THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE IN MODERN SCIENCE FICTION: SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF A FICTION MODEL
The article studies the specific features of science fiction prose of the 20th - 21st centuries; it defines the status of science fiction among different types of futuristic literature of the post-Soviet period. With the course of time science fiction has lost its predominant position which it held throughout the most part of the 20th century in the USSR and Europe. The science fiction novels by Russian and foreign writers serve as the basis for analyzing the modern science fiction conceptions of the society of the future and its problems: artificial intelligence, contacts with space aliens, evolution stages of civilizations and their transformation into super-civilizations. The present study reveals the differences in fiction models of the future, inherent in western and eastern science fiction traditions. Furthermore, the article raises the issue of synthesis in a number of fiction texts of the principles of science fiction and fantasy demonstrating futuristic background and science fiction interpretation of classical images of fantasy.