h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, you're wrong.

Perhaps she is, but how about giving some arguments for it? Anyways, sci-fi can also be used simply to show what implications a technology like cloning could have on us, and try and force us into having a debate about it. Where ppl might want to wait untill it´s too late.

In most important science fiction there is a message, as you say, and underneath all the rest that message is what is important. Because of this, the homogeneity that exists among SF plots, premises and plot devices is excusable. Having said that, the homogeneity is not as pronounced as Rain Girl indicates. Rain Girl has said that science fiction always involves either the human race exterminating itself or space exploration. That is just plain wrong. Sorry. That ain't the case. In some cases that may serve as an accurate summary of the plot or premise but there are lots of other plots too.

I am in no way dissing SF; I love it and read it all the time. What I am talking about is the longest long-run ever; this is where the storylines of the books are situated rather than the plots of the books themselves. A lot of the best SF I know has plots that are completely off-the-wall; like a lot by Iain M Banks or, of course, Douglas Adams.
The point is that our future as a species come down to some basic alternatives; we die where we stand, (either soon or when the sun engulfs the solar system) or we get out there amoung the stars and find out whether or not we are alone.
Since almost all SF takes place in the future, most plots take place in one or other of these possibilities.

Science fiction where we go out amongst the stars and find we ARE completly alone might be a litle short on action

The problem with summing up a genre in a couple of lines is that somehow you lose what makes it so much fun

(e.g. Basic adventure story - any genre

A main character/ group of characters are in a confident position. They get persuaded to go somewhere they are less in control. Something nasty happens which means they lose control. They try to figure out what is going on while more nasty things happen)

You can have science fiction which takes place not so far into the future (Fredrick Pohl and Philip K Dick wrote quite a bit in their time) and you always have the option of having a similar level of technology but a different evolution - Nazi's win the war, Spanish win the armada etc