Plurality of meaning, fluidity and process: an understanding of language as contingent, unfixed; the product and definition of a particular social formation—these icons of la nouvelle critique are the familiar tools and usage of science fiction. It is no wonder that adventurous writers of contemporary non-genre fiction (e.g. Margaret Atwood, Paul Theroux) are turning to the tropes and conventions of sf in their search for a writing that expresses the current state of the science of fiction.

When I was invited to take part in this event I was told that I had to talk about some development in my designated patch of ‘the real world’—that is, literature—that was first suggested in a science fiction story, novel or article. I'd better admit straight away that I don't think I can do this. In physical science inventions or discoveries tend to arise out of a certain common background, within which the race to first publication is an exciting irrelevance. When it comes to cultural innovations, whether it's a new kind of novel or a new kind of hat, that naked singularity, the yousaw- it-here-first moment, is even more elusive, and the search for it even more dubious and illusory.

At first it might seem there is an embarrassment of riches in terms of sf's penetration into popular culture—from a space shuttle called after a fictional starship to the Transformer cutouts on the back of your cereal packet. Something that passes by the name of science fiction has become the folklore of the twenty-first century, and while it would be impossible to identify any particular stories as the source material it is clear that certain acclaimed mainstream writers have taken this transformation on board. Paul Theroux's O-zone, Don DeLillo's White Noise employ sf tropes: the alien invasion, the pollution disaster, quite realistically and seriously. Martin Amis and Patricia Highsmith have both brought out volumes of postholocaust short fiction. But I would maintain that what Theroux, DeLillo and many others are acknowledging has very little to do with that highly individual phenomenon, the literary genre of science fiction. Star Wars merchandising, Star Trek TV, matt-black penknives, ergonomic café furniture, even Nuclear Doom—this is the diffuse, eclectic, twentiethcentury obsession with ‘the future’ out of which science fiction itself took shape.