Science fiction has been distinguished from mainstream fiction, whether popular or literary, "which deals with the here and now and introduces only the small novelty of make-believe events and characters, that forms only an inconsiderable fraction of the whole" (Azimov 31). The history of science fiction has also been equated with "the history of humanity's changing attitudes toward space and time. It is the history of our growing understanding of the universe and the position of our species in that universe" (Scholes and Rabkin 3). Within the radical rethinking of humanity's cosmic position that the scientific method and explanatory power presented there emerged a kind of narrative theme that is almost exclusive to science fiction: apocalyptic, utopian, dystopian, or speculative narratives, showing a radically altered reality presented as the routine of daily life. The proven capacity of science and technology to radically alter the makeup of the world makes these narratives plausible. In particular, the use of nuclear weaponry and the Holocaust have been invoked as the proof: "So much that will happen is unimaginable but also so much that has happened was also and continues to be unimaginable" (Bemporad 478). Science fiction is uniquely suited to such themes as apocalypse and dystopia because the narrative context rethinks the human position in the cosmos and the human condition on earth.
Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, first published in 1953, is considered a classic of dystopian science fiction. Its narrative line is straightforward in that the hero has a crisis of conscience and acts on it. However, what is important about the crisis is that it is a creature of the context in which he has it. Montag is a fireman, but in the America of the 24th century, firemen do not put out fires. Instead, they put them ott. That is, they do not extinguish fires but start them. What they burn is books, which are banned, along with the houses tha...