When in late 1960, the Massachusetts Institute of  Technology's Science Fiction Society invited me to speak before them, I urged the members at the end of my talk to bring out their own science fiction magazine. I was much gratified when subsequently, in 1961, the Society brought out "The Twilight Zine."  The MIT students are doing a very credible job and I feel certain that in time science fiction will be much benefited by their efforts.
    In "The Twilight Zine," No. 5 (April 1962) Doug Hoylman, one of the students, has a rather provocative piece entitled "A New Name for Science Fiction."
    Says Doug in his introduction: "Now I don't want to appear ungrateful to good old Uncle Hugo who invented both the name and the art form.  But SF has far out grown the limitations which Gernsback imposed, and is still trying to impose, on the medium.  The word "science" is no longer applicable." For science fiction buffs interested in the full genealogy of the terminology, I suggest they read the February 1957 issue of "Fantasy & Science Fiction" magazine; "How Science Fiction Got Its Name" by illustrious SF chronicler and biographer Sam Moskowitz.  Or if you haven't seen it, you can get a reprint from me, free.
    Doug Hoylman's piece, as he says himself, is controversial; it should be read by all SF fans.  Unfortunately, he does not give us a new term to supplant the old one: "science fiction." Instead he says "And the first person who shouts "Scientifiction" gets a punch in the nose!"
    Touché! It so happens that I am that first person, and I coined the term--much to my regret--in 1925.  That horror, "Scientifiction," was but a logical contraction of the term "Scientific Fiction" which I began using on the front cover of the December 1922 issue of my former magazine "Science and Invention."
    It probably was caused by the excruciating growing pains of the genre.  Let's draw a merciful literary curtain of oblivion over that unfortunate episode and step into the progressive light of the future.
    May I say here emphatically that I agree completely with Doug that a new terminology is needed.  The term science fiction, unfortunately, is not outmoded, but has come into universal use much too early.  It probably will come into its own around the 25th century or thereabouts.  I am quite serious about this.
    All my life I have tried to cram the word "science," through my many magazines, down the throats of millions of unwilling individuals who were not ready for it--and still are not.
    Unfortunately, only a small percentage of people today are really interested in science--scientists, technicians, engineers, and so forth.  The public at large still thinks of science as a subject far to esoteric and avant garde.  Certainly the average man or woman does not wish to read SCIENCE fiction during his leisure hours--the name is too forbidding.  If this were not so, most science fiction magazines now in existence would each have a circulation in the millions, instead of a paltry average of less than 100,000.
    Something more attractive, stimulating and popular is needed.  In this I agree with Doug.  I have worked on the problem for years, unsuccessfully so far, I admit.  And you must believe me if I state now that if I had to do it all over again at this late date--knowing what experience has taught me--I should not have originated the term science fiction in the 20th century that was not, and is not now, ready for it in a universal manner.
    I coined the term Science Fiction in an editorial I wrote for my former publication, "Science Wonder Stories," in the June 1929 issue.
    In 1929 I had a forlorn hope that there finally had been a breakthrough of science into the consciousness of the world's population.  Alas--it was not to be--nor will it be in this or the next century.
    The average man--or woman--in the street looks on science with deep suspicion as a vicious orgre that constantly upsets and disarranges his life and habits, that periodically causes technical revolutions, throwing millions out of their jobs, as it is doing now, temporarily, through automation.
    Yet people know, too, that they must live with the ogre if they are to exist.  But their deep unreasoning antagonism against science has become fixed and they have become conditioned through years of Pavlovian science-induced shocks of a hundred kinds--economic shocks, social shocks, bewilderment shocks of the "what's next in our future," etc.
    And that is the real reason why only a few of their élite will read science stories for leisure or amusement. Therefore a new term, I think, makes sense.  At least it could, if adopted, smooth the way for adult science fiction in future centuries.
    Now let us look into the elements of an acceptable substitute.  For Vol. I  No. 1, of "Science Wonder Stories" in June 1929, I wrote this slogan: "Prophetic Fiction is the Mother of Scientific Fact."  I think this still means what is says.  Science Fiction--under any term or name--must, in my opinion, deal first and foremost in futures.
    It must, in story form, forecast the wonders of man's progress to come.  That also means distant exploits and exploration of space and time.  As for a new term, I suggest a few, which may or may not be the best in "fittingness"  They probably sound weird to you.  Well, so did science fiction, when I first looked at it critically.
    PREDIFICTION. Here the word prediction is fused with fiction.
    PROPHICTION.  A contraction of prophetic fiction.  A rather nifty term. Rather smooth, too. Prophessional to boot!
    FUTUFICTION.  A weirdy, capitalizing on the future.
    TELEFICTION.  From the Greek tele--far off, distant.  A euphonious term.  The public could assimilate it readily as it has long been indoctrinated into similar terms such as telescope, telegraph, telephone, television, etc.  I like it particularly because it could sneak into the language, catching the public unaware, so to speak.  Who would ever suspect that it was the unpopular disdained science fiction in new sheep's clothing!

Hugo Gersnback
December 1962