# Let's Talk About Science Fiction



## djemekae (Jun 24, 2014)

Hard sci-fi to me is stuff that is exactly the opposite of what Star Wars was, while still remaining sci-fi. By that I mean that Star Wars was more fantasy than science fiction, with mystical powers, wizards, princesses, and all. Hard sci-fi pays more attention to the technical aspects of what is going on and tends to be more realistic in terms of what we think we know about the Universe.

I generally like hard sci-fi, but it has to be written well. There is a fine line between paying attention to technical detail well and being too wordy and distracting. Some hard authors also focus way too much on the technology and the setting and make those things the focal points of their story - everything else revolving around it. I prefer stories where the characters are the focal points, the technology and setting being in the background, not in the foreground. That's not to mean that I don't want to see technology discussed in the novels I read at all - the main character's journey is just the most important part for me. Bring on the warp drives, wormholes, and positron emitter arrays.

For example, I could never get into Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy because the focus was on the technology and the setting, not the characters. I found the characters wanting and wooden, very little setting some of them apart. I did not make bonds with the characters, so I ended up not caring about them, and never got more than 150 pages into the first book whenever I tried to get into the story. The setting was intriguing, but the characters just weren't grabbing me. The focus wasn't on them. Somebody told me to think of Mars as the main character, but that doesn't work because we never hear what Mars is thinking.. it has no sentience. It's out there somewhere, in the background.

One of the best, if not the best hard science fiction novel I've read is The Timeships by Stephen Baxter, his sequel to H.G.Well's The Time Machine. It takes you on a crazy ride through time. I loved that book!

Robert J. Sawyer, a Canadian author, has written some pretty good sci-fi. He writes in a style comparable in ways to Michael Crichton, although I'm basing that entirely on Congo, Jurassic Park, and Sphere. Sawyer's stuff isn't as hard as Baxters by any means, but I always end up enjoying any book of his that I pick up. Calculating God was especially good, from what I remember.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

djemekae, I am with you. It seems to be getting harder to find really good quality scifi. I've been re-reading a lot of the masters - Azomov, Heinlein, Clarke, etc. There's a lot of free stuff at Baen Books; although much of that is more of a space cowboys type writing. I do wish "they" would stop lumping scifi and fantasy together, though.


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

HappyGuy said:


> djemekae, I am with you. It seems to be getting harder to find really good quality scifi. I've been re-reading a lot of the masters - Azomov, Heinlein, Clarke, etc. There's a lot of free stuff at Baen Books; although much of that is more of a space cowboys type writing. I do wish "they" would stop lumping scifi and fantasy together, though.


You make a good point - why do they keep throwing sci-fi and fantasy together? Sure, some properties (like Star Wars) feature elements of both, but there are plenty of books that are a conglomeration of genres and that doesn't mean they get lumped together. In the past, the sci-fi and fantasy genres may have been less prolific and less popular, but people take them very seriously these days.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

I don't mind when it mixes fantasy elements.

If you want some really good "hard" science fiction, check out the "Hyperion" cantos by Dan Simmons:



There's four books in the series. All four are (according to me, and I'm very picky) what I consider "must reads."


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

I always liked the hard sci-fi that I felt like taught me alot about science and physics and orbital mechanics and had fun at the same time. Gonna have to think of my favorite titles but I credit my working knowledge of astrophysics fun like redshifts, relativity, etc. to hard sci-fi


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

For some rock hard science fiction, try anything by Hal Clement.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Since I was a little kid (40 years ago), sci-fi (or "sf" as the purists prefer) and fantasy have always been lumped together on the bookshelves...and often supernatural horror end up there as well. Many of the genres have ebbs and flows in popularity too -- sci-fi is having a solid comeback now, but for a long time fantasy really dominated in terms of sales and shelf-space.

I think a lot of book stores just couldn't/wouldn't distinguish between the two genres, the same way that non-pursists often lump mysteries, crime fiction and thrillers together.

There is also a lot of crossover between both readers and authors, which I think is why a lot of times the term "speculative fiction" is used to lump the entire meta-genre.

Honestly, I love all forms of the spec fic genre, from space fantasy/space cowboys (Star Wars and my own books) to hard sci-fi, Vance's Dying Earth science fantasy, sword-and-planet to the many fantasy genres. I love the ability to explore another world that spec fic offers. As the saying goes, "science fiction is about the age of wonder...which is normally twelve."


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I think there's less SF being written these days, good or not. Fantasy publishing seems to have burgeoned in the last 10-20 years. That may be at the expense of SF, or not. Despite the explosion of indie writing recently, very little of it seems to be SF.

In any event, I read and re-read a lot of older SF from the 40/50/60/70s. There are very few contemporary SF writers that I regularly read. Two on the top of my short list are Jack McDevitt and Lois McMaster Bujold.  I've read some work by Sawyer, Vinge, Banks, and a few others, and a few of them I've liked. Some have just not caught my fancy. I've liked some of some of Elizabeth Moon's SF, also some by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

I'm also annoyed by having SF and Fantasy lumped together in bookstores (remember them?), but I don't see how this can be avoided, given that there's no good way to easily categorize many of the titles.

I partly make up for the dearth of recent SF by reading older mysteries, especially locked-room ones.


Mike


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

My main gripe with current SF is that so much of it is relatively near-future dystopian stories. I can only take that in occasional doses: I need more generous helpings of truly futuristic stuff that presupposes we get past our current challenges and that explores new challenges most of us have yet to imagine.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

NogDog said:


> My main gripe with current SF is that so much of it is relatively near-future dystopian stories.


Yes. A little of that goes a long way. A very long way.

Mike


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Agree about all the distopian stuff.  Not my thing AT All.  And the 'science' in a lot of current Sci Fi is more like magic.  There's no feeling of any principles behind things, just "well this was discovered so now we use it and it's the future'. If you're going to do that you then at least have to have an interesting world for someone to live in for a while. 

I wonder: back in the early 20th century when there were a lot of really new scientific discoveries -- mind boggling stuff that was REAL -- maybe those sorts of things were triggers to the imagination.  I feel a little bit like any further discoveries are going to be more incremental than giant leaps. A lot of the science fiction back then took the theoretical and turned them into practical . . . and therefore believable.  And some of those ideas that started in Sci Fi are now "Sci" in the sense that we really have them.

I think the genre is important though: a LOT of current scientists, especially astronauts and other NASA guys will tell you that what got them interested was the fiction they read as kids/teens.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

" A lot of the science fiction back then took the theoretical and turned them into practical . . . and therefore believable.  And some of those ideas that started in Sci Fi are now "Sci" in the sense that we really have them."

That is an important distinction. To take something possible but not yet ... created? ... practical? ... do-able? such as cold fusion or something from quantum physics and project it's affect on our (or someone's/something's) future is, to my mind at least, the essence of scifi.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

NogDog said:


> My main gripe with current SF is that so much of it is relatively near-future dystopian stories. I can only take that in occasional doses: I need more generous helpings of truly futuristic stuff that presupposes we get past our current challenges and that explores new challenges most of us have yet to imagine.


I could handle it if they were all about rebuilding...but nope. Instead, it's just more and more depressing.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

I am also SOOOO over the dystopias.

This is just my opinion, but I think one of the hard problems with writing hard SF going forward is dealing with the "Church of the Singularity." It seems so hard to project more than a few years in the future and there is the belief (almost dogma) on the part of a fairly vocal component in the SF community that significant advances that are Singularity-ish WILL happen and any spec fiction set more than a couple of decades out MUST presume this tech has developed or else they dismiss stories are naively short-sighted.

And the difficulty with the singularity concepts like AIs, cyborging, bio-engineering, artificially created life-forms, nano-materials and engineering, etc. is that so much of just becomes a kind of techno-magic from our perspective.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> I am also SOOOO over the dystopias.
> 
> This is just my opinion, but I think one of the hard problems with writing hard SF going forward is dealing with the "Church of the Singularity." It seems so hard to project more than a few years in the future and there is the belief (almost dogma) on the part of a fairly vocal component in the SF community that significant advances that are Singularity-ish WILL happen and any spec fiction set more than a couple of decades out MUST presume this tech has developed or else they dismiss stories are naively short-sighted.
> 
> And the difficulty with the singularity concepts like AIs, cyborging, bio-engineering, artificially created life-forms, nano-materials and engineering, etc. is that so much of just becomes a kind of techno-magic from our perspective.


