[3] Science Fiction features Coleman's early 1970s quartet, consisting of Coleman (alto saxophone, trumpet, violin), Charlie Haden (double bass), Ed Blackwell (drums), and Dewey Redman (tenor saxophone).

[4] It also features performances by former Coleman sidemen Billy Higgins (drums), Don Cherry (pocket trumpet), and Bobby Bradford (trumpet), and vocals by Indian-American singer Asha Puthli on two tracks and American poet David Henderson on the title track.

[4] The AllMusic review by Steve Huey awarded the album 5 stars and stated: "Science Fiction was [Coleman's] creative rebirth, a stunningly inventive and appropriately alien-sounding blast of manic energy... Science Fiction is a meeting ground between Coleman's past and future; it combines the fire and edge of his Atlantic years with strong hints of the electrified, globally conscious experiments that were soon to come.

[5] The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide called it "fascinating" and "multifaceted" in another five-star review.

[4] Reviewing the album for Pitchfork, Daniel Felsenthal called it "a one-of-a-kind dispatch from the vibrant, polygenic, and contested lofts of downtown New York" and "a welcome return to the singable, quintessentially Southern melodicism that counterbalanced [Coleman's] dauntless early oeuvre".