Once upon a time, science fiction was just a genre among other genres. There were crime stories, there were horror stories, there was literary fiction–and there was science fiction.曾几何时，科幻小说不过是诸多小说类别中的一种：犯罪小说、可怕小说、文学小说……还有，科幻小说。But today science themes dominate these other genres. It’s difficult to think of much modern crime, horror or “serious” fiction that doesn’t involve science.但现在，科幻主题却攻占了其他类型的小说。我们早已很难想象现代犯罪小说、可怕小说或者其它“坦率”的文学作品中有哪些是不牵涉到科幻元素的。
And it’s not just books. With every second movie and computer game having a sci-fi element, science fiction seems to have colonized our entire entertainment culture.某种程度是书籍，电影和电脑游戏也不值得注意，每一秒或许都必不可少科幻元素。科幻或许早已攻占了整个娱乐文化。It’s clear that if we want to define science fiction we should relate it to the role that science plays in our lives. Perhaps the place to start is by noting when it began.我们都确切，要想要给科幻小说下个定义，就被迫考虑到科学在我们生活中所扮演着的角色。
或许，我们应当从科幻小说的因缘谈到。Although some experts have claimed to be able to trace sci-fi back to ancient times, it is more plausible to find it in fledgling form in the 19th century, when industrial societies emerged.尽管一些专家声称科幻小说的问世可以追溯到很远的古代，但科幻小说于19世纪初具雏形的众说纷纭或许更加可靠，因为当时正值工业社会经常出现。One of the features that set industrial societies apart from other kinds was the increasing part that science played in everyday life. Factories with vast machines churned out huge quantities of goods, which were transported by trains, motor vehicles and ships all over the world. Cities were built on the back of technology, with electricity in homes and hospitals helping everyone to lead healthier, more convenient lives. All of these changes had profound effects not only on people’s real lives, but on their imaginative ones.工业社会区别于其它社会类型的特征之一就是科学在人们生活中扮演着了日益最重要的角色：工厂林立，极大的机器批量生产出有各种产品，经火车、汽车和轮船运往世界各地。
城市建设也必不可少科技，家庭和医院都都营了电，人们的生活因此显得更加身体健康、更加便捷。所有这些变化不仅对人们的实际生活产生了深远影响，也某种程度影响了他们想象中的生活。Writers began to articulate these changing physical and mental landscapes, eventually giving science fiction a large and devoted fanbase of especially young readers, who found that it spoke to their curiosity about the future that science would create.作家们开始将这些变化中的现实世界和想象中的世界联系一起，科幻小说因此渐渐更有了一大批心目中读者。尤其是年长读者，他们对科学建构的未来充满著奇怪，而这些小说于是以符合了他们的好奇心。
But sci-fi reflected fears about science more than it did hopes. These early novels were dystopian rather than utopian.不过，科幻小说体现更好的并不是对科学的期望，而是不安。早期的科幻小说大多是鼓吹乌托邦式的。The typical early science fiction novel might be a UK novel like H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1897). With great skill, Wells played upon the fears of technology by imagining Earth under threat by a civilization –that of men from Mars.比如早期科幻小说的代表作品——英国小说家赫伯特乔治威尔斯的《星际战争》（1897）。
小说中，威尔斯想象了地球遭到火星文明威胁的情景，后用高超的写作技巧展现人们对科技的不安。The science fiction of today expresses the impact of the computing revolution, robotics and our environmental challenges, while it is less concerned with “little green men from Mars” and other themes of past sci-fi.现在的科幻小说则更好地着墨于计算机革命、机器人还有环境问题对人类的影响，而类似于 “来自火星的小绿人”和过去的科幻主题早已很少有作家牵涉到。Given that science, technology and politics are always intertwined, contemporary science fiction often has a great deal to say about power. Many recent novels – like American Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (2008)– are concerned with government and security service “conspiracies” against the people, particularly as the revelations of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden sink in. This can give sci-fi writing a “paranoid” feel.由于科学、技术与政治的话题总是彼此交叠，权力在当代科幻小说中出了重头戏。
近年来，随着揭露真凶的“告密者”们（比如爱德华斯诺登）步入人们的视线，很多科幻小说都环绕政府与安全性机构密谋侵害人民权利而进行，美国科幻小说家科里多克托罗的《小兄弟》（2008）就是一例。科幻小说也因此平添了一分“懦弱病态”的感觉。
This underlines one of the features that remains constant between the beginnings of the empire of science fiction and its state today.这也沦为科幻小说“帝国”从创建之初至今都不存在的一个特点。As then, so now: We want to read about how fearful the future will be, not how it will be a paradise.鉴于此，我们想要写的仍然是未来如何变为幸福的天堂，而是未来究竟有多可怕。
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