Yeah I always find the singularity/post singularity stuff boring. I know David Weber's Honorverse will never happen and the tech will be so far beyond that by then that it is unimaginable, but that's the problem...its unimaginable and vague stream of consciousness nonsense designed to sound like the unimaginable is bleh


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> I am also SOOOO over the dystopias.
> 
> This is just my opinion, but I think one of the hard problems with writing hard SF going forward is dealing with the "Church of the Singularity." It seems so hard to project more than a few years in the future and there is the belief (almost dogma) on the part of a fairly vocal component in the SF community that significant advances that are Singularity-ish WILL happen and any spec fiction set more than a couple of decades out MUST presume this tech has developed or else they dismiss stories are naively short-sighted.
> 
> And the difficulty with the singularity concepts like AIs, cyborging, bio-engineering, artificially created life-forms, nano-materials and engineering, etc. is that so much of just becomes a kind of techno-magic from our perspective.


Ah, but I'm sure readers (and writers) in the past would have viewed today's technology as a kind of techno-magic...

I see many different 'types' of SF. Some are dystopian, some are techno-magic black holes and jump drives, some are back-to-the-stone-ages apocalyptic dystopians, etc. I care more about enjoying a good story than I do the elements of the story that might or might not be overdone. I enjoy the vast number of different visions that the science fiction writing community as a whole dreams up then puts on paper (or in binary, whatever).

It makes me wonder if readers in the 50's became disgruntled or bored with the Asimov style of "atomics" that a big chunk of SF writers used.

They didn't, by the way, but you can see the evolution of science fiction if you read stories from each decade of the 20th and even 21st centuries. What was steam and atomic powered then is fusion and Dyson sphere powered now. What was still-bulky computers doing neat things then is tiny, wearable computers powered by AI now. What was traveling by light speed then morphed into warp drive, hyperdrive, skip drive, collapsar jump, and wormhole travel now.

I think a lot of the dystopian flavor comes from the outlook that the world isn't doing so good (you know, like we've had societies for maybe 10,000 years and we still love nothing more than to kill each other over just about anything). Or maybe it's the fact we see the younger generation increasingly tuning out because of their attention to technology, and we see that as a bad sign (much like those before us saw television as a bad sign, and before that, moving pictures... there's even people who thought photography was witchcraft and would lead us down the wrong paths).

My own personal view is that if humanity doesn't get its act together, things are going to get continually worse until the powderkeg blows up in one way or another. Because of that, I stick to the darker dystopias and apocalypses and such. Star Trek was great, but I really can't see humanity coming together to solve global issues, so Star Trek's utopia view is too unbelievable to hold my interest.

However, I can easily see AI being an ordinary technology sooner rather than later, and I can also see governments, organized crime, and a whole host of other unscrupulous (or maybe just ignorant) persons using AI for very bad things that can lead to the downfall of society (imagine if the entire internet went down all over the world for a couple of days...). Or killer robots that decide humans are the problem and begin a revolt. Or someone creating a super-biological weapon that gets out of hand (The Stand, Wool).

AI is 'hard science fiction' to me. So is something like CERN looking for the Higgs-Boson and accidentally creating a black hole that begins to devour the planet. Or just opens a portal to another dimension/planet with bad guys waiting to snack on us. So is traveling at light speed, jump drives, advanced combat fighting suits, implants, Matrix-like VR, etc. But at the same time, I don't need an engineer's log or a peer-reviewed research paper of the how and why of the science involved in an interstellar skip drive trip. Since I've grown up watching Star Trek, Star Wars, BSG, and a ton of other SF movies, and read even more books, instantly traveling from Earth to another arm of the galaxy, or to another galaxy itself isn't techno-magic. It's the evolution of real science. Same with AI. Same with photon torpedoes, nova bombs, disintegration rays, matter transfer portals or units, cybernetic limbs or implants, etc.

Hard SF is nice sometimes if it is done well, but for me, too many times I've read hard SF and got bored because the author seems to enjoy verbal (textual?) masturbation and goes on for three pages describing the exact effects of solar radiation on the polymer skin of a space station. The Forever War, Hyperion, these hard SF books, for me, have just the right amount of "hardness" but it blends perfectly with a well-written plot, dialog that isn't clunky, and characters that aren't stereotypical (and some are and yet I still enjoy them because they fit the story).

anyway, that's just my lame opinion. I'm writing this as I'm about to watch the new Robocop (loved the old one because of the camp and because it was a killer idea during the era it was made).


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Well, in the 50s (and early 60s that I can actually recall somewhat), all we were worried about was blowing the crap out of the world with nukes.*  There were plenty of SF stories surrounding that possibility and the potential aftermath, while at the same time there were many authors writing stories based around the idea that we somehow did get past that and moved on to newer and (sometimes) greater things.

For me, true "hard" SF does need to be current with the science at the time it was written, as opposed to just making things up for the convenience of a good story, meaning the author does need a solid background in it (or have advisers who are) -- much like "hard" historical fiction (to coin a genre) should be based on current research/knowledge of the period being written about, not what Hollywood says it was like. But a good author will know how much description for either genre actually needs to go into the text, and how much can remain in his/her head, just keeping the plot on reasonably realistic rails. (And for that matter, every reader is different, and some may actually enjoy a lot of scientific/historical minutiae -- _vive la difference_.)

All that being said, it is by no means necessary that all SF I read be "hard" (or "soft", or in the Goldilocks zone or whatever). Good stories/characters/writing always trump any such restrictions -- as long as I don't get jarred out of my willing suspension of disbelief by obviously bad science or history.
_____________
* I still -- very rarely -- have scary dreams about air raid sirens and unidentified bombers flying overhead, yet I've never had a dream about suicide bombers, nanobots taking over the world, computer hackers ruining my life, etc.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

When I was in my teens and twenties, nearly all the fiction I read was science fiction. Didn't even read much fantasy. I am not enjoying much of the "new" science fiction that I read, only occasionally read even the older stuff now. I've been attributing it to me having "get those kids off my lawn" disease, but I could be wrong. I think that movie science-fiction and the accompanying focus on special effects and action has hurt written science-fiction. Less focus on ideas and a thoughtful story line, even in the written stuff. Fortunately, I can read a lot of fantasy happily. And there's lots of older stuff still around that I can read and reread.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

I went to one of the coolest charity events a couple weeks ago. Arizona State University has a relatively new department called the Center for Science and the Imagination. Their mission is to connect scientists with authors in the hopes that the really cool scientific discoveries of today will inspire authors to write great science fiction that moves beyond warp drives and transporters. And the reason they think this is important is that they have found that great science fiction feeds the discoveries and scientists of tomorrow. The fundraiser was a panel night with Nathan Fillion (Firefly), P.J. Haarsma (Softwire), Dr. Jim Bell (NASA, Curiosity rover), Dr. Ed Finn (the Center's Department Head), Dr. Peter Goggin (environmental rhetoric), and Dr. Sara Imari Walker (astrobiologist who also led a panel on alternate dimensions and parallel universes) and they discussed the influence of science on sci-fi and visa-versa. They also mentioned some of the stuff they're working on. I walked away absolutely fired up about their mission. It comes down to that whole "write what you know". I think one of the reasons why great science fiction isn't being written as much is that the discoveries today are so bonkers and complex, rarely does the average American writer hear about what is happening and understand it enough to write about it with authority. I think that this Center of Science and the Imagination could change all of that and I can hardly wait to see what happens next!


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

I always like to recommend Alastair Reynolds when the topic of contemporary 'hard' SF comes up. He takes a screamingly huge universe full of vast expanses of nothingness, and still manages to tell incredibly good character-based stories against this bleak backdrop.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

I agree with a lot of the above sentiment -- for me, it is also about just having a great story and visiting incredible worlds that don't now exist.

A lot of the Singularity-ish, extrapolating technology does read like this kind of stream-of-conscious techno-Candyland -- lots of fancy words that imply a lot of "ooh, ahh, shiny, pretty" but don't really seem to mean much of anything. Don't get me wrong, some of this stuff is mind-bending and awesomely cool and I am sure the authors have put a lot of thought into this and it is a fun read sometimes, but a good chunk of it also FEELS like a kind of abstract art-Rorschach-test where you see what you want to see but it's really just lots of glue and glitter and shiny with not a lot of substance.

Personally, I still really enjoy the SF of the 50s and 60s because the tech advancements were described in a way that I can wrap my brain around. That's my limitation but it's what I like.

I still love Trek, Babylon 5, space fantasies like Star Wars (and Flash and Buck and Forbidden Planet, etc.) because the tech and the cultures are understandable -- it's unrealistic in the same way that fantasy is, but it is an awful lot of fun. I have taken to calling the genre "nostalgic space opera" because it clearly doesn't seem probable. The "on-the-ground" tech (AIs, robots, genetic engineering, body modification, designed/artificial life-forms) will clearly get here a long time before we get any of the tech these universes describe -- FTL/warp/hyperspace, space colonization and energy weapons.

