io9 blog: Decline of the Slide into Barbarism genre?

[andrewgpaul]

As a brief aside, since Connor MacLeod has mentioned reading more British SF: the Wikipedia page for Alastair Reynolds' ,i.Blue Remembered Earth says "The novel is the first of the Poseidon's Children trilogy, which follows humanity's development over 11,000 years, with the intention of portraying a more optimistic future than anything Reynolds had previously written." There are occasional eddies in the general content towards cynicism.

[krakonfour]

I think the 'Americanization' of sci fi probably doomed it itself, because America has been an inwards-looking culture in so many ways (our most recent brush with the shutdown being an ideal example of that.) Naturally my obsession with 40K has lead me to being exposed to the UK's view on things (and reading some of the UK authors shows that its quite different from what oyu get in say, a baen novel.) But even beyond that if you look at how other countries approach it (say Japan) you can notice even more differences, and the judging of such ficton by our own standards tends to lead to.. odd results.

This is interesting. I love Japanese Scifi because they really do their research on things such as how people would live in space, how space stations should be built or how spaceships maneuver... but they have this unhealthy obsession with "you MUST NEVER touch the HOLY AWESOMENESS of X", with X being a ridiculous Gundam or Wave cannon.
In my opinion, American Sci-fi is just too operatic. They throw around strictly codified tropes which end up as glossy sprinkling over a regular drama/romance story. No fantasy can exist without a big evil dude, wacky author-driven magic and a sword wielding hero. I mean, WHY SWORDS?! In sci-fi, we MUST have the space-fighter and the patrolling peace forces and the space-pirates and United States of Ideal America stamped over everything.

I mean fuck, it wasn't all that long ago when the stuff you see on Atomic Rockets was considered the 'plausible/realistic' side of things and reasonably 'hard' sci fi. Nowadays, not so much depending on who you ask.

Wait a minute. You need to explain this to me. Since when are maths implausible?

[Batman]

Math itself indeed is unlikely to be. The assumptions you feed into that math, however, absolutely can be. The fact that Heinlein's mass conversion plants don't violate e=mc^2 doesn't make them plausible/realistic. All of the concepts presented on Atomic Rockets may be theoretically physically possible, but that's not the same thing.

[krakonfour]

Math itself indeed is unlikely to be. The assumptions you feed into that math, however, absolutely can be. The fact that Heinlein's mass conversion plants don't violate e=mc^2 doesn't make them plausible/realistic. All of the concepts presented on Atomic Rockets may be theoretically physically possible, but that's not the same thing.

The Real Designs section has stuff dictated by Mass Ratio and DeltaV, structural strength of the materials used for construction and shadow cones of radiation shields... It doesn't matter if your fusion drive is implausible, because you can do whatever you want with a piece of technology we have yet to invent. It's the stuff tied to today-world design and established laws of rocketry that enforces a certain level of realism that goes beyond "Doesn't violate rules of physics? It's fine!"

[Formless]

But if the fusion engine is implausible, then so too is any aspect of society that is derived from the assumption that we will have them. Plausibility or realism is a lot more nuanced than gritty detail or consistency. That's why not everyone sees Atomic Rockets as the gold standard anymore.

[Simon_Jester]

Personally, I think we've hit or are approaching the limit of hardness, where it actually acts to cramp imaginations about realistic future possibilities, rather than simply avoiding the invocation of woo.

Part of the point of fiction is that we're allowed to imagine and seriously consider things that aren't possible. On the one hand, that's so we at least have some idea what to think if the 'unthinkable' actually takes place. On the other, it's an exercise in broadening the imagination, because the one thing we do know is that the future will contain some things we hadn't imagined possible before, even if not the ones we expected.

[PainRack]

Personally, I think we've hit or are approaching the limit of hardness, where it actually acts to cramp imaginations about realistic future possibilities, rather than simply avoiding the invocation of woo.

Part of the point of fiction is that we're allowed to imagine and seriously consider things that aren't possible. On the one hand, that's so we at least have some idea what to think if the 'unthinkable' actually takes place. On the other, it's an exercise in broadening the imagination, because the one thing we do know is that the future will contain some things we hadn't imagined possible before, even if not the ones we expected.

