Despite every objection, the scientific context exists. Even if the author may not be in everybody’s good books and many a compatriot looks down his nose at him repaying the courtesy with ingratitude, there are a great deal more important Austrians being open to new experiences and having a feeling for science.

     One of them is Carl Djerassi. The recently deceased Viennese who has moved to San Francisco, a chemist by profession, is 

well-known for his invention of the contraceptive pill. Over the past two and a half decades, however, that man has become a talking point mainly due to his various activities in the literary world, breaking fresh ground and making him a leading authority in the field of scientific fiction. Well, on closer consideration Djerassi’s Science-in-Fiction is certainly no fundamentally new way of expressing oneself through writing. After all, those who endeavor to enable readers to have meaningful experiences have no choice but to discover their love for science, to carry out in-depth research and check facts. Eager though Djerassi is to give an accurate picture of reality, it doesn’t mitigate the fact that fiction is what departs from reality with regard to people, events and locations.[1] For this very reason, Science-in-Fiction or, more generally speaking, scientific fiction cannot simply be considered a separate literary category being a halfway house between fiction and nonfiction.

Of course it is! To put the record straight, German philologists would be well-advised to borrow from Anglicists and to do away with that bewildering variety of terms.

     With that said, epics, drama as well as lyrics would be subcategories of fiction, short story, novella and novel might be regarded as the genres of epics, and along with historical novels, education novels or crime novels for instance, scientific novels should be thought of as a subgenre of the novel. In drama by contrast, scientific fiction could appear on the scene as teaching play and be a genre just like comedy and tragedy, while in lyrics the genre of scientific fiction would probably show up in the form of didactic poems.[2]

     No matter how many German philologists get furious at the very thought of it,  things are once and for all sorted out by finally taking a similar approach with regard to nonfiction. As a consequence thereof, literature would be no longer on an unsure footing with biographies rattling around in epics or science fiction novels being passed off as literary category. Nor ranks nonfiction as literary category among epics, drama and lyrics. Let alone the nuisance that screenplay, radio play, feature, reportage and documentary report get left out. Literature simply and hauntingly has no room for those performing arts or forms of expression at the present.[2][3][4]

There is a certain irony in the fact that a historical novel such as Umberto Eco’s Il nome della rosa is revealing comparatively little about the genesis as measured by Michael Crichton’s science fiction novel State of Fear. After all, the reader generally expects the author of historical novels to do thorough research and the fiction to jibe with reality by and large.[5]

     Well, it’s safe to assume that a renowned scientist like Umberto Eco actually did his homework and grudged no pains to be up to scratch. As distinguished from him, however, Michael Crichton doesn’t think himself too good for a sizeable list of references. That way he opens the reader’s eyes to the inevitable preliminary studies and dispels at the same time the myth that writers are able to do their job in their sleep and ideas just come to them. Those who think that writers can afford to laze about and to sleep till all hours are barking up the wrong tree.

On closer consideration, scribbling is a hard way to earn one’s living even if fortune smiles on the writer and the literary scene welcomes him with open arms. Success, after all, doesn’t fall into his lap. Hence, the author usually must put his shoulder to the wheel in order to gain laurels.

     In terms of content there needs to be an extraordinary, entertaining, convincing plot that keeps the reader in suspense. Without an outstanding linguistic style, of course, the plot is not worth a damn. By now at the latest, the writer is dripping with sweat. Exercise and experience are de rigueur to know how to wield a pen. For those who borrow from screenwriters and conform to their usual practice and are in addition to that prepared to hit the books and acquire knowledge will undoubtably be well able in the course of time to get the ideas out of the head and onto the page. Yet, giving one’s creative work a personal touch to individuate it is still a good way off unless one is obsessed with the idea to earn one’s living by writing from an early age.

     Proofreading can certainly be done by editors. There’s no question about that. And an excellent editor is indeed worth his weight in gold. Even well-known authors like Ken Follett make no bones of the importance they attach to meticulous editing. Unfortunately, editors are not at everybody’s disposal. Not to mention that few authors can entrust other people with different tasks such as research.[6]

     So if nobody lends the writer a helping hand, it won’t be an easy matter to detect the full grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and punctuation errors. Arguing conclusively may, however, prove much more difficult. While lots of nonfiction writers are all too often repetitive and are unable to apply Occam’s razor, it happens time and again that in spite of all precautions inconsistences creep into novels. That’s why the author cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is to have people around him who ensure that everything is perfectly done before going to press. And if they give him suggestions for the most suitable phrasing, they’ll leave nothing to be desired.

    Nine times out of ten, though, the writer will get left in the lurch and won’t even have an editor helping in word and deed. Everything that exceeds spell-checking the script is off the cards. Such being the case, it resides with the writer to cut right to the chase and to stir the pot, to work hard for the first edition and to rework the original by resorting each time to a language bringing entertainment and deepness down to a common denominator. At least, the author’s scientific fiction tries to meet these requirements. If his works make the grade with regard to entertainment, is up to the reader’s discretion. But they shouldn’t lack deepness as they result from textbooks which are specially written to serve as a working basis.

How nonfiction and fiction are joining up, is shown by the following short extract from the concept for the novel Zwischen Baum und Borke. And while the few lines just make noises, there are detailed bibliographical references in the appendix of the book.