When one asks ‘Who speaks science fiction?’ this mode of literary expression which we call science fiction is itself, however metaphorically, assumed to be a language. A ‘style’, a ‘genre’, even a ‘mode’ is in a certain sense a language—it has its codes, its vocabulary, its life: the romantic theory of language as a living organism might suit the purpose of the argument.

Since science fiction is a kind of language, then it is spoken; but it is not as a language spoken by whom that it should interest us here; it is as a language spoken by what —by other languages. What I mean is that different media have taken over science fiction, re-encoding it; and, if not interchangeable, all these call attention to their respective materiality and, by implication, to the material nature of ‘writing’. The medium is not the message—nor is it the language; but it is the material condition of the language. Black signs on white paper, images on celluloid or magnetic tape or other technological devices, interactive computer games, are media: and they interact for two main reasons, one formal, one material.

Formally, whatever shape a text may take, it is ultimately reducible or at least referable to the same symbolic system: human language. Beyond this formal aspect, which derives from the theory and philosophy of language and thought, there is also another very concrete and material point establishing a bridge between the different media: the commodity nature of everything made in contemporary society, the more or less obscure interests that condition the ‘necessary’ interplay of mass media. A book is written and, if successful, it will eventually become a film, soon afterwards a home video; the film version will be in its turn novelized; stickers and toys will be sold; a computer game will soon be put on sale— encoded in the different formats required by the different brands of machines—marketing the characters and adventures which have become so popular. One may deplore, criticize, disagree, theorize, but one cannot help recognizing the mutual benefits for the different media deriving from this circumstance.