Fantasy as a literary genre. The peculiarity of the genre of science fiction

In modern literary criticism and criticism, the issues related to the history of the emergence of science fiction have been relatively little studied, and even less studied the role in its formation and development of the experience of "pre-scientific" fiction of the past.

Characteristic, for example, is the statement of critic A. Gromova, the author of an article on science fiction in the Brief Literary Encyclopedia: war, although the main features of modern science fiction were already outlined in the work of Wells and partly of K. Chapek" (2). However, while quite rightly emphasizing the relevance of science fiction as a literary phenomenon, brought to life by the uniqueness of the new historical era, its urgent needs and needs, we must not forget that the literary genealogical roots of modern science fiction go back to hoary antiquity, that it is the rightful heir to the greatest achievements of the world. science fiction can and must use these achievements, this artistic experience in the service of the interests of modernity.

The Small Literary Encyclopedia defines fantasy as a kind of fiction in which the author's fiction extends from the depiction of strange, unusual, implausible phenomena to the creation of a special fictional, unreal, "wonderful world".

The fantastic has its own fantastic type of figurativeness with its inherent high degree of convention, frank violation of real logical connections and patterns, natural proportions and forms of the depicted object.

Fantasy as a special area of ​​literary creativity accumulates the creative imagination of the artist, and at the same time the fantasy of the reader; at the same time, fantasy is not an arbitrary "realm of the imagination": in a fantastic picture of the world, the reader guesses the transformed forms of real, social and spiritual human existence.

Fantastic imagery is inherent in such folklore genres as a fairy tale, epic, allegory, legend, grotesque, utopia, satire. The artistic effect of a fantastic image is achieved due to a sharp repulsion from empirical reality, therefore, fantastic works are based on the opposition of the fantastic and the real.

The poetics of the fantastic is connected with the doubling of the world: the artist either models his own incredible world that exists according to its own laws (in this case, the real “starting point” is hidden, remaining outside the text: “Gulliver’s Travels” by J. Swift, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” by F. M. Dostoevsky) or parallel recreates two streams - real and supernatural, unreal being.

In the fantastic literature of this series, mystical, irrational motives are strong, the science fiction writer here acts as an otherworldly force interfering in the fate of the central character, influencing his behavior and the course of events of the entire work (for example, works of medieval literature, Renaissance literature, romanticism).

With the destruction of the mythological consciousness and the growing desire in the art of modern times to look for the driving forces of being in being itself, already in the literature of romanticism there is a need for motivation of the fantastic, which in one way or another could be combined with a general attitude towards a natural depiction of characters and situations.

The most stable devices of such motivated fiction are dreams, rumors, hallucinations, madness, plot mystery. A new type of veiled, implicit fantasy is being created (Yu.V. Mann), leaving the possibility of a double interpretation, a double motivation of fantastic incidents - empirically or psychologically plausible and inexplicably surreal ("Cosmorama" by V.F. Odoevsky, "Shtos" by M.Yu. Lermontov, "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann).

Such a conscious fluctuation of motivation often leads to the fact that the subject of the fantastic disappears (“The Queen of Spades” by A.S. Pushkin, “The Nose” by N.V. Gogol), and in many cases its irrationality is generally removed, finding a prosaic explanation in the course of the development of the narrative .

Fantasy stands out as a special kind of artistic creativity as folklore forms move away from the practical tasks of mythological comprehension of reality and ritual and magical influence on it. The primitive worldview, becoming historically untenable, is perceived as fantastic. A characteristic sign of the emergence of fantasy is the development of an aesthetics of the miraculous, which is not characteristic of primitive folklore. There is a stratification: the heroic fairy tale and the legends about the cultural hero are transformed into a heroic epic (folk allegory and generalization of history), in which the elements of the miraculous are auxiliary; the fabulously magical element is perceived as such and serves as a natural environment for a story about travels and adventures, taken out of the historical framework.

So Homer's "Iliad" is essentially a realistic description of an episode of the Trojan War (which does not interfere with the participation of celestial heroes in the action); Homer's "Odyssey" is primarily a fantastic story about all sorts of incredible adventures (not related to the epic plot) of one of the heroes of the same war. The plot images and incidents of the Odyssey are the beginning of all literary European fiction. Approximately the same as the Iliad and the Odyssey correlate with the heroic saga "The Voyage of Bran, the son of Febal" (7th century AD). The prototype of future fantastic travels was Lucian’s parody True Story, where the author, in order to enhance the comic effect, tried to pile up as much incredible and awkward as possible and enriched the flora and fauna of the “wonderful country” with numerous tenacious fictions.

Thus, even in antiquity, the main directions of fantasy were outlined - fantastic wanderings, adventures and fantastic search, pilgrimage (a characteristic plot is a descent into hell). Ovid in his Metamorphoses directed the primordial mythological plots of transformations into the mainstream of fantasy (the transformation of people into animals, constellations, stones, etc.) and laid the foundation for a fantastic-symbolic allegory - a genre more didactic than adventurous: "instruction in miracles." Fantastic transformations become a form of awareness of the vicissitudes and unreliability of human destiny in a world subject only to the arbitrariness of chance or the mysterious supreme will.

A rich collection of literary processed fairy-tale fiction is given by the tales of the Thousand and One Nights; the influence of their exotic imagery was reflected in European pre-romanticism and romanticism. Literature from Kalidasa to R. Tagore is saturated with fantastic images and echoes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. A kind of literary remelting of folk tales, legends and beliefs are numerous works of Japanese (for example, the genre of “a story about the terrible and extraordinary” - “Konjaku monogatari”) and Chinese fiction (“Stories about miracles from the office of Liao” by Pu Songling).

Fantastic fiction under the sign of the “aesthetics of the miraculous” was the basis of the medieval knightly epic - from Beowulf (8th century) to Peresval (c. 1182) by Chrétien de Troy and The Death of Arthur (1469) by T. Malory. The legend of the court of King Arthur, subsequently superimposed on the chronicle of the Crusades, colored by the imagination, became the frame for fantastic plots. The further transformation of these plots is shown by the monumentally fantastic, which almost completely lost their historical and epic background, the Renaissance poems “Roland in Love” by Boiardo, “Furious Roland” by L. Ariosto, “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, “The Fairy Queen” by E. Spencer. Together with numerous chivalric novels of the 14th - 16th centuries. they constitute a special era in the development of science fiction. A milestone in the development of the fantastic allegory created by Ovid was the "Romance of the Rose" of the 13th century. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun.

The development of science fiction during the Renaissance is completed by Don Quixote by M. Cervantes - a parody of the fantasy of knightly adventures, and Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais - a comic epic on a fantastic basis, both traditional and arbitrarily rethought. In Rabelais we find (chapter "Theleme Abbey") one of the first examples of the fantastic development of the utopian genre.