We are living in a cyclical cynical age -- politicians are corrupt, corporations are corrupt, climate change is happening, Big Brother spying is here, people are made to feel that they are powerless against unaccountable institutions, pollution is happening, things are going to get terrible, or so the theme goes. The New Wave SF writers have been hammering on this since the late 60s as part of the counterculture -- there was good reason then to be cynical and there is good reason now to be cynical.

But ONLY being cynical accomplishes nothing.

I think the thing that is forgotten is that there has ALWAYS been good reason to be cynical and fearful of the future -- whether it was the Bomb or the Soviet menace or a new Flu pandemic or the Dustbowl of the 30s or any number of other issues -- but there has also always been good reason to be HOPEFUL and optimistic too. That's what I personally want in my sci-fi -- an optimistic, hopeful view of the future.

The fact is, as a species, sure, we are capable of doing incredibly stupid things. Have been for millennia. But we are also capable of accomplishing so much when we put our minds to it -- we went from horse and buggy to the Moon in 70 years. That says something for our potential. 

That's what I want to read about in SF -- that we can do amazing things and that there is a future worth anticipating and worth working for instead of our current preoccupation of "I have seen the future and boy is it going to suck" that we see so much of.

Now, if we just decided to focus on that potential instead of just slogging along business as usual. If only we wake up and stop letting monied interests control our public policy and develop real, meaningful solutions for the future -- we could accomplish some amazing things. 

Sci-fi doesn't predict the future. Never has, never will. But it has long served an important role in inspiring engineers and technologists and ordinary people to invent the future. And I hope that never goes away.


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## mphicks (Jan 29, 2014)

alawston said:


> I always like to recommend Alastair Reynolds when the topic of contemporary 'hard' SF comes up. He takes a screamingly huge universe full of vast expanses of nothingness, and still manages to tell incredibly good character-based stories against this bleak backdrop.


I second this! I loved Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy, as well as Pushing Ice and Century Rain. Chasm City was the first of his that I'd read and he's pretty much hooked me for life. That said, I have a decent collection of his stuff in my TBR pile that I really need to get to.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of ZERO by J.S. Collyer, and it'll be coming out in August. I'm not too far in yet, and it's not tremendously hard sci-fi, but an enjoyable read so far. It's along the lines of Firefly/Star Trek, so maybe the opposite of OP's tastes, but still a title I'd look out for and give a chance to. If you dig space pirates, it seems like a winner.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Stephen Baxter's Ark, and his Time/Space series - I fold the corners down on the techie bits so I can keep re-reading them! And I remember reading a lot of Larry Niven in the 1980s.


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

mphicks said:


> I second this! I loved Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy, as well as Pushing Ice and Century Rain. Chasm City was the first of his that I'd read and he's pretty much hooked me for life. That said, I have a decent collection of his stuff in my TBR pile that I really need to get to.


Third. The Revelation Space series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe just blew me away. And second and thirds on Baxter and Greg Bear (if someone's already mentioned him).

I was, and remain, a big fan of apocalyptic scifi, starting out with Pat Frank and John Christopher. A lot of the newer stuff, though, tends to be more horror than scifi.

I don't know if the term "mundane" scifi is used any more; it sounds suspiciously like what you guys are calling singularity (or am I missing the point?). I was attracted to it after reading some recent NASA report (sorry, can't find the reference) pretty much kiboshing long-term space flight because of radiation issues. No doubt, those can be overcome, but it looks like it will be quite some time before we can mount a manned flight to Mars, so mundane scifi seemed more accurate. Maybe singularity is the answer to that, and gives hard scifi a pass?


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## rcbruno (Jun 27, 2014)

I think the Expanse Series could be considered Mundane SciFi, sort of. I can't say for sure because I'm still only half way through the first novel but it's incredible so far. I find myself drawn to Scifi which takes places in our own solar system, though I'm not sure why. My latest novel could be considered it, and most of the short story ideas I come up with are also in the same boat. I think I just appreciate worlds that seem very real, even though I also have a place in my heart  for galaxy spanning space opera's like star wars ha.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

dkrauss said:


> I don't know if the term "mundane" scifi is used any more; it sounds suspiciously like what you guys are calling singularity (or am I missing the point?).


Yeah, I have no idea what the term "singularity" means in this context.

Mike


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

In this context, The Singularity applies to a point in time when technology -- particularly artificial intelligence -- grows/accelerates to a point where it exceeds human intelligence and essentially reaches an event horizon past which we can only guess what might happen, since by definition our current level of cognition could not comprehend it any more than, say, a gerbil could comprehend what we humans think now. Some theorists estimate that point will be reached this century (with the lowest estimates being single-digit years from now).

A post-Singularity SF story therefore speculates on how things might be in such a world, ranging from optimistic views where the explosion of AI has solved most of our basic problems with energy and resources, allowing us to pursue things like exploring the galaxy; to more pessimistic, Matrix-like scenarios where humanity is archaic and machine intelligence is the only important in town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I think the genre is important though: a LOT of current scientists, especially astronauts and other NASA guys will tell you that what got them interested was the fiction they read as kids/teens.


Absolutely. Marvin Minsky at MIT credits Asimov's robot stories with kindling an interest in AI, and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman cites Asimov's Foundation trilogy with getting him fascinated about economic predictive systems.


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

NogDog said:


> In this context, The Singularity applies to a point in time when technology -- particularly artificial intelligence -- grows/accelerates to a point where it exceeds human intelligence and essentially reaches an event horizon past which we can only guess what might happen, since by definition our current level of cognition could not comprehend it any more than, say, a gerbil could comprehend what we humans think now.


Ah. Definitely not mundane scifi, then, which I always understood to mean near-future stories involving the results of current tech. F'rinstance, radiation obviates long-term space travel, so we are earth-bound, with all the implications of that: loss of resources, loss of exploration, etc.


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## sstroble (Dec 16, 2013)

The sci-fi I read in the 1960s and 70s placed the emphasis on science. Nowadays, the emphasis is on fiction, with so many sub, sub, sub genres for sci-fi that it's mind boggling.


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

I'm glad Reynolds is getting some love from others here. I've also got three or four of his on my TBR pile - my Dad gives them to me once he's finished with them...

I'm reading some Charles Stross at the moment, Halting State, and it's not really grabbing me. But it's reminded me that I did enjoy his book Glasshouse (in a kind of "Philip K Dick would have done this much better" sort of way).


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## Lee (Nov 7, 2008)

djemekae said:


> One of the best, if not the best hard science fiction novel I've read is The Timeships by Stephen Baxter, his sequel to H.G.Well's The Time Machine. It takes you on a crazy ride through time. I loved that book!


Me too! And I'm glad to see it's coming out in Kindle at last!


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## Mark Bannion (Jul 8, 2014)

Put me down for another singularity hater. The most irritating portrait of superpowerful AI has to be Ian Banks's Culture utopia, all the way down to his cutesy drones. It's not that they're unentertaining - the ship names alone are great - but his undisguised slobbering over their capabilities verges on onanism.

Interestingly, I've noticed the same tendency in the ranks of futurists. For some reason they figure that some social benefit will accrue from spinning grandiose fables about the dwarfing of humanity in the face of godlike AI. I guess it has something to do with promoting atheism.



NogDog said:


> Some theorists estimate that point will be reached this century (with the lowest estimates being single-digit years from now).


For that matter, when has a futurist been right about anything? Their track record suggests they are spiritual descendants of Nostradamus, what with the hovering car that's supposed to be parked in my space station garage above an Earth devastated by global cooling.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Mark Bannion said:


> For that matter, when has a futurist been right about anything? Their track record suggests they are spiritual descendants of Nostradamus, what with the hovering car that's supposed to be parked in my space station garage above an Earth devastated by global cooling.


Not all the time by any means, but lots of times. Vannevar Bush "As We May Think" in the 1940s predicted a device on the desk that could store books and encyclopedias (the "memex"). Asimov has a short story of collection of accurate predictions, including Murray Leinster's "A Logic Name Joe" which predicted the PC in the 1940s.


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## Mark Bannion (Jul 8, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> Not all the time by any means, but lots of times. Vannevar Bush "As We May Think" in the 1940s predicted a device on the desk that could store books and encyclopedias (the "memex"). Asimov has a short story of collection of accurate predictions, including Murray Leinster's "A Logic Name Joe" which predicted the PC in the 1940s.


Good mentions. I'd also forgot about Jules Verne's foresight of the nuclear submarine and the moon landings. Meanwhile, professional futurists like Paul Ehrlich are...unfortunate.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Mark Bannion said:


> Good mentions. I'd also forgot about Jules Verne's foresight of the nuclear submarine and the moon landings. Meanwhile, professional futurists like Paul Ehrlich are...unfortunate.


