science fictiony adj.

characteristic of science fiction n. 2; resembling something which might exist in a work of science fiction; futuristic

SF Criticism

  • 1957 Ada (Okla.) Evening News 24 Nov. 1/5

    And for sheer teeth-cracking suspense in an everyday world, nothing fantastic or science-fictiony about it: ‘Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket’.

  • 1959 F. Pohl Book Reviews in Worlds of If Sept. 100/2 page image Frederik Pohl

    They are packed with gadgets, invented on the fly for purely cosmetic purposes; opium isn’t ‘science-fictiony’ enough so the writer snaps his fingers twice and comes up with a word: ‘hypnojewels’.

  • 1963 R. Stein Tomorrow’s Railroads in the Sky in Los Angeles Times This Week Magazine 3 Feb. 10/3

    Perhaps, to get science-fictiony, the solution will be to run monorails in cities high in the air with their tracks leaping from the top of one skyscraper to the next, or even through some of the higher ones since buildings aren’t all the same height.

  • 1973 J. Jardine Skylab in Vertex June 83/2 page image Jack Owen Jardine bibliography

    One of the most science-fictiony problems to be investigated is that of personal jet-packs for EVA maneuvering.

  • 1982 M. Bishop Books in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan. 54/1 page image Michael Bishop

    You’ve already mentioned Marge Piercy’s poems, albeit in a semi-smart-alecky fashion, and I thought you might say something about these so that if Disch ever discovers my true identity, he won’t reduce me to caricature in some future column. Besides, several of his poems are decidedly science-fictiony.

  • 1982 Dragon Magazine Oct. 59/1

    The atom was first split in 1939—the year the Second World War broke out. Suppose the atom-splitting hadn’t happened in 1939 and wasn’t destined to happen until 1949. Nobody would have wasted any great amount of war effort on anything so science-fictiony as an atomic bomb, and they wouldn’t have gotten a bomb in time to affect the outcome of the war anyway.

  • 1993 R. Silverberg Collected Stories II. 68 Robert Silverberg

    A ‘translation’, in the uncompromising critical vocabulary set forth by Damon Knight and James Blish in the 1950s on which I based much of my own fiction-writing aesthetic, is an adaptation of a stock format of mundane fiction into s-f by a simple one-for-one substitution of science-fictiony noises for the artefacts of the mundane field.

  • 2001 Locus June 15/1

    It’s the most science-fictiony story you’re likely to read in a while; the author explicitly credits Cordwainer Smith and Alfred Bester as inspirations.

  • 2006 J. Heller Some Nerve 68

    She retrieved the bulky black headset from a nearby table, the one with the earphones attached. It was a very science fictiony gadget, complete with this 3-D screen that jutted out and fit over the eyes. She strapped it onto my head, then dimmed the lights in the room.

  • 2011 Fangoria Nov. 16/3

    At that time, its [sc. the movie Heavy Metal’s] combination of science-fictiony, sex, violent and often funny stories was way ahead of the pack.


Research requirements

antedating 1957

Research History
Jeff Prucher submitted a 2002 cite from a letter by Judy Blish in Locus.
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1993 cite from James Gleick in the New York Times Magazine.
Enoch Forrester submitted a 1982 cite from an article by Paul Crabaugh in Dragon Magazine.
Andrew Hatchell submitted a 1982 cite from a book review by Michael Bishop in F&SF.
Bill Mullins submitted a 1963 cite from the Los Angeles Times.
Douglas Winston submitted a 2006 cite from Jane Heller's "Some Nerve".
An OED researcher found a 1957 example in a newspaper database.

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.