To a lesser extent than ancient mythology and folklore, religious mythological images of the Bible stimulated fantasy. The largest works of Christian fiction - "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" by J. Milton are not based on canonical biblical texts, but on apocrypha. This does not detract from the fact that the works of European fantasy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as a rule, have an ethical Christian coloring or play fantastic images in the spirit of Christian apocryphal demonology. Outside of fantasy are the lives of the saints, where miracles are fundamentally singled out as extraordinary. However, the Christian mythological contributes to the flourishing of a special genre of fantasy fiction. Starting with the Apocalypse of John the Theologian, "visions" or "revelations" become a full-fledged literary genre: different aspects of it are represented by W. Langland's "Vision of Peter the Ploughman" (1362) and Dante's "Divine Comedy".

To con. 17th century Mannerism and Baroque, for which fantasy was a constant background, an additional artistic plane (at the same time, the perception of fantasy was aestheticized, the living feeling of the miraculous was lost, which was also characteristic of the fantastic literature of subsequent centuries), was replaced by classicism, which is inherently alien to fantasy: its appeal to myth is completely rationalistic . In the novels of the 17th - 18th centuries. motives and images of fantasy are used to complicate the intrigue. Fantastic search is interpreted as erotic adventures (“fairy tales”, for example, “Acajou and Zirfila S. Duclos”). Fiction, having no independent meaning, turns out to be an aid to a picaresque novel (“The Lame Devil” by A.R. Lesage, “The Devil in Love” by J. Kazot), a philosophical treatise (“Voltaire's Micromegas”), etc. The reaction to the dominance of enlightenment rationalism is characteristic of the 2nd floor. 18th century; the Englishman R. Hurd calls for a heartfelt study of fantasy (“Letters on Chivalry and Medieval Romances”); in The Adventures of Count Ferdinand Fatom, T. Smollett anticipates the beginning of the development of science fiction in the 19th - 20th centuries. Gothic novel by H. Walpole, A. Radcliffe, M. Lewis. By supplying accessories for romantic plots, fantasy remains in a secondary role: with its help, the duality of images and events becomes the pictorial principle of pre-romanticism.

In modern times, the combination of science fiction with romanticism turned out to be especially fruitful. “Refuge in the realm of fantasy” (Yu.L. Kerner) was sought by all romantics: fantasizing, i.e. the aspiration of the imagination into the transcendent world of myths and legends, was put forward as a way of familiarizing with the highest insight, as a relatively prosperous life program (due to romantic irony) for L. Tieck, pathetic and tragic for Novalis, whose “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” is an example of a renewed fantastic allegory , meaningful in the spirit of the search for an unattainable and incomprehensible ideal-spiritual world.

The Heidelberg school used fantasy as a source of plots, giving additional interest to earthly events (for example, “Isabella of Egypt” by L. A. Arnim is a fantastic arrangement of a love episode from the life of Charles V). This approach to science fiction proved especially promising. In an effort to enrich the resources of fantasy, the German romantics turned to its primary sources - they collected and processed fairy tales and legends (“Peter Lebrecht's Folk Tales” in Tiek's processing; “Children's and Family Tales” and “German Traditions” by the brothers J. and W. Grimm). This contributed to the formation of the literary fairy tale genre in all European literatures, which still remains the leading genre in children's fiction. Its classic example is the fairy tales of H. K. Andersen.

Romantic fiction is synthesized by Hoffmann's work: here is a gothic novel ("Devil's Elixir"), and a literary fairy tale ("Lord of the Fleas", "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King"), and an enchanting phantasmagoria ("Princess Brambilla"), and a realistic story with a fantastic background ("Bride's Choice", "Golden Pot").

Faust by I.V. Goethe; using the traditional fantastic motif of selling the soul to the devil, the poet discovers the futility of the wandering of the spirit in the realms of the fantastic and affirms earthly life that transforms the world as the final value (i.e., the utopian ideal is excluded from the realm of fantasy and projected into the future).

In Russia, romantic fiction is represented in the work of V.A. Zhukovsky, V.F. Odoevsky, L. Pogorelsky, A.F. Veltman.

A.S. turned to science fiction. Pushkin (“Ruslan and Lyudmila”, where the epic fairy-tale flavor of fantasy is especially important) and N.V. Gogol, whose fantastic images are organically poured into the folk poetic ideal picture of Ukraine (“Terrible Revenge”, “Viy”). His St. Petersburg fantasies (“The Nose”, “Portrait”, “Nevsky Prospekt”) are no longer connected with folklore and fairy tale motifs and are otherwise conditioned by the general picture of “escheated” reality, the condensed image of which, as it were, in itself generates fantastic images.

With the establishment of critical realism, fantasy again found itself on the periphery of literature, although it was often involved as a kind of narrative context that gives a symbolic character to real images (The Picture of Dorian Gray by O. Wilde, Shagreen Skin by O. Balzac, works by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin , S. Bronte, N. Hawthorne, A. Strindberg). The Gothic tradition of fantasy is developed by E. Poe, who depicts or implies the beyond, the other world as a realm of ghosts and nightmares that dominate the earthly destinies of people.

However, he also anticipated (The Story of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Fall into the Maelstrom) the emergence of a new branch of fantasy - science fiction, which (starting with J. Verne and G. Wells) is fundamentally separated from the general fantasy tradition; she draws a real, albeit fantastically transformed by science (for worse or for better), world, according to the new view of the researcher.

Interest in science fiction as such is reborn towards the end. 19th century neo-romantics (R.L. Stevenson), decadents (M. Schwob, F. Sologub), symbolists (M. Maeterlinck, A. Bely’s prose, A.A. Blok’s dramaturgy), expressionists (G. Meyrink), surrealists (G . Cossack, E. Kroyder). The development of children's literature gives rise to a new image of the fantasy world - the toy world: L. Carroll, K. Collodi, A. Milne; in Soviet literature: A.N. Tolstoy ("The Golden Key"), N.N. Nosova, K.I. Chukovsky. An imaginary, partly fairy-tale world is created by A. Green.

In the 2nd floor. 20th century the fantastic beginning is realized mainly in the field of science fiction, but sometimes it gives rise to qualitatively new artistic phenomena, for example, the trilogy of the Englishman J. R. Tolkien "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-55), written in line with epic fantasy, novels and dramas by Abe Kobo works of Spanish and Latin American writers (G. Garcia Marquez, J. Cortazar).

Modernity is characterized by the above-mentioned contextual use of fantasy, when an outwardly realistic narrative has a symbolic and allegorical connotation and gives a more or less encrypted reference to some mythological plot (for example, "Centaur" by J. Andike, "Ship of Fools" by C.A. Porter ). The combination of various possibilities of fantasy is a novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" The fantastic-allegorical genre is represented in Soviet literature by a cycle of “natural-philosophical” poems by N.A. Zabolotsky (“The Triumph of Agriculture”, etc.), folk fairy-tale fantasy by the work of P.P. Bazhov, literary fairy-tale - plays by E.L. Schwartz.

