Sci Fi as Improbable Whimsy

I'd like to explore this week's post within the framework of Benford's argument. He claims that our fixation on science fiction is based in a fascination with the alien and "sense of wonder."  In particular, I'd like to draw attention to the following quote: "Indeed, everybody now assumes without discussion that, in writing about the very strange, we must always gesture toward something known, in order to make analogies or provide signs. So we’re careful, because unless we keep reminding the reader that this creature is to be taken literally, it readily becomes (surprise, surprise) a metaphor." This grounding of the surreal or fantastic in the ordinary and everyday is what seems to give science fiction such pull, and I think it is the reason that science fiction exists as such an amorphous field. Indeed, authors such as Octavia Butler blend sci fi techniques such as time travel into historical narratives of black personhood. Here, we are presented with things that in some cases could very well become real but haven't as of yet. The idea of people living in an underground colony in order to escape some ominous threat, as well as a man falling in love with an operating system which has the ability to learn through experience are both things we can conceive of with relative ease. They blend the everyday with a sort of endeavor about what could potentially happen, but might never actually come to fruition. Some seem reachable, while others are more potentially outlandish and problematic. For instance, we can conceive of a society where biomedical technologies have advanced far enough to harvest organs from clones of lower-class members of society, but it is certainly out of the realm of practical possibilities, given the human rights issues which would arise. However, a dystopian society where people live underground while a war goes on is not at all outlandish -- it derives from mid-century narratives regarding living underground in case of nuclear fallout. Really, what seems to be occurring is a unique blend of pragmatic and impossible (such as inter-gallactic chases in Star Wars), of whimsy and grounded reality. The idea of what could happen, the possible, seems here quite intriguing and compelling.