Escape Into Reality

"Science fiction is based on the face of social change. It tries to penetrate the consequences of thsi change or that and, in the form of a sotry, presents the results to the view of the public. It is rather ironic to me that science fiction is continually lumped under the heading of 'escape literature,' and usually as teh most extreme kind. Yet it does not escape into the 'isn't' as most fistion does, or the 'never was' as fantasy does, but into 'might very well be.' In its best phases, if science fition escapes it is an escape into reality."

--Isaac Asimov