Fiction has become a traditional auxiliary means of Russian and Soviet grotesque satire: from Saltykov-Shchedrin (“The History of a City”) to V.V. Mayakovsky ("Bedbug" and "Bath").

In the 2nd floor. 20th century the tendency to create self-sufficiently integral fantastic works is clearly weakening, but fantasy remains a lively and fruitful branch of various areas of fiction.

Yu. Kagarlitsky's research allows us to trace the history of the science fiction genre.

The term "science fiction" is of very recent origin. Jules Verne did not use it yet. He titled his cycle of novels "Extraordinary Journeys" and called them "novels about science" in correspondence. The current Russian definition of "science fiction" is an inaccurate (and therefore much more successful) translation of the English "science fiction", that is, "scientific fiction". It came from the founder of the first science fiction magazines in the United States and the writer Hugo Gernsbeck, who in the late twenties began to apply the definition of "scientific fiction" to works of this kind, and in 1929 for the first time used the final term in Science Wonder Stories magazine, entrenched since then. This term received filling, however, the most different. As applied to the work of Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsbeck, who closely followed him, it should perhaps be interpreted as "technical fiction", for H. G. Wells it is science fiction in the most etymologically correct sense of the word - he is not so much talking about the technical embodiment of old scientific theories , how much about new fundamental discoveries and their social consequences - in today's literature, the meaning of the term has expanded unusually, and now there is no need to talk about too rigid definitions.

The fact that the term itself appeared so recently and its meaning has been modified so many times testifies to one thing - science fiction has traveled most of its path over the past hundred years, and has developed more and more intensively from decade to decade.

The fact is that the scientific and technological revolution gave science fiction a huge impetus, and it also created a readership for it - an unusually wide and diverse one. Here are those who are drawn to science fiction because the language of scientific fact, with which it often operates, is their own language, and those who, through fantasy, join the movement of scientific thought, perceived at least in the most general and approximate outlines. This is an indisputable fact, confirmed by numerous sociological studies and extraordinary circulations of science fiction, a fact that is fundamentally deeply positive. However, one should not forget about the other side of the issue.

The scientific and technological revolution took place on the basis of the centuries-old development of knowledge. It bears in itself the fruits of thought accumulated over the centuries - in the full breadth of the meaning of this word. Science not only accumulated skills and multiplied its achievements, it reopened the world before mankind, forced from century to century to be amazed by this newly discovered world again and again. Each scientific revolution - ours in the first place - is not only the rise of subsequent thought, but also an impulse of the human spirit.

But progress is always dialectical. It remains the same in this case. The abundance of new information that falls upon a person during such upheavals is such that he is in danger of being cut off from the past. And, on the contrary, the awareness of this danger can in other cases give rise to the most retrograde forms of protest against the new, against any restructuring of consciousness in accordance with the present day. Care must be taken to ensure that the present organically includes what has been accumulated by spiritual progress.

Until recently, one heard most often that the science fiction of the 20th century is a completely unprecedented phenomenon. This view has endured so strongly and for a long time in large part because even its opponents, who advocate the deeper connections of science fiction with the past of literature, sometimes had a very relative idea of ​​this past.

Science fiction was criticized for the most part by people who had a scientific and technical, and not a liberal education, who came from the environment of the science fiction writers themselves or from amateur circles (“fan clubs”). With one exception, albeit a very significant one (Extrapolation, published under the editorship of Professor Thomas Clarson in the USA and distributed in twenty-three countries), journals devoted to the criticism of science fiction are the organs of such circles (they are commonly referred to as "fanzines", that is, "amateur magazines"; in Western Europe and ... the USA there is even an international "fanzine movement"; Hungary has recently joined it). In many respects, these journals are of considerable interest, but they cannot make up for the lack of specialized literary works.

As for academic science, the rise of science fiction also affected it, but prompted it to be concerned primarily with the writers of the past. Such is the series of works by Professor Marjorie Nicholson, begun in the thirties, on the relationship between science fiction and science, such is the book by J. Bailey, The Pilgrims of Space and Time (1947). It took a certain amount of time to get closer to the present. This is probably due not only to the fact that it was not possible, but could not be possible in one day to prepare positions for this kind of research, to find methods that meet the specifics of the subject, and special aesthetic criteria (one cannot demand from science fiction that approach to the depiction of the human image, which is characteristic of non-fiction literature. The author wrote about this in detail in the article "Realism and Fantasy", published in the journal "Problems of Literature", (1971, No. I). Another reason lies, one should think, in the fact that only recently has a long period in the history of science fiction come to an end, which has now become the subject of research, whose tendencies had not yet had time to sufficiently reveal themselves.

Now, therefore, the situation in literary criticism is beginning to change. History helps to understand a lot in modern science fiction, while the latter, in turn, helps to appreciate a lot in the old. Fiction is being written about more and more seriously. Of the Soviet works based on Western science fiction, the articles by T. Chernyshova (Irkutsk) and E. Tamarchenko (Perm) are very interesting. Recently the Yugoslav professor Darko Suvin, who is now working in Montreal, and the American professors Thomas Clarson and Mark Hillegas have devoted themselves to science fiction. Works written by non-professional literary critics also become deeper. An international Association for the Study of Science Fiction has been created, bringing together representatives of universities where science fiction courses are taught, libraries, writers' organizations in the United States, Canada and a number of other countries. This association established the Pilgrim Prize in 1970 "for outstanding contributions to the study of science fiction." (Prize 1070 was awarded to J. Bailey, 1971 - M. Nicholson, 1972 - Y. Kagarlitsky). The general trend of development now is from review (which, in fact, was the frequently cited book of Kingsley Amis "New Maps of Hell") to research, moreover, historically grounded research.

The science fiction of the 20th century played its part in preparing many aspects of modern realism in general. Man in the face of the future, man in the face of nature, man in the face of technology, which is becoming more and more a new environment for him to exist - these and many other questions came to modern realism from fantasy - from that fantasy that is called "scientific" today.

This word characterizes a lot in the method of modern science fiction and the ideological aspirations of its foreign representatives.

An unusually large number of scientists who have exchanged their occupation for science fiction (the list is opened by Herbert Wells) or who combine science with work in this area of ​​​​creativity (among them are the founder of cybernetics Norbert Wiener, and prominent astronomers Arthur C. Clarke and Fred Hoyle, and one of the founders of the atomic bombs Leo Szilard, and the great anthropologist Chad Oliver and many other well-known names), is not accidental.

In science fiction, that part of the bourgeois intelligentsia in the West has found a means of expressing their ideas, which, by virtue of their involvement in science, understands better than others the seriousness of the problems facing humanity, fears the tragic outcome of today's difficulties and contradictions, and feels responsible for the future of our planet.

I'm generally a big fan of science fiction and science fiction as well. At one time I read a lot, now much less because of the invention of the Internet and lack of time. While preparing the next post, I came across this rating. Well, I think I’ll run now, I probably know everything here! Aha! No matter how. I haven't read half of the books, but that's okay. I hear some authors almost for the first time! Wow, how it is! And they are CULT! How are you doing with this list?