Personally, I think its the other way around. With more 'hardness' in science fiction, you actually get to explore the human aspect of the story instead of waving around implausible technogadget.......

Granted, its the author more than the tool, but there has been some very excellent "doom" novels, such as one where the world insects die off and the resulting 'doom' scenario that was very well played out due to the hardness of the science behind it.

I think the real issue is more about consistency, ideas and the interaction of objects and people and how it is easier for many people to work within a defined framework and 'harder' science fiction provides that framework.

[Simon_Jester]

There's some damn good science fiction where the human aspect is motivated by a rather contrived and implausible technological aspect. For example, take The Cold Equations, by Tom Godwin.

It's a chilling story with a strong (rather obvious, as it's from the 50s) theme about how the laws of physics don't actually care whether or not you deserve to die.

However, it's based on utterly stupid engineering- that a spacecraft is designed and fueled with zero margin for error. Plus, to set up the situation you have to assume (to summarize) that random people will be allowed to just walk into a space where disaster could result from their being there... and that no one will even bother to lock the door to keep them out of that space. Seriously the whole central tragedy of the story could be averted by someone having the common sense to slap a padlock on the door.

Is the physics hard-SF? Yes. Is the engineering remotely believable? No. I don't think that's an improvement, but there it is.

Sometimes, creating a known impossibility or three is good for the human aspect; it lets the author concentrate more on the human aspect and less on the math.

[Connor MacLeod]

Personally, I think its the other way around. With more 'hardness' in science fiction, you actually get to explore the human aspect of the story instead of waving around implausible technogadget.......

You'd think that, except for all the authors who get bogged down in the minutae of worldbuilding and technological details to the point where plot, story, etc. get crammed out by all the orbital mechanics and delta vee equations and the detailed descriptions of how their spacecraft propulsion work. Hilariously I've pointed this out on SB before and I've had people retort defensively that if they *didn't* do that someone was going to come along and criticize/nitpick the 'unrealism' of it. There's a point where it becomes a self-destructive cycle and 'more realism' does not make things easier.

If the author can actually control himself then yeah that might work, but not many in my experience have that self control, published or otherwise. It also presupposes that the author in question is knowledgeable or aware of the 'human' aspects in sufficient detail to actually write them. ( which ironically enough, might entaiL MORE research into human nature, psychology, sociology, etc.)

Granted, its the author more than the tool, but there has been some very excellent "doom" novels, such as one where the world insects die off and the resulting 'doom' scenario that was very well played out due to the hardness of the science behind it.

Its not just the author, its the audience. IT doesn't matter how 'hard' the author makes it. IF they aren't interested in realism or shit like that or if the author can't bring out the themes they do crave, they're not going to like it.

I think the real issue is more about consistency, ideas and the interaction of objects and people and how it is easier for many people to work within a defined framework and 'harder' science fiction provides that framework.

That is certainly true to a point, although its more 'internal consistency/plausibility' and it isn't dependent upon 'realism' or 'hardness' in the least. Its about suspension of disbelief, and the author's ability to trick the audience into thinking what happens is possible and sensible. 'Realism' can be detrimental to this (how many authors have crammed in tech details that turned out to be wrong later? Stuff like that is more likely to break a knoweldgable reader's SoD than keeping it vague is.) Plus 'realism' demands detail, and detail demands research, time, and energy (unless you're lazy and just steal other people's work or follow 'rules' established by others, and that has its own problems.). 'Realism' is only easy if you have others to tell you the answers (and if they are the rigth answers) but that again, is not always the case (given the constantly revised definitions of 'hard' sci fi.)

What seems to work better is 'just enough' detail to give the veneer of plausibility, without too much detail to risk tripping people's bullshit detectors, and not too much padding of limited wordspace. Basically its all a balancing act.

Ultimately 'realism' in fiction is self defeating, because unless you're writing an encyclopedia there's no way to truly encompass the scope of reality in a few hundred pages. And if you're more interested in spending months and years on the worldbuilding, then 'stories' probably aren't your primary motivation anyhow, you just like tinkering aruond with the mechanics and should be honest about that.

