Science fiction is not a genre that tries to predict the future, nor does it pretend to imagine concepts that will actually happen, and only occasionally can technologies that science fiction describes be considered as innovative.

Science fiction - mostly so-called "hard science SF”, i.e. the form of imaginative literature that uses either established or carefully extrapolated science as its backbone, according to writer Allen Steele; as opposed to "speculative fiction", which focuses mostly on social changes - may use science in a speculative way and try to extrapolate what might be done with a specific technology.

Still, science is always used as a narrative tool in science fiction: most of the time, technologies are imagined in order to make the story progress or to put the characters in a given situation that couldn't happen without it. For instance, the book "Dune" by Frank Herbert describes (among other things) the colonization of a sand-covered planet. The author wants to express how the protagonists evolve in that arid environment without any contact with the outside world. Therefore, Herbert has to "invent" a piece of apparatus that allows people to live with a minimum amount of water in the desert - hence, the “stillsuit”, a device conceived to recycle body fluids.

Furthermore, science fiction prepares us to accept new ways of using technologies; it gives us the urge and the motivation to master them. Science fiction, as a very rational genre, is often about the beauty of science and its accomplishments. It can then work as an inspiration for scientists. So, as famous science-fiction writer Charles Sheffield wrote: "Science fiction and science fact swap ideas all the time." Thus a dialogue between science and fiction does indeed exist.

Science fiction is therefore not only a literature of ideas, but also of images. From Cyrano de Bergerac to Dan Simmons, writers have - with often rich descriptions - evoked extraordinary landscapes, prodigious inventions or beings without peers. Drawings and engravings can represent striking scenes from the text and thus came naturally as enrichments to science-fiction novels (see, for instance, the genial Albert Robida at the beginning of the 20th century).

From the end of the 1920s, the spread of colour printing and the appearance of pulp magazines devoted exclusively to science fiction (like “Amazing Stories” or “Thrilling Wonder Stories”) allowed illustrators to play a more and more important part in the science-fiction community.

A specific tradition of pictorial art related to the genre has therefore formed, developed through the talent of creators like Frank R. Paul or Virgil Finlay. Later on, illustrative art went on to embellish the covers of paperbacks: Chris Foss, Tim White and Michael Whelan take over from the illustrators of the Golden Age, rendering on paper their futuristic, dreamlike and startling visions.

Gilles Francescano, Jeam Tag, Philippe Jozelon, Hubert de Lartigue, Manchu or Thomas Thiemeyer: their graphic styles vary, as do the techniques they use. But all, through their works, make us breathe the atmosphere of distant planets and believe in new horizons. These are whole universes that await us...

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