Check...

1. Time Machine

A novel by H.G. Wells, his first major science fiction work. Revised from the 1888 story "The Argonauts of Time" and published in 1895. The Time Machine introduced the idea of ​​time travel and the time machine used for this into fiction, which were later used by many writers and created the direction of chrono-fiction. Moreover, as Yu. I. Kagarlitsky noted, both in scientific and world outlook Wells "... in a certain sense anticipated Einstein", who formulated the special theory of relativity ten years after the publication of the novel

The book describes the journey of the inventor of the time machine into the future. The plot is based on the fascinating adventures of the protagonist in a world 800 thousand years later, describing which the author proceeded from the negative trends in the development of contemporary capitalist society, which allowed many critics to call the book a warning novel. In addition, the novel for the first time describes many ideas related to time travel, which will not lose their attractiveness for readers and authors of new works for a long time.

2. Stranger in a foreign land

A fantastic philosophical novel by Robert Heinlein, awarded the Hugo Award in 1962. In the West, it has a "cult" status, being considered the most famous fantasy novel ever written. One of the few science fiction books included in the Library of Congress list of books that have shaped America.

The first expedition to Mars disappeared without a trace. The Third World War pushed back the second, successful expedition for a long twenty-five years. New researchers made contact with the original Martians and found out that not all of the first expedition died. And they bring to earth "Mowgli of the space age" - Michael Wallentine Smith, brought up by local intelligent beings. A man by birth and a Martian by upbringing, Michael bursts into the habitual everyday life of the Earth as a bright star. Endowed with the knowledge and skills of an ancient civilization, Smith becomes the messiah, the founder of a new religion and the first martyr for his faith...

3. Saga of the Lensmen

The Lensman saga is the story of a million-year confrontation between two ancient and powerful races: the evil and cruel Eddorians, who are trying to create a giant empire in space, and the inhabitants of Arrisia, the wise patrons of young civilizations emerging in the galaxy. In time, the Earth will also enter this battle with its mighty space fleet and the Lensman Galactic Patrol.

The novel instantly became incredibly popular among fans of science fiction - it was one of the first major works, the authors of which ventured to take the action outside the Solar System, and since then Smith, along with Edmond Hamilton, is considered the founder of the space opera genre.

4 Space Odyssey 2001

"2001: A Space Odyssey" is a literary script of the film of the same name (which, in turn, is based on Clark's early short story "The Sentinel"), which has become a classic of science fiction and is dedicated to human contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, reworked into a novel.
The film "2001: A Space Odyssey" is regularly included in the list of "greatest films in the history of cinema." It and its sequel 2010: Odyssey Two won the Hugo Awards in 1969 and 1985 for best fantasy films.
The influence of the film and book on modern culture is enormous, as is the number of their fans. And although the year 2001 has already arrived, "Space Odyssey" is unlikely to be forgotten. She continues to be our future.

5. Fahrenheit 451

The dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 by the famous American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury has become, in a sense, an icon and a guiding star of the genre. It was created on a typewriter that the writer rented from the public library and was printed for the first time in parts in the first issues of Playboy magazine.

The epigraph of the novel states that the ignition temperature of paper is 451 °F. The novel describes a society that relies on mass culture and consumerism, in which all books that make you think about life are to be burned; possession of books is a crime; and people who can think critically are outlawed. The protagonist of the novel, Guy Montag, works as a "fireman" (which in the book means burning books), confident that he is doing his job "for the good of mankind." But soon he becomes disillusioned with the ideals of the society of which he is a part, becomes an outcast and joins a small underground group of outcasts, whose supporters memorize the texts of books in order to save them for posterity.

6. "Foundation" (other names - Academy, Foundation, Foundation, Foundation)

A science fiction classic that tells of the collapse of a great galactic empire and its rebirth with the help of the "Seldon Plan".

In later novels, Asimov connected the world of the Foundation with his other cycles of works about the Empire and about positronic robots. The combined cycle, which is also called "Foundation", covers the history of mankind for over 20,000 years and includes 14 novels and several dozen short stories.

According to rumors, Asimov's novel made a huge impression on Osama bin Laden and even influenced his decision to create the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden likened himself to Gary Seldon, who rules the society of the future through pre-planned crises. Moreover, the Arabic translation of the novel's title is Al Qaida, and thus may have given rise to the name of bin Laden's organization.

7. Massacre Number Five, or The Children's Crusade (1969)

Kurt Vonnegut's autobiographical novel about the bombing of Dresden during World War II.

The novel was dedicated to Mary O'Hare (and Dresden taxi driver Gerhard Müller) and was written in a "telegraphic-schizophrenic style", as Vonnegut himself puts it. Realism, grotesque, fantasy, elements of madness, cruel satire and bitter irony are closely intertwined in the book.
The protagonist is an American soldier Billy Pilgrim, a ridiculous, timid, apathetic person. The book describes his adventures in the war and the bombing of Dresden, which left an indelible imprint on the Pilgrim's mental state, which has not been very stable since childhood. Vonnegut introduced a fantastic element into the story: the events of the protagonist's life are viewed through the prism of post-traumatic stress disorder, a syndrome characteristic of war veterans that crippled the hero's perception of reality. As a result, the comical "tale about aliens" grows into some coherent philosophical system.
Aliens from the planet Tralfamador take Billy Pilgrim to their planet and tell him that time does not really “flow”, there is no gradual random transition from one event to another - the world and time are given once and for all, everything that has happened and will happen is known . About someone's death, the Trafalmadorians simply say: "Such things." It is impossible to say why or why something happened - such was the "structure of the moment".

8. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Legendary ironic sci-fi saga by Douglas Adams.
The novel follows the adventures of the unfortunate Englishman Arthur Dent, who, with his friend Ford Prefect (a native of a small planet somewhere near Betelgeuse, working in the editorial office of the Hitchhiker's Guide), escapes death when the Earth is destroyed by a race of Vogon bureaucrats. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford's relative and President of the Galaxy, accidentally saves Dent and Ford from death in outer space. Also aboard Zaphod's improbable-powered ship, the Heart of Gold, are the depressive robot Marvin, and Trillian, aka Tricia MacMillan, whom Arthur once met at a party. She is, as Arthur soon realizes, the only human left alive besides himself. The heroes search for the legendary planet Magrathea and try to find a question that fits the Ultimate Answer.

9. Dune (1965)

Frank Herbert's first novel in the Dune Chronicles saga about the sandy planet Arrakis. It was this book that made him famous. Dune won Hugo and Nebula awards. Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels of the 20th century.
This book raises many political, environmental and other important issues. The writer managed to create a full-fledged fantasy world and cross it with a philosophical novel. In this world, the most important substance is spice, which is needed for interstellar flights and on which the existence of civilization depends. This substance is found only on one planet called Arrakis. Arrakis is a desert inhabited by huge sandworms. The Fremen tribes live on this planet, in whose life water is the main and unconditional value.