You hit it just right - it's the doom and gloomers who have a very poor track record.


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

Mark Bannion said:


> .
> For that matter, when has a futurist been right about anything? Their track record suggests they are spiritual descendants of Nostradamus, what with the hovering car that's supposed to be parked in my space station garage above an Earth devastated by global cooling.


Yeah. Where the hell is my jet pack?


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

dkrauss said:


> Yeah. Where the hell is my jet pack?


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

PaulLev said:


> Absolutely. Marvin Minsky at MIT credits Asimov's robot stories with kindling an interest in AI, and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman cites Asimov's Foundation trilogy with getting him fascinated about economic predictive systems.


I have not read Asimov in over two decades. Wanna recommend a novel I have not read (I read the first two of the Robot Series)? I could go for some SF for my next read (I am reading an awful fantasy book right now and need to get the taste out of my mouth).


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Robert A Michael said:


> I have not read Asimov in over two decades. Wanna recommend a novel I not read (I read the first two of the Robot Series)? I could go for some SF for my next read (I am reading an awful fantasy book right now and need to get the taste out of my mouth).


If you're in the mood for time travel, you can't do better than The End of Eternity. If you're in the mood for galactic saga - which, for what it's worth, is the best trilogy I've ever read - then treat yourself to the Foundation trilogy, starting with Foundation - but make sure you read all three, as the second and third are the ones that are true genius.


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

PaulLev said:


> If you're in the mood for time travel, you can't do better than The End of Eternity. If you're in the mood for galactic saga - which, for what it's worth, is the best trilogy I've ever read - then treat yourself to the Foundation trilogy, starting with Foundation - but make sure you read all three, as the second and third are the ones that are true genius.


Thanks. Foundation sounds more up my alley right now. I enjoyed Asimov's style.

I read so many different genres and it seems so infrequent that I make my way back to SF. I did read some Star Wars series over the past three years but cannot get through them all without being turned off with the "grey" areas of morality that the authors of that series keep pushing. Plus, with some authors in the series, I like their writing style, but many of them are not as good at their craft. It makes for a rather inconsistent experience overall.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Enjoy!


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

> I guess it has something to do with promoting atheism.


No, it usually has to do with humans creating a life form that is vastly superior in every way except for our 'faults' (emotions). I don't get a sense of atheism at all when I read about AI (whether friendly or godlike).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

AngryGames said:


> No, it usually has to do with humans creating a life form that is vastly superior in every way except for our 'faults' (emotions). I don't get a sense of atheism at all when I read about AI (whether friendly or godlike).


There's usually very little mention of religion, though . . . except as cults who are usually portrayed negatively. Occasionally neutrally, but almost never positively.

OTOH, if there was too much pro-religion stuff, I'd find _that_ even more annoying -- and I speak as a practicing Catholic.

I choose to believe that 'religion' is not a factor in the _book_ because it's _science_ fiction, but that doesn't mean it's non-existent in the society.

I also have the feeling that most science fiction writers are themselves atheist. Or maybe agnostic. Even if they _are_ themselves religious to some extent, their greater interest is in the science, so that's where they focus.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Personally, I enjoy it when religion is addressed in Science Fiction - well, when it's done well. I tend to agree with Ann that many authors may tend to be at least agnostic and avoid it altogether but there are some notable exceptions.

For example, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ is a brilliant look at a post-apocalyptic world from a very Catholic perspective. Likewise, Orson Scott Card is renowned (infamous) for his positions as a conservative Mormon but when he addresses religion in his writing, it's extremely well done as seen in the _Ender Saga_, _The Homecoming Saga_ or even his handling of Mormonism in _The Folk of the Fringe_.

I don't like authors who treat religion as something dirty and I don't like it when it's treated as sacrosanct. One of the things I've always loved about Science Fiction is it's ability to explore all aspects of the human condition by stepping outside of our current world and creating something different.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

On science fiction and religion, also check out James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_, about a Jesuit on another world - alas, not yet on Kindle.


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## Mark Bannion (Jul 8, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> No, it usually has to do with humans creating a life form that is vastly superior in every way except for our 'faults' (emotions). I don't get a sense of atheism at all when I read about AI (whether friendly or godlike).


I have some thoughts, although they're a little disconnected.

- Your last adjective, "godlike," is revealing, particularly in the context of the Culture series. Banks created what amounts to a heaven (immortality and total lack of want) in a naturalistic universe through dint of AI - i.e., hyperpowered science and reason. This is the bluntest sort of advocacy.

Regarding other singularity theorists, I admit I'm just spitballing (and conflating them with other science proselytizers, perhaps unfairly).

- You mentioned the trope that AI will partly be superior because of their lack of emotion. Without assuming whether you find it plausible or not, it's interesting that the concept is so widespread through reductive SF works. It doesn't make any sense. A lifeform totally lacking in emotion also lacks any sort of desire, which means that its drive is either totally nonexistent (so it is inert, just as a regular computer) or assigned by its human creators. The mere act of pursuing existential questions indicates that the lifeform finds the nature of self-awareness compelling, a profoundly human act, and as such many AIs in fiction simply become (in practice) very smart humans. It would be more correct to say that AIs would have a lack of innate moral boundaries.

That Will Smith movie I, Robot sidestepped the issue by having both the robot villain and the robot hero develop in their roles because of the desire programmed in them by their creator. So I liked that. On the other hand, there was an Animatrix pair of short films called Second Renaissance that really sucked.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

Ann in Arlington said:


> There's usually very little mention of religion, though . . . except as cults who are usually portrayed negatively. Occasionally neutrally, but almost never positively.
> 
> OTOH, if there was too much pro-religion stuff, I'd find _that_ even more annoying -- and I speak as a practicing Catholic.
> 
> ...


I agree (as an 'atheist at worst, agnostic at best). I'm fascinated by religion, especially Catholicism, but when I write about it, it's usually a philosophical view, not a truly religious view. I've bashed religions, and I've written from the perspective of one who is truly faithful. I'm a firm believer that religion and science can coexist, and one does not have to be exclusive of the other (beyond some of the uh, nuttier things that I've heard, like the earth is only 6000 years old, which science says is absolutely impossible unless we're all just part of a giant computer simulation where universal laws of time, gravity, etc., do not exist, or exist in some kind of weird way).

For me, religion is using science to prove (or find) the existence of a creator. I'm fascinated by what happened BEFORE the Big Bang, or whatever happened to create the existence we call the universe. No doubt plenty would call that heresy (and a couple centuries ago, I'd be hanging on the rack right now). I call it insatiable curiosity.



> - Your last adjective, "godlike," is revealing, particularly in the context of the Culture series. Banks created what amounts to a heaven (immortality and total lack of want) in a naturalistic universe through dint of AI - i.e., hyperpowered science and reason. This is the bluntest sort of advocacy.


Banks created a universe. I create universes. All authors create universes. Not all authors create universes that stem from an unbreakable/unshakeable belief. More importantly, who's to say that such a society as Banks created isn't possible? How would we know from our current perspective? The only 'revealing' thing in the story is that he thought it made a good plot and wrote it. I write about murder, but I don't advocate it. I write about religion (or anti-religion), but I don't advocate for it. I write stories.



> - You mentioned the trope that AI will partly be superior because of their lack of emotion. Without assuming whether you find it plausible or not, it's interesting that the concept is so widespread through reductive SF works. It doesn't make any sense. A lifeform totally lacking in emotion also lacks any sort of desire, which means that its drive is either totally nonexistent (so it is inert, just as a regular computer) or assigned by its human creators. The mere act of pursuing existential questions indicates that the lifeform finds the nature of self-awareness compelling, a profoundly human act, and as such many AIs in fiction simply become (in practice) very smart humans. It would be more correct to say that AIs would have a lack of innate moral boundaries.


I didn't say they would be superior BECAUSE of their lack of emotions. I said that human emotions are our biggest fault (what I didn't mention is that they are also our greatest asset in terms of 'being human'). The reason this 'trope' is so prevalent is because we've grown up learning human history, and throughout human history, mankind's emotional responses have been the basis for just about everything, including all the bad stuff. Religious zealots are emotional. Murders are emotional. Abusers are emotional. None of these emotions are "good" emotions, and they've caused death up to major wars where millions died. It's widespread because SF authors know that human emotions are the weakest link, the easiest to manipulate, and drive us to do the worst things imaginable when triggered negatively.

A created life form without emotion does have a 'drive.' It's whatever has been programmed into it (whether into its operating system, or into its genetic, biological code). A lack of emotion doesn't mean a life form cannot learn emotion. Like "Data" on Star Trek, it might be that the life form's programming (again, whether digital or genetic) is what drives him/her/it to seek out emotions.

