Confused With All This Nonsense

Maybe it would have been better for me, my writing part of myself, to stay completely oblivious to whatever was classified as science fiction and non-science fiction if that even makes any sense whatsoever. Because as soon as I open How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, I'm bombarded in the very first chapter with his tale of hard work, loss and basically the story about how his story ,Tinker, didn't get published because it wasn't a science fiction. Now, I don't know the context  of the story for he does not elaborate about it. But what i do know is that it wasn't a science fiction because it didn't include aliens or whatever.

I don't believe I've mentioned this before but I was working on a story called Circuit, which is the tale of a girl named Analeigh, who's lost in this world and wants to save the people of The City, who live in this "dystopian" society. Let me note this right now, I don't plan on ever continuing this story for two reasons. One: Because there are no aliens in this story then there would be no, basic genre for the story therefore making completely worthless. Two: after reading The Giver and Feed and Fahrenheit 451, I figured the dystopian societies like the one in Circuit, were now commonplace and no longer had a special charm unless they contained the joyous display of child slaughter and/or had anything to do with love triangles and boys with bread. (If you read the story, you know what I'm talking about)

I may focus on point two some other time but for now, I would like to focus on point one.

According to Mr. Card here, the editor of this magazine decided not to publish his story because if was a fantasy, since there were super powers and the setting was extremely vague so the story could have taken place in medieval England. So, okay. I guess these are reasonable. But the one thing that struck me as just strange was that the editor didn't like how there was a lack of aliens.(Actually I should put it as "aliens" because we really don't know what "aliens" are. humans can be "aliens". In fact, humans are aliens. It's only a matter of perspective since an "alien" is a word to describe a creature different from what one creature is used to. So we are all "aliens" in an "alien's" eyes... or eye. "Alien" is only a matter of perspective. Just like height.) I will say, it wasn't really the editor's fault. The policy is the policy. But I find it odd. The Hunger Games have no "aliens". Feed has no "aliens". None of these Sci-Fi novels have "aliens" because  "aliens" are kind of cliched. So... I don't know. Since I don't know the full context of the story and this book was written considerably long ago, I can't really tell if what this says apply to me? Hmm. Well, I guess it doesn't matter anyways. I'm working on something else called A Place Promised In Our Early Days.