lake House (2007) recycle Matheson without acknowledgement, or even acknowledging they are SF.
Sports
Jack Dann again collects stories in Future Sports (2002) and Dangerous Games (2007). Not all SF Sports stories are life and death The Hunger Games type contests. Some specific sports include:
Sailing
Who says a sailing story, popularized by Richard Sale in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, can’t be transferred to space? “The Wind From the Sun” by Arthur C. Clarke (Boys’ Life, March 1964) give us a modern version.
Boxing
Whole pulps used to offer up tales of boxers and the ring. “Steel” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1956) by Richard Matheson takes that sport into the world of robotics. The affection Matheson shows for the sport and its punchers is proof that SF can tell meaningful tales of humanity.
Running
All those YA novels of recent time owe a big thank you to The Running Man (1982) by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman). A future world has a game show in which contestants run for their lives.
Racing
The Race Across America plot gets a post-apocalyptic version in Damnation Alley (1969) by Roger Zelazny. The author takes us coast-to-coast in a race to save what little of humanity remains.
Fishing
This category got me think about all these cross-genre classics. I realized “The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1965) by Roger Zelazny was essentially the greatest SF fishing story ever.
Hunting
If you can go fishing, you can also go hunting. “The Most Dangerous Game” (Colliers’, January 19, 1924) by Richard Connell gets a retread in “The Hunted”(Super Science Stories, July 1949) by John D. MacDonald.
Boy’s Adventure or Circus
SF novels that bore from the large catalogue of adventures and children’s stories include “The Circus Story” made famous by Toby Tyler, or Ten weeks With the Circus (1880) by James Otis Kaler. Robert Silverberg revived his career with Lord Valentine’s Castle (Fantasy & Science Fiction, November December 1979–January February 1980).
The School Story
“Ender’s Game” (Analog, July 1977) and its novel version, Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card with its Battle School harkens back, as does J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books in the Fantasy genre, to the old School story that was popular in England in the 1930s. A lovable cast of characters all rally for the fame of their school. In Ender Game‘s case, to destroy the Formic race that would brush aside humanity.
The Revenge Story
Tales of revenge can appear in any genre but Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) gets a remake in The Stars, My Destination (Galaxy, October November December 1956-January 1957) by Alfred Bester.
Doctor Story
Dr. Kildare to space Surgery! James White made this sub-genre his own with books like Hospital Station, Star Surgeon, Major Operation, etc. Star Trek adopted the idea for all those episodes about Dr. McCoy, Pulaski, Crusher, Phlox and the EMH doctor. The plot is usually the same, some threatening pathogen or condition, saved at the last second…
Conclusion
I have listed examples, usually the top one, for all these cross-genre books and stories but there are plenty of others. No doubt, i have missed a favorite of yours. What did I miss?
