Science fiction is to the totalitarian state what Aesop's fables were to
the institution of slavery in the sixth century B.C. It is, of course,
subversive. by taking ideas too seriously, it ridicules people. But it
depends, for its subversive power, on people who are smart enough to be
afraid of laughter. Modern history, especially as it expresses itself
in the totalitarian hockey puck, has an excess of almost everything
except a genuine appreciation of the ludicrous.
-- John Leonard, New York Times (1982)
