{"id":1169,"date":"2009-12-14T15:44:35","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T20:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2019-12-15T15:25:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T20:25:57","slug":"sf-goes-macdonalds-less-taste-more-gristle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=1169","title":{"rendered":"SF Goes MacDonald’s: Less Taste, More Gristle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eleven years ago, Harvard Alumni Magazine asked me why I wrote The Biology of Star Trek<\/em><\/a> despite my lack of tenure.\u00a0 My answer was The Double Helix: Why Science Needs Science Fiction<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 In it, I described how science fiction can make science attractive and accessible, how it can fire up the dreams of the young and lead them to become scientists or, at least, explorers who aren\u2019t content with canned answers.<\/p>\n

\"syfy\"The world has changed since then, the US more than most.\u00a0 American culture has always proclaimed its distrust of authority.\u00a0 However, the nation\u2019s radical shift to the right<\/a> also brought on disdain for all expertise \u2013 science in particular, as can be seen by the obstruction of research in stem cells and climate change and of teaching evolution in schools (to say nothing of scientist portrayals in the media, exemplified by Gaius Baltar in the aggressively regressive<\/a> Battlestar Galactica<\/em> reboot).<\/p>\n

This trend culminated in the choice of first a president and then a vice-presidential candidate who flaunted their ignorance and deemed their faux-folksy personae sufficient qualifications to lead the most powerful nation on the planet.\u00a0 Even as the fallout from these decisions deranges their culture, Americans cling to their iPods, SUVs and Xboxes and still expect instant cures for everything, from acne to old age, seeing scientists<\/a> as the Morlocks that must cater to their Eloi.<\/p>\n

Science fiction is really a mirror and weathervane of its era.\u00a0 So it comes as no surprise that the dominant tropes of contemporary speculative fiction reflect the malaise and distrust of science that has infected the Anglosaxon First World: cyberpunk and urban fantasy have their feet (and eyes) firmly on the ground.\u00a0 Space exploration is pass\u00e9, and such luminaries as Charlie Stross delight in repeatedly<\/a> “proving”<\/a> that the only (straw)people to still contemplate crewed space travel are deluded naifs who can\u2019t\/won’t parse scientific facts or face unpalatable limitations.<\/p>\n

\"JackI\u2019ve been reading SF since the early seventies, ever since my English became sturdy enough to support the habit.\u00a0 In both reading and writing, I favor layered works that cross genre boundaries<\/a>.\u00a0 This may explain why I have a hard time getting either inspired or published in today\u2019s climate, in which publishers and readers alike demand \u201cfreshness\u201d as long as it\u2019s more of the same.\u00a0 Yet old fogey that I\u2019m becoming, I do believe that people who write SF should have a nodding acquaintance with science principles and the scientific mindset.<\/p>\n

So imagine my surprise when the following comment met with universal approval on a well-known SF blog<\/a>: \u201cThere seems to be a common feeling with people coming into SF that you need to know real science to write good SF. Which is of course rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me rewrite that statement for another genre: \u201cThere seems to be a common feeling with people coming into historical fiction that you need to know real history \u2013 or at least the history of the era you plan to portray \u2013 to write good historical fiction or alternative history.\u00a0 Which is of course rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cell phones in a Renaissance novel?\u00a0 Tudor court ladies on mopeds?\u00a0 Why should anyone notice or care?\u00a0 Likewise, \u201ccracks\u201d in the event horizon of a black hole?\u00a0 Instant effortless shapeshifting?\u00a0 Only an elitist jerk would object, spoiling the fun and causing unnecessary angst to the author!\u00a0 Never mind that such sloppiness jolts the reader out of the suspension of disbelief necessary for reading the story \u2013 and is particularly unpardonable because a passable veneer of knowledge can be readily acquired by surfing the Internet.<\/p>\n

Many of today\u2019s SF writers and readers don\u2019t just proudly proclaim that they don\u2019t know nuthin\u2019 \u2018bout no science; they also read only within ever-narrowing subgenres \u2013 and only contemporaries.\u00a0 When I attended an SF workshop<\/a> supposedly second only to Clarion, a fellow participant castigated me for positing the \u201ccompletely absurd\u201d ability to record sounds off the grooves of a ceramic surface.\u00a0 Of course, this is essentially a variation of sound reproduction in phonographic records.\u00a0 No wonder that much of contemporary speculative fiction tastes like recycled watery gruel or reheated corn syrup.<\/p>\n