10 Neuromancer (1984)

A novel by William Gibson, a cyberpunk canon that won the Nebula (1984), the Hugo (1985) and the Philip Dick Prize. This is the first Gibson novel to open the Cyberspace trilogy. Published in 1984.
This work discusses such concepts as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, transnational corporations, cyberspace (computer network, matrix) long before these concepts became popular in popular culture.

11. Do androids dream of electric sheep? (1968)

Science fiction novel by Philip Dick written in 1968. Tells the story of "bounty hunter" Rick Deckard, who goes after androids - creatures almost indistinguishable from humans, outlawed on Earth. The action takes place in the radiation-poisoned and partially abandoned San Francisco of the future.
Along with The Man in the High Castle, this novel is Dick's most famous work. This is one of the classic science fiction works that explores the ethical issues of creating androids - artificial people.
In 1982, based on the novel, Ridley Scott directed the film Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford. The script, which Hampton Fancher and David Peoples created, is quite different from the book.

12. Gate (1977)

A 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Frederick Paul that won all three major American genre awards - Nebula (1977), Hugo (1978), and Locus (1978). The novel opens the Heechee cycle.
Near Venus, people have found an artificial asteroid built by an alien race called the Heechee. Spaceships were found on the asteroid. People figured out how to navigate the ships, but they couldn't change their destination. Many volunteers have tested them. Some returned with discoveries that made them rich. But most returned with nothing. And some didn't come back at all. The flight on the ship was like Russian roulette - you could get lucky, but you could also die.
The main character is a lucky explorer. He is tormented by remorse - from the crew, which had good luck, only he returned. And he is trying to figure out his life, confessing to a robot psychoanalyst.

13 Ender's Game (1985)

Ender's Game won the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel in 1985 and 1986, some of the most prestigious science fiction literary awards.
The novel is set in 2135. Mankind survived two invasions of the alien race "buggers" (English buggers), only miraculously survived, and is preparing for the next invasion. To search for pilots and commanders who can bring victory to the Earth, a military school is being created, to which the most talented children are sent from an early age. Among these children is the title character of the book - Andrew (Ender) Wiggin, the future commander of the International Earth Fleet and the only hope of mankind for salvation.

14. 1984 (1949)

In 2009, The Times listed 1984 as one of the 60 best books published in the past 60 years, and Newsweek ranked it second in its list of the 100 best books of all time.
The title of the novel, its terminology, and even the name of the author subsequently became a household name and are used to refer to a social structure reminiscent of the totalitarian regime described in 1984. Repeatedly became both a victim of censorship in the socialist countries, and the object of criticism from leftist circles in the West.
George Orwell's fantasy novel 1984 tells the story of Winston Smith, who is rewriting history based on party interests during the reign of a totalitarian junta. Smith's rebellion leads to dire consequences. As the author predicts, nothing can be worse than total lack of freedom...

This work, which was banned in our country until 1991, is called a dystopia of the twentieth century. (hatred, fears, hunger and blood), a warning against totalitarianism. The novel was boycotted in the West due to the similarity between the ruler of the country, Big Brother, and the real heads of state.

15. Brave New World (1932)

One of the most famous dystopian novels. A kind of antipode of Orwell's 1984. No torture chambers - everyone is happy and satisfied. The pages of the novel describe the world of the distant future (the action takes place in London), in which people are grown in special embryorium plants and in advance (by influencing the embryo at various stages of development) are divided into five castes of different mental and physical abilities, which perform different work. From "alphas" - strong and beautiful mental workers to "epsilons" - semi-cretins who can only do the simplest physical work. Babies are brought up differently depending on the caste. Thus, with the help of hypnopedia, each caste is brought up with reverence for the higher caste and contempt for the lower castes. Costumes for each caste of a certain color. For example, alphas go in gray, gammas go in green, deltas go in khaki, epsilons go in black.
In this society, there is no place for feelings, and it is considered indecent not to have regular sexual intercourse with different partners (the main slogan is “everyone belongs to everyone else”), but pregnancy is considered a terrible shame. People in this "World State" do not age, although the average life expectancy is 60 years. Regularly, in order to always have a good mood, they use the drug "somu", which has no negative effects ("soma grams - and no dramas"). God in this world is Henry Ford, they call him “Our Lord Ford”, and the chronology comes from the creation of the Ford T car, that is, from 1908 AD. e. (in the novel, the action takes place in the year 632 of the "era of stability", that is, in 2540 AD).
The writer shows the life of people in this world. The main characters are people who cannot fit into society - Bernard Marx (a representative of the upper class, alpha plus), his friend, a successful dissident Helmholtz and a savage John from an Indian reservation, who all his life dreamed of getting into a beautiful world where everyone is happy.

source http://t0p-10.ru

And on a literary topic, let me remind you what he was like and what he was The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Fantasy is one of the genres of modern literature that "grew" out of romanticism. Hoffmann, Swift and even Gogol are called the forerunners of this trend. We will talk about this amazing and magical kind of literature in this article. And also consider the most famous writers of the direction and their works.

Genre Definition

Fantasy is a term that is of ancient Greek origin and literally translates as "the art of imagining." In literature, it is customary to call it a direction based on a fantastic assumption in the description of the artistic world and heroes. This genre tells about universes and creatures that do not exist in reality. Often these images are borrowed from folklore and mythology.

Fantasy is not only a literary genre. This is a whole separate direction in art, the main difference of which is the unrealistic assumption underlying the plot. Usually, another world is depicted, which exists in a time other than ours, lives according to the laws of physics, different from those on earth.

Subspecies

Science fiction books on bookshelves today can confuse any reader with a variety of themes and plots. Therefore, they have long been divided into types. There are many classifications, but we will try to reflect the most complete here.

Books of this genre can be divided according to the features of the plot:

• Science fiction, we'll talk more about it below.
• Anti-utopian - this includes "451 degrees Fahrenheit" by R. Bradbury, "Corporation of Immortality" by R. Sheckley, "Doomed City" by the Strugatskys.
• Alternative: "The Transatlantic Tunnel" by G. Garrison, "May Darkness Fall Not" by L.S. de Campa, "Island of Crimea" by V. Aksenov.
• Fantasy is the most numerous subspecies. Writers working in the genre: J.R.R. Tolkin, A. Belyanin, A. Pekhov, O. Gromyko, R. Salvatore, etc.
• Thriller and horror: G. Lovecraft, S. King, E. Rice.
• Steampunk, steampunk and cyberpunk: "War of the Worlds" by G. Wells, "The Golden Compass" by F. Pullman, "Mockingbird" by A. Pekhov, "Steampunk" by P.D. Filippo.

