by Nikki Braziel
Nikki Braziel lays out some of the surprising similarities between science fiction and historical fiction. To see how she puts these ideas into practice, check out Braziel’s latest story, “Through the Pinhole, or, the Origin of a Holostory,” in our [January/February issue, on sale now!]
Simplifying the definitions of two expansive genres, science fiction tells the story of the future, while historical fiction narrates the past. Science fiction discusses how society could be built. Will advances in technology reorganize what we know about community and culture? Historical fiction explores how society was built. Why did things turn out as they did, and what was it like to live through those times?
These would seem to be opposite genres.
But as science fiction readers know, space-time is a continuum. We don’t write our futures from an Archimedean point divorced from history. Our science fictions are informed by (written in response to, inspired by, celebrating, and disavowing) our personally and societally lived histories. There is a unique place for fiction that juxtaposes an invented future against a real Earth past.
The future makes the past strange.
A visitor sees what a resident takes for granted. Imagine walking through a foreign market. Every scent is an intriguing experience. How are the stalls laid out? How is the fruit hung? How is the market different from your grocery at home, and what does that say about your own culture? What inferences can you make about local agriculture or industrial food production? What are the implications on the broader economic system?
The details of daily life reveal what a society values, and the values of a society influences what it builds. Consider the difference between a Federation science vessel and a Romulan warbird.
When a visitor from the future comes to our present, or our past, we can see through their (detached, more critical) eyes what our society reveals about us. We can ask,
- What does each civilization value?
- What is the religious, technological, and scientific framework for understanding the world?
- How does comparison allow an assessment of evolution? Or regression?
In “Through the Pinhole, or, the Origin of a Holostory,” which appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Asimov’s, I explore sixteenth century Malta through the eyes of a washed-up thirty-third century holonovelist. When our unnamed protagonist encounters Lady Imperia de Bonello, a shopkeeper in Mdina, she understands his time travel though her highly religious and comparatively simple scientific context. This informs her assumptions about how and why he has visited.
Compared to the sixteenth century, the thirty-third is less chauvinistic. When the protagonist is placed alongside a Knight Hospitaller from Imperia’s own time, his approach to gender becomes revolutionary; Imperia can laud and respect him in a way that his ex-wife, informed by the expectations of his own time, does not.
Science fiction and historical fiction collide across galaxies written and filmed.
Consider the popularity of the historical/sci-fi mashup in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The crew goes back in time physically or visits another era through the holodeck in nearly a dozen episodes. In “Elementary, Dear Data,” Geordi La Forge asks the computer to generate a holodeck opponent capable of defeating Data as Sherlock Holmes. Professor Moriarty, the resulting antagonist, becomes sentient, introducing a variety of futuristic ethical questions through the lens of the past.
In “The Big Goodbye,” Captain Picard engages in a holodeck simulation where he plays Dixon Hill, a hardboiled detective in a 1940s setting reminiscent of the work of Dashiell Hammett. The program reflects noir tropes. By comparing the utopian Star Trek universe to the crime and sexism prevalent in the mid-twentieth century underworld, the holodeck offers an aspirational argument for humanity’s improvement.
Doctor Who likewise visits the past, with half-a-dozen time travel episodes in the classic series and more than a dozen in the revived series. A distinction is made between fixed points—events which are unchangeable and have to happen—and fluid time, which can be altered with relatively minor consequence. A common favorite is “Vincent and the Doctor,” which explores the emotional weight of history.
The Man in the High Castle investigates how technology (in this case, video) influences how we imagine possible futures. Set in a timeline where the Nazis won World War II, its characters gain access to evidence of an alternate reality (our reality). Seeing what the world could be like inspires their resistance. The story makes a thematic argument for the recursive relationship between technology and society. A portal (like a pinhole) allows transit between worlds, establishing a relationship between the two.
The past makes the future more complex.
Science fiction and historical fiction are both worldbuilding genres. By examining our past, we can assess what mistakes were made and what assumptions were incorrect. What future were we hoping to arrive at? Remember, the automobile was once seen as an environmentally friendly solution, one that would remove the health and sanitation risks that came from manure dropped into the streets by horse-drawn carriages.
There are three primary methods of combining the past and the future.
- Simulation, using technology like a holodeck in Star Trek. Characters may be affected by what they learn of the past, but that can’t influence what happened. The relationship is one-directional.
- Physical time travel, using a device like Doctor Who’s TARDIS. Characters may alter the past, which might change the future. This, of course, depends on your story’s position on the butterfly effect and the integrity of the space-time continuum.
- Alternate history, a separate but related structure in which the reader becomes the time traveler. Moving forward from a pivot point, the author juxtaposes our understanding of history against a new version.
Will you move forward (into the past) in your own writing?
Is there a historical period or event by which you’ve been fascinated? What is the consensus understanding of that moment? Or is there a diversity of narratives about its significance or impact? How would a visitor from the future see it differently? What type of time traveler would be at odds with our history? Who would have something to learn from it? How can our future selves help us assess our past? What can our past teach our future? By closing the distance between centuries, we give clarity to comparison and causality.
From Earth to the Stars 