Science fiction has a reputation for being weak on sex and humour. In games, humour at least comes through quite strongly, but there's very little sex, probably reflecting a peculiarly American morality that thinks it's okay to show people being splattered in horrific detail, but finds sex is impossibly corrupting.


Written SF discovered sexuality in a big way in the sixties, with writers like Philip José Farmer and Michael Moorcock exploring the possibilities of future sex. Humour has been around longer. Fredrick Brown with Martians, Go Home and E. F. Russell with Next of Kin typify early attempts, where the tongue was so far in the cheek that it came out the other side. These are basically adventure stories

with a humorous approach, rather than the out-and-out hilarity best typified by Robert Rankin's Brentford trilogy, which strays wildly into magic and lunacy, but still has a science fiction basis. Terry Pratchett had a couple of goes at funny SF before settling down to his epic disc-world series, but science fiction seems less susceptible to pure humour than fantasy. Douglas Adams proves (as usual) the exception to the rule.