Often there is a mixture of genres and new varieties of works appear. For example, love fantasy, detective, adventure, etc. Note that science fiction, as one of the most popular types of literature, continues to develop, more and more of its directions appear every year, and somehow it is almost impossible to systematize them.

Foreign fiction books

The most popular and well-known series of this subspecies of literature is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The work was written in the middle of the last century, but is still in great demand among fans of the genre. The story tells of the Great War against evil, which lasted for centuries until the dark lord Sauron was defeated. Centuries of calm life have passed, and the world is again in danger. Save Middle-earth from a new war can only hobbit Frodo, who will have to destroy the Ring of Omnipotence.

Another excellent example of fantasy is J. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. To date, the cycle includes 5 parts, but is considered unfinished. The novels are set in the Seven Kingdoms, where a long summer gives way to a bitter winter. Several families are fighting for power in the state, trying to seize the throne. The series is far from the usual magical worlds, where good always triumphs over evil, and knights are noble and fair. Intrigue, betrayal and death reign here.

The Hunger Games series by S. Collins is also worthy of mention. These books, which quickly became bestsellers, are teen fiction. The plot tells about the struggle for freedom and the price that the heroes have to pay to get it.

Fiction is (in literature) a separate world that lives by its own laws. And it appeared not at the end of the 20th century, as many people think, but much earlier. Just in those years, such works were attributed to other genres. For example, these are the books of E. Hoffmann (“The Sandman”), Jules Verne (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Around the Moon”, etc.), G. Wells, etc.

Russian writers

Many books have been written in recent years by Russian science fiction writers. Russian writers are slightly inferior to foreign colleagues. We list here the most famous of them:

• Sergey Lukyanenko. A very popular cycle is "Patrols". Now the world of this series is written not only by its creator, but also by many others. He is also the author of the following excellent books and cycles: "The Boy and the Darkness", "No Time for Dragons", "Working on Mistakes", "Deeptown", "Sky Seekers", etc.
• Brothers Strugatsky. They have novels of various kinds of fantasy: Ugly Swans, Monday Starts Saturday, Roadside Picnic, It's Hard to Be a God, etc.
• Alexey Pekhov, whose books are popular today not only at home, but also in Europe. We list the main cycles: "Chronicles of Siala", "Spark and Wind", "Kindret", "Guardian".
• Pavel Kornev: "Borderland", "All-good Electricity", "City of Autumn", "Shining".

Foreign writers

Famous science fiction writers abroad:

• Isaac Asimov is a famous American author who has written over 500 books.
• Ray Bradbury is a recognized classic not only of science fiction, but also of world literature.
• Stanislaw Lem is a very famous Polish writer in our country.
• Clifford Simak is considered the founder of American fiction.
• Robert Heinlein is an author of teen books.

What is Science Fiction?

Science fiction is a branch of fantasy literature that takes as its basis the rational assumption that extraordinary things happen due to the incredible development of technical and scientific thought. One of the most popular genres today. But it is often difficult to separate it from related ones, since authors can combine several directions.

Science fiction is (in literature) a great opportunity to imagine what would happen to our civilization if technological progress accelerated or science chose a different path of development. Usually in such works the generally accepted laws of nature and physics are not violated.

The first books of this genre began to appear as early as the 18th century, when the formation of modern science took place. But as an independent literary movement, science fiction stood out only in the 20th century. J. Verne is considered one of the first writers who worked in this genre.

Science Fiction: Books

We list the most famous works of this direction:

• "Master of Torture" (J. Wulf);
• "Rise from the Ashes" (F. H. Farmer);
• Ender's Game (O.S. Card);
• "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (D. Adams);
• "Dune" (F. Herbert);
• "Sirens of Titan" (K. Vonnegut).

Science fiction is quite diverse. The books presented here are only the most famous and popular examples of it. It is practically impossible to list all the writers of this type of literature, since several hundred of them have appeared over the past decades.

Fiction- comes from the Greek concept "phantastike" (the art of imagining).

In the modern sense, fantasy can be defined as one of the types of literature that is able to create a magical, wonderful picture of the world, opposing the existing reality and the concepts familiar to all of us.

It is known that fiction can be divided into different areas: fantasy and science fiction, hard science fiction, space fiction, combat and humorous, love and social, mysticism and horror.

Perhaps these genres, or as they are also called, subtypes of science fiction, are by far the most famous in their circles.

Let's try to characterize each of them separately.

Science Fiction (SF):

So, science fiction is a genre of literature and film industry that describes events taking place in the real world and differs from historical reality in some meaningful way.

These differences can be technological, scientific, social, historical, and any other, but not magical, otherwise the whole idea of ​​the concept of "science fiction" is lost.

In other words, science fiction reflects the impact of scientific and technological progress on everyday and familiar human life.

Among the popular plots of the works of this genre are flights to unknown planets, the invention of robots, the discovery of new forms of life, the invention of the latest weapons, and so on.

Among admirers of this genre, the following works are popular: "I, Robot" (Azeik Asimov), "Pandora's Star" (Peter Hamilton), "Attempt to Escape" (Boris and Arkady Strugatsky), "Red Mars" (Kim Stanley Robinson) and many other great books.

The film industry has also produced many sci-fi films. Among the first foreign films, the film by Georges Milies "Journey to the Moon" was released.

It was filmed in 1902 and is truly considered the most popular film that was shown on the big screens.

You can also note other paintings in the genre of "science fiction": "District No. 9" (USA), "The Matrix" (USA), the legendary "Aliens" (USA). However, there are films that have become, so to speak, classics of the genre.

Among them: "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang, Germany), filmed in 1925, struck with its idea and vision of the future of mankind.

Another film masterpiece that has become a classic is 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, USA), released in 1968.

This picture tells about extraterrestrial civilizations and very much resembles rather scientific material about aliens and their lives - for viewers of the distant 1968, this is really something new, fantastic that they have never seen or heard before. Of course, you can't ignore Star Wars.

Episode 4: A New Hope (George Lucas, USA), 1977.

Each of us has probably watched this tape more than once. It is so addictive and attracts with its special effects, unusual costumes, chic scenery and heroes unprecedented for us.

Although, if we talk about the genre in which this film was shot, I would rather classify it as space fiction than science.

But, to justify the genre, we can say that, probably, not a single film is shot in a certain genre in its purest form, there are always digressions.

Hard science fiction, as a subgenre of sci-fi

Science fiction has a so-called sub-genre or subspecies called "hard science fiction".

Solid science fiction differs from traditional science fiction in that during the narrative, scientific facts and laws are not distorted.

That is, we can say that the basis of this subgenre is the natural scientific knowledge base and the whole plot is described around a certain scientific idea, even if it is fantastic.

The storyline in such works is always simple and logical, based on several scientific assumptions - a time machine, ultra-high-speed travel in space, extrasensory perception, and so on.

Space fiction, another sub-genre of sci-fi

Space fiction is a subgenre of science fiction. Its distinctive feature is that the main plot takes place in outer space or on various planets in the solar system or beyond.

