ABSTRACT
Usually disregarded by serious scholars and of course ignored by Snow himself, science fiction has become a unique medium for discussing science and technology, their prospects and hazards, and more generally their social and cultural impacts. As an integral part of postmodern culture, science fiction has penetrated all fields of the media landscape: fiction, comic books, movies, even plays and musicals. Science fiction themes and images surface sometimes quite unexpectedly in everyday life, in TV commercials and video clips, not to speak of computer games. Battery powered aliens, monsters and robots have nearly expelled the traditional fairy tale characters from children's rooms. Data highway enthusiasts use science fiction jargon and imagery to depict their 'cyberspace' visions. A generation ago, the race to the moon was at least partly initiated by the dreams of early science fiction writers and readers. For the public, technology is science fiction come true. For many scientists and engineers science fiction provides the imagery of their visions.
