{{Short description|Subgenere of science fiction}} '''Recursive science fiction''' is a subgenre of science fiction, which itself takes the form of an exploration of science fiction within the narrative of the story.
==Analysis== In the book ''Resnick at Large'', authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer describe recursive science fiction as "science fiction ''about'' science fiction".<ref name="resnick">{{cite book| last = Resnick| first = Mike |author2=Robert J. Sawyer | title = Resnick at Large | publisher = Wildside Press | year = 2003| page = 180 | isbn = 1-59224-160-3}}</ref> In the work, ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders'', Gary Westfahl comments, "Recursive fantasy fiction – that is, a fantasy about writing fantasy – is scarce";<ref name="westfahl" /> one potential example of recursive fantasy, however, would be Patrick Rothfuss' ''The Kingkiller Chronicle.''
==Examples== Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cite ''Typewriter in the Sky'' by L. Ron Hubbard as an example of recursive science fiction.<ref name="resnick" /> Barry N. Malzberg's novel ''Herovit's World'', about a hack science-fiction writer's struggle with the protagonist of his novels, is another. Gary Westfahl writes, "Luigi Pirandello's play ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' (1921) offered a non-genre model."<ref name="westfahl">{{cite book| last = Westfahl | first = Gary | author-link = Gary Westfahl | title = The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders' | publisher = Greenwood | year = 2005 | page = 250; Volume 2| isbn = 0-313-32952-4}}</ref> Westfahl noted that Hubbard's book was "an early genre example, perhaps inspired by Pirandello".<ref name="westfahl" />
Films under the subgenre include ''Time After Time'' (1979) and ''The Time Machine'' (2002). In ''Time After Time'', H. G. Wells, who wrote ''The Time Machine'', is fictionally portrayed as an inventor of an actual time machine. In the 2002 film ''The Time Machine'', the story by the real-life Wells serves as inspiration for the film's protagonist to invent a time machine.<ref>{{cite book | last=Williams | first=Keith | year=2008 | title=H.G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies | publisher=Liverpool University Press | pages=135 }}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Books|Literature|Speculative fiction}} * List of science fiction themes * List of science fiction authors * List of science fiction novels * Lists of science fiction films * List of science fiction television programs
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/RecursiveSF.html An Annotated Bibliography of Recursive Science Fiction], ''NESFA Press''
{{Science fiction}}
Category:Science fiction genres
{{Sf-stub}}