Planetary novel, space opera, space odyssey.

Let's talk about each type in more detail.

Space Odyssey:

So, the Space Odyssey is a storyline in which the actions take place most often on space ships (ships) and the heroes need to complete a global mission, the outcome of which depends on the fate of a person.

Planet Romance:

The planetary novel is much simpler in terms of the type of development of events and the complexity of the plot. Basically, all the action is limited to one particular planet, which is inhabited by exotic animals, people.

A lot of works in this kind of genre are devoted to the distant future in which people move between worlds on a spaceship and this is a normal phenomenon, some early works of space fiction describe simpler plots with less realistic modes of movement.

However, the goal and main theme of the planetary novel is the same for all works - the adventures of heroes on a particular planet.

Space Opera:

Space opera is an equally interesting subspecies of science fiction.

Its main idea is the maturing and expansion of the conflict between the heroes with the use of powerful high-tech weapons of the future to conquer the Galaxy or free the planet from space aliens, humanoids and other space creatures.

The characters in this cosmic conflict are heroic. The main difference between space opera and science fiction is that there is an almost complete rejection of the scientific basis of the plot.

Among the works of space fiction that deserve attention are the following: Paradise Lost, The Absolute Enemy (Andrey Livadny), Steel Rat Saves the World (Harry Harrison), Star Kings, Return to the Stars (Edmond Hamilton ), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams), and other great books.

And now let's note some bright films in the space fantasy genre. Of course, you can not get around the well-known film "Armageddon" (Michael Bay, USA, 1998); "Avatar" (James Cameron, USA, 2009), which blew up the whole world, which is distinguished by unusual special effects, vivid images, rich and unusual nature of an unknown planet; "Starship Troopers" (Paul Verhoeven, USA, 1997), also a popular film in its time, although many film fans today are ready to revise this picture more than once; It is impossible not to note all the parts (episodes) of George Lucas' Star Wars, in my opinion, this masterpiece of science fiction will be popular and interesting to the viewer at all times.

Combat Fiction:

Combat fiction is a type (subgenre) of fiction that describes military operations taking place in the distant or not so distant future, and all actions take place using super-powerful robots and the latest weapons unknown to man today.

This genre is quite young, its origin can be attributed to the middle of the 20th century during the height of the Vietnam War.

Moreover, I note that combat fiction became popular and the number of works and films increased, in direct proportion to the growth of conflicts in the world.

Among the popular authors-representatives of this genre are: Joe Haldeman "Infinite War"; Harry Harrison "Steel Rat", "Bill - Hero of the Galaxy"; domestic authors Alexander Zorich "Tomorrow War", Oleg Markelov "Adequacy", Igor Pol "Guardian Angel 320" and other wonderful authors.

A lot of films have been made in the genre of "combat fiction" "Frozen Soldiers" (Canada, 2014), "Edge of Tomorrow" (USA, 2014), Star Trek: Retribution (USA, 2013).

Humorous fiction:

Humorous fiction is a genre in which the presentation of unusual and fantastic events takes place in a humorous form.

Humorous fiction has been known since antiquity and is developing in our time.

Among the representatives of humorous fiction in literature, the most striking are our beloved Strugatsky Brothers “Monday begins on Saturday”, Kir Bulychev “Miracles in Guslyar”, as well as foreign authors of humorous fiction Prudchett Terry David John “I’ll put on midnight”, Bester Alfred “Will you wait? ", Bisson Terry Ballantine "They are made of meat."

Love Fiction:

Love fiction, romantic adventure works.

This type of fantasy includes love stories with fictional characters, magical countries that do not exist, the presence in the description of wonderful amulets with unusual properties, and, of course, all these stories have a happy ending.

Of course, you can not get around the films made in the genre. Here are a few of them: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (USA, 2008), "The Time Traveler's Wife" (USA, 2009), "She" (USA, 2014).

Social Fiction:

Social fiction is a type of science fiction literature where the main role is played by the relationships between people in society.

The emphasis is on the creation of fantastic motives in order to show the development of social relations in unrealistic conditions.

The following works were written in this genre: The Strugatsky Brothers "The Doomed City", "The Bull's Hour" by I. Efremov, H. Wells "The Time Machine", "451 degrees Fahrenheit" by Ray Bradbury.

Cinema also has films in the genre of social fiction in its piggy bank: The Matrix (USA, Australia, 1999), Dark City (USA, Australia, 1998), Youth (USA, 2014).

Fantasy:

Fantasy is a genre of science fiction that describes a fictional world, most often the Middle Ages, and the storyline is built on the basis of myths and legends.

This genre is characterized by such heroes as gods, sorcerers, gnomes, trolls, ghosts and other creatures. Works in the Fantasy genre are very close to the ancient epic, in which the characters encounter magical creatures and supernatural events.

The fantasy genre is gaining momentum every year and it has more and more fans.

Probably the whole secret is that in our primitive world there is not enough fairy tale, magic, miracles.

The main representatives (authors) of this genre are Robert Jordan (the fantasy cycle of books "The Wheel of Time", including 11 volumes), Ursula Le Guin (the cycle of books about Earthsea - "The Wizard of Earthsea", "Wheel of Atuan", "On the Last Shore", "Tuhanu ”), Margaret Weis (cycle of works “DragonLance”) and others.

Among the films made in the Fantasy genre, there is quite enough to choose from and will suit even the most capricious movie fan.

Among foreign films, I will note such as: "The Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter", beloved at all times "Highlander" and "Fantômas", "Kill the Dragon" and many other wonderful films.

These films draw us in with great graphics, acting, mysterious plots, and watching such films gives emotions that you will not get from watching films in other genres.

It is fantasy that adds additional colors to our lives and delights again and again.

Mysticism and Horror:

Mysticism and horror - this genre is probably one of the most popular and attractive for both the reader and the viewer.

It is able to give such unforgettable impressions, emotions and increase adrenaline like no other genre of science fiction.

At one time, before films and books about traveling to the future became popular, horror was the most unusual and favorite genre among fans and admirers of everything fantastic. And today, interest in them has not disappeared.

The prominent representatives of the book industry in this genre are: the legendary and beloved by all Stephen King "The Green Mile", "The Dead Zone", Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray", our domestic author M. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita".

And there are a great many films in this genre and it is quite difficult to choose the best and brightest of them.

I will list just a few: everyone's favorite Nightmare on Elm Street (USA, 1984), Friday the 13th (USA 1980-1982), The Exorcist 1,2,3 (USA), Premonition (USA, 2007 ), "Destination" -1,2,3 (USA, 2000-2006), "Psychic" (UK, 2011).

As you can see, science fiction is such a versatile genre that anyone can choose what suits him in spirit, in nature, will give you the opportunity to plunge into the magical, unusual, terrible, tragic, high-tech world of the future and the inexplicable for us - ordinary people.

