The Science Of Science Fiction by Mark Brake (book review)
‘The Science Of Science Fiction’ by Mark Brake has the sub-title, ‘The Influence Of Film And Fiction On The Science And Culture Of Our Times’. A bit of a mouthful but you do have to wonder which or what was the main title originally. Whatever, it was enough to spike my interest to look at this 2018 book. Even so, Brake doesn’t appear to be keeping to the guidelines and comparisons throughout this book.
The book is divided into four sections, ‘Space’, ‘Time’, Machine’ and ‘Monster’, with mini-chapters on various subjects within them These sub-titles are a bit of misnomer because it’s rare that they dominate them and just as a starting point for each subject. Brake gets several quotes from various sources, both non-fiction and fiction, before launching into a particular subject.
In his introduction, Brake reveals himself to be both a Science Fiction fan and scientist, so this book blends both interests. He’s certainly done enough research here when I read the opening two parts. You’ll certainly need to keep a notebook handy to note down any books that pique your fancy to read later. He’s certainly well-researched and I’m not spotting any obvious flaws so far. He even points out that Orson Wells’ ‘War Of The Worlds’ radio broadcast American population listening in wasn’t as large as publicised and been exaggerated over the years. Why shouldn’t we be surprised at media exaggeration.
I like his examination of space battles going beyond there being no noise in space but also the problems of firing missiles in space. I did have a serious think about that. A missile is far smaller than any spacecraft firing it, so a reaction in the opposite direction by the bigger massed spacecraft isn’t quite on the cards. A tickle at most, especially if its full motor isn’t turned on until its ejected. The same with forward momentum. Providing the missile is going faster than the spacecraft, then relative distance between the two would remain. Both of which contradicts his comments. Hopefully, this would never have to be proven for real. Don’t be complacent when you read, think about what Brake says than just accept as correct.
With his ‘Time’ section, I did wonder if he was running out of things to say about it or rather repetitions without going into too much detail on how it could be done. Basically, going forward is easy because of relativity but going back, we would have seen proof. He ignored something basic from ‘Doctor Who’ in people get a selective memory and what they want to remember. I mean, look at how people remember the end of the two world wars every year to ensure its not forgotten with the new generations. Wars earlier than that aren’t so easily remembered. However, there is a list of some books that I want to look at, although some of them that are prohibitively expensive. Anyone got any uranium-235 for my time machine, doesn’t have to be weapons grade. What is a puzzle is why there is no bibliography or index to make it a proper reference book.
As with all books about Science Fiction, somewhere into the book, I did start to think about how well read or viewed the author is compared to his introduction. These days, a lot of research can be done on-line and not necessarily see the completed works because they would have some effect on what you use for examples. I can console with this, I’m widely read in SF but there’s too much to be called a complete expert anymore. Giveaway points tends to be things overlooked. I mean the opening sections have a lot of examples, the ‘Machines’ section, somewhat less considering how much Brake places importance in this. I mean, he points to fictional examples of flying cars, points at ‘Thunderbirds’ (the latter CGI more than 1966) and neglects ‘Supercar’ and ‘Joe 90’ which have better examples. Mac McClaine’s Jet Air Car is probably the way to go, a low-level flying car makes a lot more sense than cars flying at the same height as an aircraft and at least it avoids potholes. Look at the problems we currently have with drones.
The ‘Monster’ section deals more with of the same dividing between creatures and man evolving from mutations. My impressions of the last two sections felt they were sparser than they should have been. He sights Charles Xavier as an example of telepathy but doesn’t know about Henry Knuttner and C.L. Moore’s ‘Baldies’ stories which were an obvious source. I know there is a likelihood of using examples people would recognise but SF is loaded with super-humans and evolved beings but few examples here. The same with cyborgs. He acknowledges Martin Caiden’s book but, really, there are so many others.
This book is worth a look, if only to test your own SF knowledge. How much it has really influenced our world could have been covered better. I mean SF has had as many failures and influence on our society. Other than space battles, ‘Star Trek’ is barely mentioned although it had a major influence on our mobile phones designs. The same with computers, although that came much later. No SF author anticipated the silicon CPU that would help in reducing the size of computers. I could go on. What Brake does cover will give you some thought but don’t treat as a definitive volume.
GF Willmetts
June 2026
(pub: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc, 2018. 216 page enlarged paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-5107-3936-9)
