Tim Powers on science in science fiction

[eska]

I like to think Three Days to Never is a science fiction novel. It's goofy science, but if we restricted our definition of science fiction to science that was not a bit goofy, we'd only be left with a few like Brin, Benford, and Bear -- everybody else would be disqualified. How scientific does a book have to be to count as science fiction? Mine has Einstein, and I even refer to Niels Bohr! Of course it also has ghosts and dybbuks, but those could be peripheral, misunderstood consequences of esoteric scientific principles! It only looks like fantasy, see, at a hasty glance. And -- and there's some stuff about car repair, and that's pretty scientific, right?. I remember one definition of science fiction was 'fiction involving electricity.' Actually, I've got quite a bit of electricity in this.
http://www.locusmag.com/2007/Issue03_Powers.html