In the Explanatory Dictionary of V. I. Dahl we read: “Fantastic - unrealizable, dreamy; or intricate, quirky, special and different in its invention. In other words, two meanings are implied: 1) something unreal, impossible and unimaginable; 2) something rare, exaggerated, unusual. With regard to literature, the first sign becomes the main one: when we say “fantastic novel” (story, short story, etc.), we mean not so much that it describes rare events, but that these events are completely or partially - generally impossible in real life. We define the fantastic in literature by its opposition to the real and existing.

This contrast is both obvious and extremely variable. Animals or birds endowed with a human psyche and owning human speech; the forces of nature, personified in anthropomorphic (i.e., having a human appearance) images of the gods (for example, ancient gods); living creatures of an unnatural hybrid form (in ancient Greek mythology, half-humans-half-horses - centaurs, half-birds-half-lions - griffins); unnatural actions or properties (for example, in East Slavic fairy tales, the death of Koshchei, hidden in several magical objects and animals nested in each other) - all this is easily felt by us as fantastic. However, much also depends on the historical position of the observer: what today seems fantastic, for the creators of ancient mythology or ancient fairy tales, has not yet been fundamentally opposed to reality. Therefore, in art there are constant processes of rethinking, the transition of the real into the fanatical and the fantastic into the real. The first process associated with the weakening of the positions of ancient mythology was noted by K. Marx: “... Greek mythology was not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its soil. Is that view of nature and social relations that underlies Greek fantasy, and therefore Greek art, possible in the presence of self-factories, railways, locomotives and electric telegraph? Science fiction literature demonstrates the reverse process of the transition of the fantastic into the real: scientific discoveries and achievements, which seemed fantastic against the backdrop of their time, become quite possible and feasible with the development of technological progress, and sometimes even look too elementary and naive.

Thus, the perception of the fantastic depends on our attitude to its essence, that is, to the degree of reality or unreality of the events depicted. However, for a modern person, this is a very complex feeling, which determines all the complexity and versatility of experiencing the fantastic. A modern child believes in fairy tales, but from adults, from informative radio and television programs, he already knows or guesses that "everything is not so in life." Therefore, a share of disbelief is mixed with his faith, and he is able to perceive incredible events either as real, or as fantastic, or on the verge of real and fantastic. An adult person “does not believe” in the miraculous, but sometimes it is common for him to resurrect in himself the former, naive “childish” point of view in order to plunge into an imaginary world with all the fullness of experiences, in a word, a share of “faith” is added to his disbelief; and in the obviously fantastic, the real and genuine begin to “flicker”. Even if we are firmly convinced of the impossibility of fantasy, this does not deprive it of interest and aesthetic appeal in our eyes, because fantasy becomes in this case, as it were, a hint at other, not yet known spheres of life, an indication of its eternal renewal and inexhaustibility. In B. Shaw's play “Back to Methuselah,” one of the characters (the Snake) says: “A miracle is something that is impossible and yet possible. That which cannot happen and yet does happen. Indeed, no matter how deep and multiplied our scientific knowledge, the appearance of, say, a new living being will always be perceived as a "miracle" - impossible and at the same time quite real. It is the complexity of experiencing fantasy that allows it to be easily combined with irony, laughter; create a special genre of ironic fairy tale (H. K. Andersen, O. Wilde, E. L. Schwartz). The unexpected happens: irony, it would seem, should kill or at least weaken fantasy, but in fact it strengthens and strengthens the fantastic beginning, as it encourages us not to take it literally, to think about the hidden meaning of a fantastic situation.

The history of world literature, especially modern and recent times, beginning with romanticism (late 18th - early 19th centuries), has accumulated an enormous wealth of fiction artistic arsenal. Its main types are determined by the degree of distinctness and relief of the fantastic beginning: explicit fantasy; fantasy implicit (veiled); fantasy that receives a natural-real explanation, etc.

In the first case (clear fantasy), supernatural forces openly come into play: Mephistopheles in Faust by I.V. Goethe, the Demon in the poem of the same name by M.Yu. Lermontov, devils and witches in N.V. Gogol, Woland and company in The Master and Margarita by M. A. Bulgakov. Fantasy characters enter into direct relationships with people, trying to influence their feelings, thoughts, behavior, and these relationships often take on the character of a criminal conspiracy with the devil. So, for example, Faust in the tragedy by I.V. Goethe or Petro Bezrodny in N.V. Gogol's "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" sell their souls to the devil to fulfill their desires.

In works with implicit (veiled) fantasy, instead of the direct participation of supernatural forces, strange coincidences, accidents, etc. occur. none other than the cat of the old poppy seedling, reputed to be a witch. However, many coincidences lead us to believe this: Aristarkh Faleleich appears exactly when the old woman dies and no one knows where the cat disappears; there is something feline in the official's behavior: he "pleasantly" arches his "round back", walks "smoothly speaking", grumbles something "under his breath"; his very name - Murlykin - evokes quite definite associations. In a veiled form, a fantastic beginning is also manifested in many other works, for example, in The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Queen of Spades by A. S. Pushkin.

Finally, there is such a kind of fantastic, which is based on the most complete and completely natural motivations. Such, for example, are the fantastic stories of E. Poe. F. M. Dostoevsky noted that E. Poe “only admits the external possibility of an unnatural event (proving, however, its possibility and sometimes even extremely cunningly) and, having admitted this event, is completely true to reality in everything else.” “In Poe’s stories, you see so clearly all the details of the image or event presented to you that, finally, as if you are convinced of its possibility, reality ...”. Such thoroughness and "reliability" of descriptions is also characteristic of other types of fantastic, it creates a deliberate contrast between the obviously unrealistic basis (plot, plot, some characters) and its extremely accurate "processing". This contrast is often used by J. Swift in Gulliver's Travels. For example, when describing fantastic creatures - midgets, all the details of their actions are recorded, up to giving exact numbers: in order to move the captive Gulliver, “they drove in eighty pillars, each one foot high, then the workers tied ... the neck, arms, torso and legs with countless bandages with hooks ... Nine hundred of the strongest workers began to pull the ropes ... ".

Fiction performs various functions, especially often a satirical, accusatory function (Swift, Voltaire, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, V.V. Mayakovsky). Often this role is combined with another - affirmative, positive. Being an expressive, emphatically vivid way of expressing artistic thought, fantasy often captures in public life that which is just being born and arises. The moment of advance is a common feature of science fiction. However, there are also types of it that are specifically dedicated to foresight and forecasting the future. This is the science fiction literature already mentioned above (J. Verne, A. N. Tolstoy, K. Chapek, S. Lem, I. A. Efremov, A. N. and B. N. Strugatsky), which is often not limited to foresight future scientific and technological processes, but seeks to capture the entire social and social structure of the future. Here it comes into close contact with the genres of utopia and anti-utopia (“Utopia” by T. Mora, “City of the Sun” by T. Campanella, “City without a name” by V. F. Odoevsky, “What is to be done?” by N. G. Chernyshevsky).