Quantum fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that reflects modern experience of the material world and reality as influenced by quantum theory and new principles in quantum physics. It is characterized by the use of an element in quantum mechanics as a storytelling device. The genre is not necessarily science-themed, and blurs the line separating science fiction and fantasy into a broad scope of mainstream literature that transcends the mechanical model of science and involves the fantasy of human perception or imagination as realistic components affecting the everyday physical world. Novels that have been described as quantum fiction include Vanna Bonta's Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel (1995), M. John Harrison's Empty Space trilogy (2002, 2006, 2012), David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004), Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr. Y (2006) Samantha Harvey's The Wilderness (2008), and Andrew Crumey's Sputnik Caledonia (2008). Charles Platt introduced the term in his essay "Quantum Fiction: A Blueprint for Avoiding Literary Obsolescence", first published in The New York Review of Science Fiction in April 1990.
Origin of the genre The term had been suggested in 1990 by Charles Platt. Though, novelist Vanna Bonta claimed to have coined the term quantum fiction in 1996, when she published her novel Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel. In Bonta's novel, the protagonist struggles to distinguish real life from elements in a novel he is writing, as people and events from his novel begin to appear in reality. Bonta defined quantum fiction as stories in which consciousness affects physics and determines reality; in her words, "the genre is broad and includes life." Bonta further explained her development of this new genre: "I don't write science fiction. Science fiction is a niche genre, defined by Ray Bradbury as depiction of the real. 'Quantum fiction' is the realm of all possibilities. The genre is broad, and includes life because fiction is an inextricable part of reality in its various stages, and vice versa." According to Christina Scholz, on Platt's inclusion of the term:
Platt envisioned quantum fiction as a way to revitalise the [science fiction] genre, acknowledging the observer (i.e. reader) as an active participant. As in quantum physics, the outcome of an observation (the storyline created in the reading process) depends on the questions asked by the observer (reader). His examples of possible quantum fiction influences include hypertext and the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Burroughs’ cut-up technique, Ballard’s ‘condensed novels’ containing multiple segmented perspectives, multimedia experimentation, and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Like Kurt Vonnegut's novels, quantum fiction should be composed of small quanta. Readers should have random access to these quanta (implying a sort of Brownian motion version of the reading process). Multiple viewpoints should be used. The prose should be terse, focussed, visual and graphic, the content presented ‘accurate and informational’. Platt also encourages a multimedia approach, including the use of other visual material. However, in the end, this prescriptive definition of quantum fiction remains experimental and restrictive.
New forms of storytelling Usage of the term quantum fiction began to appear in 21st-century books and academic papers that identified and discussed a new and emerging literary genre that is affected by the new view of the world given by quantum physics. Various artists, academia, and critics explored it independently of one another and in various contexts with the common denominator of a new literary genre. By 2010, hindsight reveals a movement and usage by multiple authors and critics. In his book Loose Canon (Cosmos Press, 2001), author Charles Platt describes quantum fiction as "a blueprint for avoiding literary obsolescence." Platt writes: "I do believe that "Quantum Fiction" would circumvent some problems associated with traditional science fiction." Platt argues, "If a nineteenth-century writer such as Charles Dickens sampled a few modern science-fiction novels, he might be surprised by the writing style and the speculative content, but he'd find nothing new in the methods of storytelling. Popular novel-length narratives are built basically the same way today as a century ago, and science-fiction writers are in the ironic position of depicting the future using techniques derived entirely from the past." Platt writes, "My own modest proposal for revitalizing the novel is a form that I will call, for want of a better term, "quantum fiction." Like the quantum theory, it acknowledges the observer (in this case, the reader) as an active participant." In 2001, Platt states, "I believe it should be possible to develop from these prototypes a new genre of "quantum fiction" with genuinely broad appeal." In Sonia Front's Shapes of Time in British Twenty-First Century Quantum Fiction (2015), novels chosen as representative of the genre in Britain were Andrew Crumey's Sputnik Caledonia, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Samantha Harvey's The Wilderness and Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr. Y.
Literary technique A literary genre, as a category of literary composition, is determined by literary technique, tone, or subject matter (content). Quantum fiction as a genre is primarily defined by technique of writing, and tone and subject matter is not limited.
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