\"DownbelowPlease understand, I don\u2019t miss the turgid exposition, cardboard-thin characters and blatant sexism, parochialism and triumphalism of the Leaden… er, Golden Era of SF (though the same types of attributes and attitudes have resurfaced wholesale in cyberpunk).\u00a0 My lodestars are Le Guin, Tiptree, Anderson, Zelazny, Butler, Cherryh, Scott \u2013 and Atwood, despite her protestations that she does not, repeat not, write science fiction.\u00a0 They all prove that top-notch SF can incorporate gendanken experiments that contravene physical laws: FTL travel, stable wormholes, mind uploading, a multiplicity of genders and earth-like planets, anthropomorphic aliens, to name only a few.<\/p>\n

Fiction must be the dominant partner in all literary efforts. \u00a0Imaginative storytelling trumps strict scientific accuracy. Nevertheless, SF requires convincing, consistent worldbuilding.\u00a0 This in turn demands that the author stick to the rules s\/he has made and that the premises adhere to known laws once the speculative exceptions have been accommodated: if a planet is within a red dwarf sun\u2019s habitable zone, its orbit has to be tidally locked barring incredibly advanced technology.\u00a0 If a story contravenes or doesn\u2019t depend on science, real or speculative, it\u2019s not SF.\u00a0 It\u2019s magic realism or fantasy.\u00a0 Not that it matters, as long as the plot and characters are compelling.<\/p>\n

\"Avast,

Avast, Impudent Cooties!<\/p><\/div>\n

There have been recent lamentations within the tribe about SF losing ground to fantasy, horror and other \u201clesser\u201d cousins.\u00a0 Like all niche genres, speculative fiction further marginalizes itself by creating arbitrary hierarchies that purport to reflect intrinsic worth but in fact enshrine unexamined cultural values: hardcover self-labeled hard SF preens at the top, written mostly by boys for boys; print-on-demand SF romance skulks at the bottom, written almost exclusively by girls for girls (though the increasing proportion of female readership is exerting significant pressure on the pink ghetto walls).<\/p>\n

The real problem is not that science is hard to portray well in SF.\u00a0 The problem is impoverished imagination, willful ignorance and endless repetition of recipes.\u00a0 In short: failure of nerve.\u00a0 Great SF stories are inseparable from the science in them.\u00a0 A safe, non-demanding story is unlikely to linger in the readers\u2019 memory or elicit changes in their thinking.<\/p>\n

If science disappears altogether from SF or survives only as the gimmick that allows \u201cmagic\u201d plot outcomes, SF will lose its greatest and unique asset: acting as midwife and mentor to future scientists.\u00a0 This is no mere intellectual exercise for geeks.\u00a0 To give one example, mental and physical work on the arcships so denigrated by Stross et al.<\/em> would also help us devise solutions to the inexorable looming specter of finite terrestrial resources.<\/p>\n

\"Rick

Rick Sternbach: Solar Sail<\/p><\/div>\n

The political and social pseudo-pieties of the US cost it several generations of scientists, some in their prime.\u00a0 The full repercussions won\u2019t appear immediately, but already the US is no longer the uncontested forerunner in science and technology and its standard of living is dropping accordingly.\u00a0 Breakthroughs in physics and biology are happening elsewhere.\u00a0 Of course, all empires have a finite lifespan.\u00a0 Perhaps the time has come for the Chinese or the Indians to lead.\u00a0 But no matter who is the first among equals in the times to come, I stand by the last sentence in my Double Helix<\/em> essay: “Though science will build the starships, science fiction will make us want to board them.”<\/p>\n

Update 1:<\/strong> Huffington Post just re-posted<\/a> this article (without the accompanying images, though, which add texture to the story).<\/p>\n

Update 2:<\/strong> The article is now also<\/a> on the new blog I Like a Little Science in My Fiction<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleven years ago, Harvard Alumni Magazine asked me why I wrote The Biology of Star Trek despite my lack of tenure.\u00a0 My answer was The Double Helix: Why Science Needs Science Fiction.\u00a0 In it, I described how science fiction can make science attractive and accessible, how it can fire up the dreams of the young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,13,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-science","category-science-fiction","category-space-exploration","category-writing-and-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}