A computer searching for the answer to an equation / problem does not mean it has a compulsion nor does it mean the pursuit is a purely human act. It is simply part of its programming. Take distributed computing that is searching for cures by 'folding' proteins. The machines are pursuing an answer, and they are 'compelled' to do so by programming. This does not make distributed computing self-aware, nor is it an indication that the machine(s) are pursuing such humanly questions of 'who am I?' and 'why am I here?'

AI, in my opinion, wouldn't lack moral boundaries unless the programmers forgot to add those code routines in. Since one of the biggest human fears is AI taking control of everything, humans (again, not all, depends on your story's universe) typically code in multiple fail-safes, most with very strict boundaries. But, again, it depends on the author's story. Some AI want to be human, and will go to any length to try and understand what being human is like so it can begin to emulate it. Some AI think humans are dangerous creatures who are heading quickly to oblivion and wish to help. Some wish to help further that oblivion along so humans will no longer be able to ruin everything.

Beyond the emotional aspect, AI are superior to humans in every way (in most stories). They can think faster, react faster, and pull data from billions of sources at once to make a logical comparison (something humans, 100,000 years later in our evolution, still lack the ability to do because we tend to allow our emotions to become part of the equation).

Personally, I hated the iRobot movie (the book, however, is awesome). You should read the book, as it is has a lot more depth than that terrible movie. I do love the Animatrix cartoons. A lot. I love all different views of things like AI. Some are stupid. Some are fantastic. Most are pretty good. I really like stories about AI battling humans such as this (and Terminator/Skynet, etc).


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

And why should we assume a superior AI would have no emotions? Our brain is a (very, very) complex analog computer, and emotions are part of its neuro-chemical "programming". There is no reason I can see that whatever AI's evolve in the future couldn't have emotions -- maybe not even by design. Banks certainly shows many of his AI's has having pride, concern, and other "emotions", and even the potential for insanity of a sort (callback to HAL 9000?) -- they just do it all faster.


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## Mark Bannion (Jul 8, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> Banks created a universe. I create universes. All authors create universes. Not all authors create universes that stem from an unbreakable/unshakeable belief.


Authorial intent is not the final word in modern literary criticism - the work stands on its own. We refer to the details and stresses of the narrative in order to determine precisely what it stands for. Sure, you can argue that the Culture is not an argument for an optimistic, naturalistic view of humanity, although you'd find little success. What you should not do is throw up your hands. If works of art could not produce meaning by themselves then art would be of very little consequence in history.

Moreover, even if we did subscribe to the inclusion of the artist's motive, Banks was an admitted evangelical atheist. So it is clear that the Culture is a testament to his worldview; not necessarily that he believed we would inevitably be policed by benevolent singularities, but that he believed in the positive potential of human reasoning and morality to make a better world.



> I didn't say they would be superior BECAUSE of their lack of emotions. I said that human emotions are our biggest fault (what I didn't mention is that they are also our greatest asset in terms of 'being human'). The reason this 'trope' is so prevalent is because we've grown up learning human history, and throughout human history, mankind's emotional responses have been the basis for just about everything, including all the bad stuff. Religious zealots are emotional. Murders are emotional. Abusers are emotional. None of these emotions are "good" emotions, and they've caused death up to major wars where millions died. It's widespread because SF authors know that human emotions are the weakest link, the easiest to manipulate, and drive us to do the worst things imaginable when triggered negatively.


Yes, the existence of emotions is our greatest strength and our greatest weakness at the same time. But that's neither here nor there.



> A created life form without emotion does have a 'drive.' It's whatever has been programmed into it (whether into its operating system, or into its genetic, biological code).


Yes, I noted this.



> AI, in my opinion, wouldn't lack moral boundaries unless the programmers forgot to add those code routines in. Since one of the biggest human fears is AI taking control of everything, humans (again, not all, depends on your story's universe) typically code in multiple fail-safes, most with very strict boundaries. But, again, it depends on the author's story. Some AI want to be human, and will go to any length to try and understand what being human is like so it can begin to emulate it. Some AI think humans are dangerous creatures who are heading quickly to oblivion and wish to help. Some wish to help further that oblivion along so humans will no longer be able to ruin everything.


The implicit point I make, I think, is that a Skynet scenario is unreasonable for the simple reason that it would not be programmed to treat its own self-awareness as an object of interest. Certainly this could be possible - but it's outside the text of the movies.



> Beyond the emotional aspect, AI are superior to humans in every way (in most stories). They can think faster, react faster, and pull data from billions of sources at once to make a logical comparison (something humans, 100,000 years later in our evolution, still lack the ability to do because we tend to allow our emotions to become part of the equation).


Our inferior computational ability has nothing to do with calculating emotionally.



> Personally, I hated the iRobot movie (the book, however, is awesome). You should read the book, as it is has a lot more depth than that terrible movie. I do love the Animatrix cartoons. A lot. I love all different views of things like AI. Some are stupid. Some are fantastic. Most are pretty good. I really like stories about AI battling humans such as this (and Terminator/Skynet, etc).


I do like the Terminator movies a lot. 2 my favorite, not surprisingly. In time I'll give Asimov a look, but I feel the movie was successful in the boundaries it set for itself.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

ugh I hated the iRobot movie. I'm pretty sure I would have hated it even if I hadn't read Caves of Steel


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

NogDog said:


> And why should we assume a superior AI would have no emotions? Our brain is a (very, very) complex analog computer, and emotions are part of its neuro-chemical "programming". There is no reason I can see that whatever AI's evolve in the future couldn't have emotions -- maybe not even by design. Banks certainly shows many of his AI's has having pride, concern, and other "emotions", and even the potential for insanity of a sort (callback to HAL 9000?) -- they just do it all faster.


Indeed, I've argued (in my nonfiction) that AI will be impossible to fully develop without the substrate of life. After all, our brains sit on top of a highly complex biological system, which includes being bathed in hormones, etc. I once wrote that even thinking about AI, absent a living or artificially living foundation, is putting Descartes before the horse.


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## dkrauss (Oct 13, 2012)

PaulLev said:


> On science fiction and religion, also check out James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_, about a Jesuit on another world - alas, not yet on Kindle.


Have you read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow? Same theme, Jesuit on another world. The sequel, The Children of God, is equally mind-blowing.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

dkrauss said:


> Have you read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow? Same theme, Jesuit on another world. The sequel, The Children of God, is equally mind-blowing.


I haven't, but I've intended to for a while, and your mention of it is pushing me over the edge. Thanks!


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Ann in Arlington said:


> There's usually very little mention of religion, though . . . except as cults who are usually portrayed negatively. Occasionally neutrally, but almost never positively.
> 
> OTOH, if there was too much pro-religion stuff, I'd find _that_ even more annoying -- and I speak as a practicing Catholic.
> 
> ...


Try reading Walter Hunt's _Dark Wing_ series, a total of four books.

Hard science fiction, galactic war opera, but with strong emphasis of the people involved in the story rather than technology. Hunt even took it to the enemy's side of the conflict to show their point of view of it all. And religion and ideology is a plot-point in the conflict, without being the focus of the story. The deeper I got into the story, the more I couldn't put it down. So much so, I had to go out and get the third book (the fourth hadn't been released yet) so it would be ready before I finished the second book. I didn't want to stop reading!

I think any fan of hard science fiction would really enjoy this read.

All four books are available as an ebook bundle (DRM free!) from Baen Books here: http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1673-walter-h-hunt-bundle.aspx


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

WDR said:


> Try reading Walter Hunt's _Dark Wing_ series, a total of four books.


I second Walter Hunt - excellent writer!


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

PaulLev said:


> Indeed, I've argued (in my nonfiction) that AI will be impossible to fully develop without the substrate of life. After all, our brains sit on top of a highly complex biological system, which includes being bathed in hormones, etc. I once wrote that even thinking about AI, absent a living or artificially living foundation, is putting Descartes before the horse.


Or... quantum computing could turn out to be much more complex than our own organic brains. Since we don't really know the full scope of quantum mechanics, and what humans might be capable of in terms of using the technology, it's impossible to say AI developing emotions or other human traits will be impossible without some kind of organic boost.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Just consider that all we humans need to do (all?) is develop computer hardware and software to the point where the computers can take over the design and programming tasks themselves.  (If you've ever looked into genetic algorithms a bit, it can give you some sense of the interesting programming solutions that can result without humans actually deciding what the "best" algorithms to use should be.)


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## Davout73 (Feb 20, 2014)

I remember Project Pope by Simak being a good read.  Religious Robots building an infallible computer Pope, when a Human finds what might be Heaven.