[amigocabal]

Personally, I think its the other way around. With more 'hardness' in science fiction, you actually get to explore the human aspect of the story instead of waving around implausible technogadget.......

You'd think that, except for all the authors who get bogged down in the minutae of worldbuilding and technological details to the point where plot, story, etc. get crammed out by all the orbital mechanics and delta vee equations and the detailed descriptions of how their spacecraft propulsion work.

Michael Crichton's Timeline was an egregious example. The first third of the book dealt with quantum mechanics and parallel universes, even though it added nothing to the plot, nor explained any plot holes.

Imagine if Back to the Future spent the first one and a half hours providing a detailed explanation of quantum physics...

[Connor MacLeod]

I can understand the rationale behind 'hardness' simplifying things, because you don't have to use made up physics or think out all the implications that might drive nerds irate because they figured something out you didn't. Which is a valid reason, because even a single piece of tech can have any number of implications in terms of capability in diverse circumstances. However, this is not an absolute. It assumes you have the requisite education to match the 'realism' (which not everyone will, because, frankly, we're talking about actual EDUCATION rather than the googling I as a layman typically rely on.) Even when you have the knowledge, it might still require research (again omre than just a 10 second google search. you might actually have to crack open a book or two and piece together data from disparate sources.) which I can say, from personal experience with my nerd hobbies, is profoundly time consuming even when you know what to look for.
It gets even worse if you have to cover multiple disciplines (EG not just 'scientific' realism. What about economic, political, legal/judicial, or military realism? That means more research, more education, etc.) AT best its exceedingly time consuming to 'get it right', and at worst it defeats you unless you take shortcuts. You could just narrow it down of course (say ot just physics 'realism') but then if your audience has chemists, lawyers, medical experts, etc. who noticed you didn't do your homework in the relevant areas, then you're as bad off as if you had a bunch of science people yelling at you for fucking up the physics.

You can of coruse take shortcuts if you have a reliable authority to draw upon (eg a science advisor) but that again assumes they are reliable and that everyone accepts/agrees with what they say (as I've come to understand it, scientific fields can be as competitive and political as any other, and that can affect 'reliability.') But again this relies on a certain amount of research and knowledge that enables you to tell the guy is reliable, and that stuff doesn't come from thin air either.


And honestly, 'nerds figuring out something you didn't is going to be a problem regardless, because either technology changes and our capabilities change with it, or the defintions of what is 'real' and 'hard' change as well. You can't please everyone, and some nerd is going to get angry because YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

The only way you avoid that is actually by being more vague, rather than more precise. Which is just as well because less detail means more space to write your story and characters and shit. But there really is no easy solution to this, either way, and no easy outs if you want to be 'hard' or 'realistic' or however you want to define it.

[PainRack]

The real problem is how authors are relying upon 'world building', analogy and whatnot to Be the story instead of using them to push the story forward. I mean, Freehold itself was horrible not just for its ideology, its horrible because it relies ENTIRELY on its ideology to be the story.


Another example was this was Stackpole constant harping about Scipio Africanus and etc in Grave Covenant. Its clear that he was trying to use 'history' to help develop the story of how the Inner Sphere and Clan were fighting each other, but it became entirely too much about "history" being the story. This even though the relevant sentences were like only 12 lines long. It just didn't help tell the story.


Compare this to Dresden use of "talking skull". The creation of Bob was because Dresden did need a character to develop exposition and plot elements and he subverted it with Bob, however, Bob development of the exposition drove story forward while also becoming part of the story and interest.

[Simon_Jester]

True, but being extremely realistic with your technology (or trying to) won't actually solve that problem, in my opinion.

[amigocabal]

And honestly, 'nerds figuring out something you didn't is going to be a problem regardless, because either technology changes and our capabilities change with it, or the defintions of what is 'real' and 'hard' change as well. You can't please everyone, and some nerd is going to get angry because YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Honestly, the question, "Why did they not use X to do Y?", can usually be answered by "because they did not think of it." It is realistic for characters to not have thought of suing X to do Y, especially is doing Y was not X's primary purpose.

After all, when mine plows were invented, the inventors never imagined it would be used to bury enemy troops in their fighting positions...