Ballard goes the furthest and, quoting from his earlier writing, says: «Science fiction, far from being an unimportant minor offshoot, in fact represents
the main literary tradition of the 20th century... The main «fact» of the 20th century is the concept of the unlimited future... All literatures other than science fiction are doomed to irrelevance.
By no means do we have to reckon exclusively with oral
tradition... Personally I have... tried to typologize the so - called «prophetical literature» in two
main groups: «The liturgical type» («liturgy» taken as a purely form -
literary term) to be found in Nah., Hab., Joel, «Deuter - Isa,» et al., with real «writers» behind them, and probably from the very beginning taken down in writing, and «the diwan type» (no very good term, I admit), e.g., Am., Proto - Isa., etc., primarily resting on oral transmission...