Journal Jack William Bell's Journal: Three Reviews and some thoughts on the 'rules' of SF 3
Unless you have been a fan for a long time you may not know this, but Speculative Fiction (or 'SF') is actually a tag for a very wide-ranging genre. It encompasses such sub-genres as Fantasy, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Horror and more. Each of those sub-genres has its own sub-genres and so on, in a taxonomy of literature types so exhaustive that we differentiate Cyberpunk from Hard Science Fiction and High Fantasy from Swords and Sorcery.
The interesting thing about this hair-splitting is the fact we can use rules to classify most works of SF into a specific sub-genre fairly easily. To some extent those rules are arbitrary and, therefore, meaningless. And there are many novels and short stories that break, bend or even mix the genre rules while remaining great reads. But sometimes those rules exist for a reason and are therefore difficult to break with impunity.
One such rule relates to the use of Science in Science Fiction. The rule goes like this: You are allowed to introduce one (or, at most, two) impossible thing(s) if they are required for the plot and if you can make them plausible. Here 'impossible' means something that breaks the laws of physics as we know them at the time the story is written. So this way you can have warp drives if you need FTL (Faster Than Light travel). You can have artificial gravity if you don't want to deal with the difficulties of writing about the realities of free-fall. However speculating too heavily on new scientific discoveries is discouraged because you might as well be talking about magic. Because of this, SF standards like Star Trek are not really Science Fiction in the truest sense. Instead they are Sci-Fi (considered a derogatory term by those who pronounce it 'skiffy') or Science Fantasy. 'Real' Science Fiction sticks with the facts, and just the facts mam.
At this point a lot of people, including some in the business, are probably taking strong exception with what I just said. Especially my use of the word 'Real' -- a valid point considering that none of it is real. It is all 'fiction' after all. But in the taxonomy we are talking about stories that do not meet this rule are assigned instead to sub-genres like Sociological SF or the afore mentioned Science Fantasy. There is nothing wrong with them because of this; they are just not Science Fiction in its pure form.
And the rule itself has some interesting corollaries. For example you often see Science Fiction where one, and only one, new technology is introduced and explored. John Brunner's 'Shockwave Rider' is a perfect exemplar of this. More often you see a standard backdrop of technologies like 'blasters', 'sensors' and 'universal translators' that are used without explanation, because they are familiar props of old and because there is no physical reason they can't work. These, along with 'the one impossible thing', are part of the story milieu and we, as readers, usually accept them without question.
Why the 'one impossible thing' rule is needed for Science Fiction has to do with the Science part of the name; Hard Science Fiction is supposed to build at least part of the plot itself around a scientific principle, but other forms of Science Fiction must only not be wrong and not get too crazy with the technologies. Orson Scott Card writes good books this way all the time: Just toss in the standard props with no explanation and build the plot in such a way that it would work just as well if you were writing Fantasy. Probably three quarters of the books published as Science Fiction fit this mold. So long as the writer makes no obvious scientific or engineering errors everything is good.
Which brings me to my first review...
-- Colony Fleet -- Susan R. Matthews, EOS, 2000
I've met Susan at several SF conventions and I have to say she is nice people. And I thoroughly enjoyed her earlier novel 'Avalanche Soldier'. Which makes what I am about to say all the more difficult: Susan broke the rule. And she didn't do it in a good way.
'Colony Fleet' is an update of a hoary old SF story idea; the generation ship. Only in this case we have an entire fleet of ships, small and large. The larger are called the Noun ships and each is fitted out as a different ecological area of Earth, Tropic, Temperate, Subartic and so on. Noun ships are people by Jneers and Oways, descended from the Engineers and Administrators of the original crew. The smaller ships are crewed by Mechs and must make do with the leavings of the Nouns.
After four hundred years of travel the crew has adapted to a strong caste system with the Jneers on top and the Mechs as the untouchables who actually keep everything working. The story revolves around Hillbrane Harkover, a young Jneer cast-out and forced to live among the Mechs just as the colony fleet is approaching its first 'Waystation' (or colony world) and preparing to initiate its colonization with a fourth of the fleet's people.
In general this is a good setup and could have made for a good read, but it was ruined by the constant introduction of obvious scientific and engineering mistakes as plot points. For example there is a 'plasma shield' created ahead of the fleet by some of the Mech ships. As described, not only is the 'plasma shield' unworkable (four hundred years of use would probably require more mass than the entire fleet to begin with), but it wouldn't do what Susan says it would do, namely protect the fleet from micro particles. Yet she has an entire chapter devoted to the technology and its use. This kind of thing goes on throughout the book -- impossible (or just badly thought out) technology that is required to make the story work.
Not recommended unless you are looking for an example of how not to do it...