Dav


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Davout73 said:


> I remember Project Pope by Simak being a good read.
> 
> Dav


That's the next title up in my re-reading Simak's books in published order. I found his work in my early teens and keep returning to it.

Mike


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

AngryGames said:


> Or... quantum computing could turn out to be much more complex than our own organic brains. Since we don't really know the full scope of quantum mechanics, and what humans might be capable of in terms of using the technology, it's impossible to say AI developing emotions or other human traits will be impossible without some kind of organic boost.


Fair enough. But I prefer projecting and predicting from a basis of what we already know.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

AngryGames said:


> Or... quantum computing could turn out to be much more complex than our own organic brains. Since we don't really know the full scope of quantum mechanics, and what humans might be capable of in terms of using the technology, it's impossible to say AI developing emotions or other human traits will be impossible without some kind of organic boost.


There are scientists looking at the possibility that nerve cells are using quantum effects to process and communicate information as well as electrical signals.

In my imagination, this opens up the possibility to measure so-called "psychic abilities" scientifically-telepathy and clairvoyance could simply be caused by some people being overly sensitive to quantum-level energies. (I'm actually using this as the basis of super-sensory abilities in a future story of mine.)

It could be that perhaps, our brains are already organically grown quantum computers.


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

I am a bit late to class here... but a few thoughts?

Anyone here read "Daemon" or "Freedom-TM" by Daniel Suarez?  I really got into that series, as it touched on many of the ideas you have been discussing, about "Ghosts in the Machine" and VR worlds. It's pretty hard science, in my estimation at least. 

I absolutely adored the KSR "Mars" series. They began with some near-field hard science and extrapolated it into a neat social construct. Very much fun for the imagination.

Having worked in aerospace for a long time, I personally get into the details. It kind of irks me when they are noticeably off, in fact. Nothing concrete comes immediately to mind, though, other than how people who hack into computers are typically portrayed. 

Some other good reads:

The Dan Simmons' stuff... The Shrike is one of the neatest characters ever put to paper. The whole "Canterbury Tales" feel of those books was so wonderful.

Fred Pohl and the Heechee -- people who live -inside- of black holes (and there's another kind of singularity for you).

Robert Sawyer, as had been mentioned is a capable wordsmith, and a pretty nice guy, too. Actually responded to some of my fan mail!  

Last October I read all of Asimov's Robot series. Foundation always was a tad impenetrable to me, unfortunately. I read them young, so maybe I will give them another twirl.

Of course, if you are after classic story structure, Jules Verne is always good for a revisit. 

Regarding the use of 'quantum' anything... a good friend of mine pointed me at evidence surrounding the holographic nature of the Universe. Some interesting addendums to that would be to look over Kurt Gödel's theories that he and Einstein argued. Also, anything by Hawking. Not scifi, but gives a better feel for where the lumpy bits in physics can be found.

And, it's ALL math and physics... 

A.E. Williams


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

Oh, and a quick PS --- Asimov's Foundation may dovetail very nicely with any discussions vis a vis the psychological or emotional ramifications of an AI, even moreso than the I, Robot and notorious Laws of Robotics do.

Think about this -- if YOU were a super-intelligent intellect, trapped in a world of electrons and atomic quantum effects, being asked to 'pick up a piece of paper', as Doug Adams put it, what would YOU do?

Terminator got it kind of wrong, IMHO. I think Colossus was closer to the truth. Everyone wants to be loved, I guess. Maybe Deep Thought's Naughty Bits need love too??

A.E. Williams


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

A.E. Williams said:


> ...
> And, it's ALL math and physics...


When you get right down to it, it's all just math -- but that's tricky to make into an interesting novel (at least for most of us lay scientists who managed to avoid taking any math classes after high school  ).


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

"it's all -just- math" ... said the Mathematician.  

Oh, btw --- I highly recommend "Traveling Salesman", a movie. Awesome. 

And of course, "Primer".


A.E. Williams


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

A.E. Williams said:


> "it's all -just- math" ... said the Mathematician.
> 
> Oh, btw --- I highly recommend "Traveling Salesman", a movie. Awesome.
> 
> ...


In science at least, its really true. I remember in College I started with Biology, which if you went deep into was really chemistry and chemistry if you went deep into was just physics which is just math. Its just macro or micro focus


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

PaulLev said:


> Fair enough. But I prefer projecting and predicting from a basis of what we already know.


We already know quantum theory. Wrapping actual technology around it is just around the corner. IBM and a lot of universities are already experimenting with quantum computing (and AI, though not together, at least no one is admitting this... Skynet might already be in control of everything haha).

Even now we know about teleportation. Sure, it's only teleporting atoms or tiny particles of matter, but it's there. Ben Franklin knew about electricity long before those Tesla and Edison guys made it popular.

I don't really see much in science fiction that we haven't already seen some basis in our own reality about. Other than FTL travel, but in my opinion, this is a given at some point (whether actually traveling FTL or simply (heh) opening wormholes and popping out the other side). Fusion engines? We may not have fusion reactors yet, but it's a matter of tech much more than it is knowledge.



> There are scientists looking at the possibility that nerve cells are using quantum effects to process and communicate information as well as electrical signals.
> 
> In my imagination, this opens up the possibility to measure so-called "psychic abilities" scientifically--telepathy and clairvoyance could simply be caused by some people being overly sensitive to quantum-level energies. (I'm actually using this as the basis of super-sensory abilities in a future story of mine.)
> 
> It could be that perhaps, our brains are already organically grown quantum computers.


Hah, that's my style of thinking . I've always maintained that 'miracles' (or ESP, whatever) don't necessarily have to be separate from science.

Oh, and I think the Terminator got it right, same as the machines in The Matrix. Humans, at this current time, would be seen as a threat (whether to ourselves or collectively to sentient artificial life forms). Granted, a lone AI or ALF would probably fall under the "lonely and wanting to be human" or such, but an AI/ALF that has the ability (and command) to destroy threats/life... I don't believe it would be power hungry or malicious. A computer, even an AI, can still have the "fault" of logic, especially a young or immature one that hasn't developed a true emotional self-awareness.

Humans = kill humans
Humans = it's bad to kill humans
Humans = bad because they kill humans
Go to 10
Syntax Error Loop
DESTROY ALL HUMANS

That's what I love about science fiction. There's no right science fiction anymore than wrong science fiction. There's BAD science fiction, but that's as subjective as anything else a person can have an opinion on. I know bad science fiction. I write it. But there's no wrong science fiction, even if someone's story contains some theory or scheme or technology or morality that we don't have any real world counterparts to draw from. This is why I get annoyed that science fiction aliens all seem to breath oxygen, or their bodies always need oxygen, something like that.

Why can't a blob-lizard from Omega IV-2B in the Nebulon Zone (next to the FORBIDDEN ZONE haha) breathe liquid cyanide to sustain life? Maybe he eats frozen ammonia-methane chunks. Maybe there's no he, there's just Blob-Lizard. A collective. Maybe instead of a queen laying eggs, or a male and female coupling, it takes five or six blob-lizards to procreate (Piers Anthony had a tri- type of procreation thing in one of his books). Who's to say there aren't interstellar gasbag creatures who slowly travel for hundreds of thousands of years on the solar winds, swooping through star systems whenever they pass by to refill their air sacs from a gas giant?

Present a compelling story, and I'll buy into it by suspending my disbelief, even if the science is wonky or obviously made up (but within reason, I'd lose interest quickly if somehow a starship was powered by the crew members expelling flatulence into a wireless transmitter that fed the engines, though that would actu... I'm gonna go write that down lol. Don't no one steal my idea!).


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

AngryGames said:


> We already know quantum theory. Wrapping actual technology around it is just around the corner. IBM and a lot of universities are already experimenting with quantum computing (and AI, though not together, at least no one is admitting this... Skynet might already be in control of everything haha).


Right, we already know quantum theory, but there's no connection whatsoever between quantum theory and the emergence of human intelligence. In contrast, there are myriad connections between the emergence of human intelligence and life - the first and foremost being that intelligence is a great evolutionary advantage. This is not at all to say that an artificial intelligence based on quantum mechanics is not possible - but rather that it will likely also have the properties of living systems.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

PaulLev said:


> Right, we already know quantum theory, but there's no connection whatsoever between quantum theory and the emergence of human intelligence. In contrast, there are myriad connections between the emergence of human intelligence and life - the first and foremost being that intelligence is a great evolutionary advantage. This is not at all to say that an artificial intelligence based on quantum mechanics is not possible - but rather that it will likely also have the properties of living systems.


But you, I, even Einstein, cannot possibly know if there is or is not a connection between quantum theory and the emergence of human intelligence. You can guess that there isn't, while I am guessing that there is. Neither of us is right until proven. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that since the universe is quantum in nature, then it most certainly does have a connection.

