Identifying SF Texts

When we start to read a novel, we usually know whether it is sf! We have been informed in several ways, probably by the title, the author's name, the cover, the publisher, the blurb etc. Nevertheless, the text needs to identify itself quickly. I once read a pulp paperback sf novel that began by informing us that the central character's hair was receding so fast that you would think that his nose was radioactive. This was amusing and established a scientific frame of reference. CS Lewis subtitled That Hideous Strength as a fairy-tale to warn readers because the first two chapters are undiluted contemporary fiction - or near future fiction but we do not notice that difference. And I did not sense any discrepancy on a first reading but then I already knew that this was Volume III of an interplanetary trilogy with an sf-fantasy interface.

We have quoted this opening phrase before:

"Every planet in the story is cold -..."

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT I, p. 342.

The text can only be sf even if we did not already know it.

James Blish's Black Easter opens with a single-sentence paragraph:

"The room stank of demons."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London. 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 325.

OK. Despite the author's name, not sf, fantasy. But the work by Blish that I wanted to compare, in this respect, with A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows was A Case Of Conscience which opens:

"The stone door slammed. It was Cleaver's trade-mark: there had never been a door too heavy, complex, or cleverly tracked to prevent him from closing it with a sound like a clap of doom. And no planet in the universe could possess an air sufficiently thick and curtained with damp to muffle that sound - not even Lithia."

-James Blish, A Case Of Conscience IN After Such Knowledge, pp. 523-730 AT BOOK ONE, I, p. 531.

Alright. We have to wait till the third sentence - not too long - but we get there. These guys work on different planets. Despite its proximity to Black Easter, Case is sf. Planets are an easy indicator.