-- Red Thunder - John Varley, Ace, 2003
John Varley is definitely one of my favorite SF authors. He is one of the few that can bend the rules, sometimes nearly to the breaking point, just right. Often John will take the shotgun approach -- throwing a blinding storm of new technologies (usually just barely possible technologies) at the reader and basing his future world on the gestalt effect of the whole mess taken together. Yet in 'Red Thunder' he takes the opposite tactic of postulating one, and only one, impossible thing; and then extrapolating from that. And he uses this sniper rifle as masterfully as ever he handled a shotgun.
Did you enjoy the old 'Heinlein Juveniles' when you were a kid as much as I did? Books like 'Have Spacesuit, Will Travel', 'Citizen of the Galaxy' and 'Red Planet'? Well, 'Red Thunder' is Varley's homage to those stories, and more specifically a homage to Heinlein's 'Rocket Ship Galileo'.
The story revolves about nineteen year-old Manny Garcia and his three young friends, who meet a disgraced astronaut with an idiot-savant cousin that has invented a source of nearly infinite power. One thing follows another and next thing you know they are building a Mars ship out of old railroad tank cars. Although the basic plot is both trite and predictable Varley manages to imbue it with a sort of relentless pace that carries you along, fully believing in the characters and their actions. And, unlike those old Heinlein juveniles, it is firmly set in today's world -- along with all the baggage that entails. And, with the exception of that one thing all the technology is from today's world as well, used appropriately and without obvious errors.
All this, and an extra homage to the Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald. (There are at least five references, see if you can catch them all.)
Recommended.
-- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow, Tor, 2003
Technology tends to transform human society. Simple things like the stirrup and gunpowder led to massive revisions in power structures across the globe. Today we live in a world transformed so as to be unrecognizable to our great-great grandparents by the internal combustion engine, ubiquitous communications and computers. And coming down the pike are some real doozies; highly transformative technologies like nanotech, advanced biotech and direct neural computer interfaces. Given these, it is at least theoretically possible that we, or our children, will live in a completely transformed world. That poverty and want will be banished forever. That we will no longer need money and can even 'bank' our memories against accidental death, to be poured into a clone body. To live forever, free of the need to work for a living.
Authors like John Varley, Bruce Sterling, Neil Stephenson, Vernor Vinge, Kathleen Goonan, Ian M. Banks and Greg Bear have taken their shots at writing stories set in this kind of future, usually with good effect. In the SF taxonomy there isn't a good name for this sub-genre, but I have elected to call it 'Transhuman SF' being as it tackles head on the real issue that most SF sidesteps: New technologies change things. Not just how people live, but how people interact. How they are. And some technologies are so transformative that they actually change what it means to be 'human'. Because writers want to write stories people will read they tend to shy away from serious extrapolation of these technologies since the end result is a culture as alien to us as ours is to the peoples of the sixteenth century. Perhaps even more so.
So instead we get 'Star Trek', which has been referred to as 'Wagon Train in outer space'. We get stories that place recognizable contemporary human beings into future settings as if there will be little or no change to human culture in the intervening time. It is easier for the author and easier for the reader and heck; it follows the rules! It is still Science Fiction by definition. Transhuman SF, on the other hand, gives us a serious look at post-human, post-scarcity, post-reality futures. Transhuman SF is harder to write and harder to read (which makes it harder to sell), but it is damn honest to the true extrapolative spirit of Science Fiction.
Cory Doctorow has just proven that he has what it takes to split the difference. 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' is set in a transhuman near future with all of the features I have described above. In some ways this is a 'little' story as Doctorow makes no attempt to hinge his plot on anything of cosmic, or even worldwide, significance. Instead we have the post-human equivalent of office politics in a future Disney World where money has been replaced by 'Whuffie', a computer-mediated rating of your respect in the eyes of others. Where assassination is used as a simple diversionary tactic, being as the victim may be easily restored from a backup. Where 'Ad-hocracies' compete to provide services in return for Whuffie, knowing that those with the most Whuffie can do what they want. Where . . . Well read the story for yourself! It is packed to the gills with strange little post-modern details that ring true, and yet the characters still seem real and comprehensible.
There were a few moments when I doubted the validity of this or that character's motivation. But in every case I would remind myself that some of the things we take for granted are utterly changed, or just gone, in this future and it would click into place for me. Doctorow's post-humans are not entirely changed from us, but there is enough of a slip for it to seem disconcerting at times.
'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' is available both electronically (for free) and in print. Overall it is a short, but satisfying read. Satisfying, that is, if you are willing to bring a little to the book instead of expecting to be spoon-fed your future. Those who liked Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' will love this book. Those who couldn't even finish Bear's 'Queen of Angels' will hate it.
Highly recommended.
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Oh, and I saw 'Down and Out' in my wish list, thought it was a different book, and remov
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FWIW; Slaughterhouse Five is not an easy read itself. In fact I found it a real struggle, but worth the effort.
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I wasn't sure whether to get Slaughterhouse Five or Grapes of Wrath, but settled on the former because the version of Grapes of Wrath I wanted wasn't available immediately. Looking forward to a challenging r