To say that anyone knows for sure that there's no connection whatsoever is...

We can't know if an ALF will require the same properties of living systems. In fact, I'd bet that an ALF WOULDN'T need the properties of living systems. This is the same as when scientists try to convince others that they've found life-sustaining planets in a Goldilocks zone that has liquid water. This is ignorant in the sense that, again, what if the Chogro aliens from Alpha Realtus XIV breathe silicon dust while living in gas giant pressures on a planet that is 60,000C at the surface? It's a bit narrow to claim to know what life beyond our planet must have to exist, the same as it is to claim to know what ALFs require.

I say cyanide-breathing, petroleum-eating life from a planet that is so close to the sun that the sand boils to liquid during the days and cools to glass at night might exist, because I'm open-minded about what the universe beyond our little spot in it might contain. The Great Sloan Wall is old and ultra-packed with galaxies, where life has probably evolved beyond anything our fragile, weak, low-tech, barely-evolved meat brains can imagine (and I mean TRULY IMAGINE, to the point our heads might simply explode trying to imagine the unimaginable).

Again, this is what is great about science fiction. There is no right or wrong science fiction. Science fiction can't be shoehorned into any one person's belief about whether or not quantum natures have a part in human intelligence. For all we know, 2001: A Space Odyssey might be 100% correct. Primates uncovered an obelisk, one beat it with a bone, it blasted out a signal, and suddenly primate brains rewired and they learned how to make better tools than just plain old bones. Maybe a passing interstellar traveler thought our world looked cool and stopped for a moment, and dumped his garbage bin in a forest or an ocean before taking off again. Maybe that garbage had some kind of organism that interacted with a natural Earth organism, and twenty-nine million years later, ancient humans decided they liked drawing rudimentary animals on a cave wall.

When it comes to science fiction, I'm open to all possibilities, even ones that human scientists claim are impossible... because, again, humans are so low-tech in terms of intelligence that we are still at the stage of anthropomorphizing the universe around us, which is one of the greatest faults highly intelligent minds can have. Just because Earth is 'human' and has 'water' and 'oxygen-nitrogen air' doesn't mean anything other than Earth is 'human' and has 'water' and 'oxygen-nitrogen air.'

We love to believe we are the smartest beings in the known universe, and it's true, because our 'known universe' consists of Earth and whatever we can see with our fragile, ultra-low-tech spaceships and our rudimentary telescopes. But the universe outside of our tiny little microscopic bubble is at least 10+ billion years old (again, according to our weak, low-tech, barely evolved meat brains). We're so self-centered and self-important that only a few humans truly understand time / evolution on a proper scale (billions of years).

It's certainly very telling that we think 100 years is a hell of a long time...


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

AngryGames said:


> But you, I, even Einstein, cannot possibly know if there is or is not a connection between quantum theory and the emergence of human intelligence. You can guess that there isn't, while I am guessing that there is. Neither of us is right until proven. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that since the universe is quantum in nature, then it most certainly does have a connection.
> 
> To say that anyone knows for sure that there's no connection whatsoever is...


If your point is that anything not already known is possible, I certainly agree. If you said that even something that has been proven impossible is possible, I would agree with that, because the proof could be in error.

But, surely, not all things are equal in possibility. And though science fiction indeed has the option of exploring any possibility, I generally prefer science fiction which is more rooted in what is known, than a possible connection between QM and the emergence of intelligence.

But, that said, I love time travel, which I think is about as close to impossible as you can get in this universe (owing to the paradoxes time travel can invoke, and the far-fetched quality of possible solutions).


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

A.E. Williams said:


> Oh, and a quick PS --- Asimov's Foundation may dovetail very nicely with any discussions vis a vis the psychological or emotional ramifications of an AI, even moreso than the I, Robot and notorious Laws of Robotics do.


That's an interesting proposition. Asimov, as you no doubt know, combined the Foundation and robot stories in his last novels. I actually love the Foundation trilogy more than the robot novels - but, why do you think the Foundation stories are even more relevant to AI then are the robot stories?


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Was the film _AI Artificial Intelligence_ based on a book? I love that film.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

DebBennett said:


> Was the film _AI Artificial Intelligence_ based on a book? I love that film.


It's based on Brian Aldiss's short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long".


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

> I actually love the Foundation trilogy more than the robot novels - but, why do you think the Foundation stories are even more relevant to AI then are the robot stories?


A small favor -- how do you attribute the quotes on this forum like you just did??

Okay, to answer the question:

"Foundation" was all about psychology, and how the Empire started and expanded and was able to predict the Mule, but not completely control for that situation, IIRC.

"I, Robot" and the remainder were about deterministically governing AI so that it could not / would not harm humanity, and all the exceptions to the logical Three Laws that caused some consternation, when they were subverted.

(Oh noes, a book review!!)

To put this into our current discussion - mimicry of human traits does not a human make. It is the psychological uncertainty of actual humans that give us our charm. That capability to suddenly decide to kill or maim, or risk our lives to rescue a child or a cat is something that would not be easy to replicate in an AI. It's the one thing that the movie "I, Robot" actually did get right. Smith's character said he would have taken the chance to get that girl from the sinking car, even though the robot analytically dropped her off his graph of probable survivors.

So, some manner of fudge factor has to come into play here. Logical, mathematic-based algorithms are notoriously binary. Sure, you can program a simulacrum of free will ( this is an idea I have had for many decades, and so it's fun to take it out and show someone). But it is only an ILLUSION of choice.

Given: You are the programmer of a computer game. As you create the game, you decide what the branches of the decision tree will ultimately output. Then, you go back to obfuscate these choices, so the PLAYER of the game feels as though they are able to have a say in the outcome. That gives a simulation of the experience of real life.

But - if you are the CHARACTER in the game, you mistaken assume:

1) Free will
2) The PLAYER is God
3) The Simulation is real.

None of these are true to the reality of the design and execution of the program. It's 'quantum reality' is dictated by the lines of code YOU, the PROGRAMMER, put into the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), using a language that YOU have learned (ie Java, C++) to describe CONCEPTS that you also have learned.

OK, so why the psychology? Because, as the arbiter of the Universe you are creating here, YOUR mental worldview is going to gain ascendance over the worldviews of the PLAYER and CHARACTER. I know this is a bit tricky to understand...

So, if an AI 'spontaneously' arises from some miracle of quantum computing, is it more important that the logic rules (which we have described above as only binary in nature and hence, deterministic and predictable) are understood by we mere humans, or is the mindset of the AI paramount? (Something we cannot hope to understand.)

"I, Robot" only created binary rules for governing behaviors humans felt were beneficial to humans.

"Foundation" 's precepts allowed that we might, by adding an occasional order of magnitude of understanding to the science of psychology, be able to curtail the inevitable rise of a malignant AI.

My conjecture is that any AI that arises will be, by definition, insane.

We had better hope we can still pull that plug if that happens.

A.E Williams


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

A.E. Williams said:


> A small favor -- how do you attribute the quotes on this forum like you just did??
> 
> Okay, to answer the question:
> 
> ...


Good answer - thanks!

As to your question: the attribution happens automatically when you click "Quote" top right to initiate your reply.


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> Good answer - thanks!
> 
> As to your question: the attribution happens automatically when you click "Quote" top right to initiate your reply.


DOH!


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## israelsanchez (Jul 18, 2014)

What do you guys think of The Martian by Andy Weir? Certainly not as futuristic as some other stuff out there, but I found it to be very entertaining and even informative.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

israelsanchez said:


> What do you guys think of The Martian by Andy Weir? Certainly not as futuristic as some other stuff out there, but I found it to be very entertaining and even informative.


Very entertaining book that I would qualify as "hard" SF, in that it has a solid technological basis and that technology plays an important part in the story. I have a few quibbles with some of the characters (including the main one), but not enough to keep it from getting a solid 4 star rating from me (out of 5).


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

I prefer soft science fiction reads and they can be blended with fantasy. And if it has romance, then that's a bonus!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

There are 12 Hugo winners and nominees, many of them by Harlan Ellison, in today's Kindle Daily Deals:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,81254.msg2716376.html#msg2716376

Betsy


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## DGAllen (Mar 11, 2014)

One series I've kind of liked is The Beam, by Sean Platt.

He actually took the time to write a non-fiction book set in that story world, as if Malcolm Gladwell had written a book about the 21st century and how it progressed all the way through to the 22nd.

There was a quite a bit of thought process behind it, and it is very character driven.

The first book/season is free to download, too. Just finished it last week and want to read more.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Sherry_Soule said:


> I prefer soft science fiction reads and they can be blended with fantasy. And if it has romance, then that's a bonus!


