If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.

Le Guin frames science fiction not as prediction but as a culture’s mythmaking about its dominant power: technology. If SF functions like ancient myth—stories that encode values, fears, and hopes—then calling its myth “tragic” suggests that modern technological power is imagined as fated to bring loss, hubris, or irreversible consequences. The line also critiques a common SF posture of mastery and progress: even when narratives celebrate invention, they often turn on catastrophe, alienation, or moral cost. Le Guin’s remark points to SF’s capacity to interrogate technological ideology, revealing that the genre’s deepest stories may be cautionary dramas about limits, responsibility, and what gets sacrificed when “advance” becomes destiny.