Big Dumb Object

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A term probably coined by reviewer Roz Kaveney<ref>Kaveney, Roz, 1981, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, issue 22.</ref> and used in discussing science fiction, a Big Dumb Object (BDO) is a mysterious artifact (usually of extraterrestrial origin) in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder just by being there; to a certain extent, the term deliberately deflates this.

The term was not in general use until it was included in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as a joke by Peter Nicholls<ref>Nicholls, Peter, 2000, Big Dumb Objects and Cosmic Enigmas: The Love Affair between Space Fiction and the Transcendental, in Westfahl, Gary (ed), Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction, Greenwood Press, p. 13. "... I decided to write an April Fool's entry. I would pretend that a phrase I’d always liked, originated by the critic Roz Kaveney but not in general use, was actually a known critical term. I would write an entry called "Big Dumb Objects" in a poker-faced style, suggesting an even more absurd critical term to be used in its place, "megalotropic sf.""</ref>.

J.G. Ballard's short story, "Report on an Unidentified Space Station" (1982) is an exploration of the metaphor of the BDO: in each successive report, the artifact's estimated size increases, people become lost within it, and the reader eventually realises that the mysterious artifact, of unknown purpose and origin, apparently abandoned by its unknown creator(s), is the Universe itself.