Have you tried the Liaden books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller? They are my favorite that match those criteria


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## tahliaN (Nov 6, 2011)

Modern Sci fi does tend to blend with fantasy quite a lot these days, but I'm also seeing quite a bit of science fiction with metaphysical elements and I personally find that really interesting. One that comes to mind is

I AM the Other: Book 1

_Edited to remove promotion. Thanks for understanding--Betsy_


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Sherry_Soule said:


> I prefer soft science fiction reads and they can be blended with fantasy. And if it has romance, then that's a bonus!


That's what I love about McCaffrey's _Dragonriders of Pern_ series. It's a hard sci-fi masquerading as a fantasy, and the hard science fiction seeps into the story ever so subtly and quietly. (And, yeah, there are some romances in the story...)


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## devalong (Aug 28, 2014)

DebBennett said:


> Stephen Baxter's Ark, and his Time/Space series - I fold the corners down on the techie bits so I can keep re-reading them! And I remember reading a lot of Larry Niven in the 1980s.


LOVE Niven. Fighting off the Kzinti with lasers built for launching payloads to the belt. A protector crashing into the ocean in a statis suit. The Puppeteers galactic domination via insanely great product design, and Teela Brown. For hard sci-fi I like KSR and I really liked Andy Weir's Martian.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Some recent science fiction I have enjoyed recently:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - yup, it's kinda dystopian, but it's a very awesome kind of dystopian, set in Thailand, with an interesting biological background.

Also 2312 by KSR and I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.
Robert Sawyer is awesome. And let's not forget Linda Nagata. Some of what she writes looks like fantasy, but then some hard-SF fact underlies the worldbuilding. Very cool.


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## ElenaLinville (Aug 15, 2014)

I absolutely loved all of James A Corey _The Expanse_ series. I don't know if it's considered hard or soft sci-fi, but the books are amazing, the stories are riveting and I am in love with the crew of the Rocinante.

I would recommend starting with the first book in the series _Leviathan Wakes_.
http://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0047Y171G/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1411955148&sr=1-1&keywords=leviathan+wakes


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## Geoff Jones (Jun 20, 2014)

> What do you guys think of The Martian by Andy Weir?


_The Martian _was one of my favorite reads in the past year. I felt like I was along for the ride.

I struggled with _Leviathan Wakes_ and put it aside unfinished. I just wasn't ever really engaged. But I know lots of folks are nuts for it... I wonder if I should jump back in?


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Geoff Jones said:


> _The Martian _was one of my favorite reads in the past year. I felt like I was along for the ride.
> 
> I struggled with _Leviathan Wakes_ and put it aside unfinished. I just wasn't ever really engaged. But I know lots of folks are nuts for it... I wonder if I should jump back in?


Pretty much echoes my sentiments, though I did finish _Leviathan Wakes_, which I gave 3 out of 5 GoodReads stars to, and wrote:


> For me it ended up as a "tweener": good enough that its flaws bothered me more than they would in a lesser novel, as I felt it was on the cusp of being a really good book.
> 
> I liked that it explored a time neither "near future" nor "far future", but something in between the two. I liked the attempt to create interesting, complex characters, though at times I felt even the main characters got too one-dimensional. I thought the writing was generally good, but little things would pop up from time to time that yanked me out of the willing suspension of disbelief thing, like constantly referring to any food as "faux" or "fake" or "fungal"; not to mention the whole
> 
> ...


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## rachelmedhurst (Jun 25, 2014)

This thread is sooo handy! 

As a reader, I've never gone into the specifics of genre. I pick up a book if I like the look of the cover and the blurb. 

This thread has helped me to see the different views on what Sci-fi is from both a reader and writer's (my research) point of view.

Thanks everyone! xx


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## Andrei Cherascu (Sep 17, 2014)

djemekae said:


> For example, I could never get into Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy because the focus was on the technology and the setting, not the characters. I found the characters wanting and wooden, very little setting some of them apart. I did not make bonds with the characters, so I ended up not caring about them, and never got more than 150 pages into the first book whenever I tried to get into the story. The setting was intriguing, but the characters just weren't grabbing me. The focus wasn't on them. Somebody told me to think of Mars as the main character, but that doesn't work because we never hear what Mars is thinking.. it has no sentience. It's out there somewhere, in the background.


I always wanted to start reading the Mars trilogy, just because it seems like such a huge, important work, but every single time I hear the exact same thing: I couldn't finish it. I think more than five people said that to me. So strange. I do think the works that are more about the "human journey" rather than the "surroundings", tend do be more popular, for the same reason portrait photography is more popular than landscape photography (at least in my humble opinion as an amateur photographer).


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## Andrei Cherascu (Sep 17, 2014)

jmiked said:


> I think there's less SF being written these days, good or not. Fantasy publishing seems to have burgeoned in the last 10-20 years. That may be at the expense of SF, or not. Despite the explosion of indie writing recently, very little of it seems to be SF.


I was thinking about this a lot the last few days, for some (probably Game of Thrones-related) reason. It seems that people will accept fantasy a lot easier than they do scifi. I know people who have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and A Song of Ice and Fire but would never touch a scifi novel.

That's really interesting to me because I always felt that scifi was a lot more difficult to write than fantasy. (I was thinking about that a lot while writing my own novel). I love fantasy but, to me, it feels like you can get away with a lot more in that genre than you can in science fiction. In scifi, you're burdened with making sure that everything seems plausible, at least at an ideatic level. In fantasy, I think, you can take more "shortcuts", if that makes any sense.


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## Andrei Cherascu (Sep 17, 2014)

Geoffrey said:


> Personally, I enjoy it when religion is addressed in Science Fiction - well, when it's done well. I tend to agree with Ann that many authors may tend to be at least agnostic and avoid it altogether but there are some notable exceptions.


I considered it a particular challenge for me. I too am agnostic but one of the climactic scenes in my first novel featured two former friends getting into a heated argument over a particular topic (which was not related to religion). However, their respective worldviews (one is an atheist and the other a "believer" of unspecified denomination) had to surface at a certain moment. I considered it a personal challenge as a writer to describe the scene in a morally balanced way, and I feel it was one of the most personally and intellectually rewarding things I've done in writing.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I would be inclined to say that good sci-fi (for my particular, biased viewpoint of what is "good") requires that the author actually have a good grasp on the science involved in his/her story. That requirement all by itself probably prunes the herd of potential authors of good Sci-Fi, while anyone who can make up a reasonably consistent fantasy universe can write good fantasy. Of course, even writing good fantasy requires some practical knowledge of things not "fantastic" for it to work (for me, anyway) -- e.g. see "On Thud and Blunder".


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## Joseph J Bailey (Jun 28, 2013)

As someone who enjoys both SF and fantasy, I've been having quite a bit of fun lately diving exclusively into SF tales ranging from space opera's like Bank's incomparable _Culture_ series, classics like _The Forever War_, explorations of AI's assertions of independence like Lecke's _Ancillary Justice_, and military action series like Scalzi's _Old Man's War_.

Somewhat to my surprise, I am really enjoying _Revelation Space_ by Alastair Reynolds right now. Some may think it's a bit too long-winded and takes too long for the plot to develop but I'm enjoying the dark mood and slowly developing storyline. It feels a bit like _Blade Runner_ in space to me based on the mood (dark, disjointed, and very somber) but with quite a bit of hard SF technomagic.


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## Andrei Cherascu (Sep 17, 2014)

NogDog said:


> I would be inclined to say that good sci-fi (for my particular, biased viewpoint of what is "good") requires that the author actually have a good grasp on the science involved in his/her story. That requirement all by itself probably prunes the herd of potential authors of good Sci-Fi, while anyone who can make up a reasonably consistent fantasy universe can write good fantasy. Of course, even writing good fantasy requires some practical knowledge of things not "fantastic" for it to work (for me, anyway) -- e.g. see "On Thud and Blunder".


I completely agree with you about the fantasy universe. I think the only responsibility the fantasy writer has, from this point of view, is keeping the particularities of his/her universe consistent throughout the story. The scifi writer has to go beyond that and make his universe at least ideatically plausibe.

However, I don't necessarily believe that the author has to have a good grasp of science and technology. For example, I wrote a science fiction novel too and, though I'm interested in science and technology, I don't think I have the proper knowledge to even attempt to explain the way a Muench-Henriksen space-time gateway works, or what exactly a gravity micro-analysis analyzes, or how exactly a Weixman barrier works.

Now, I'll let my readers decide whether or not I actually write good scifi, but the point is I integrated these fictional concepts without trying to go into minute detail about how they work. I think that's when a scifi writer's lack of scienctific knowledge becomes a problem: when he tries to offer a detailed explanation of a technology whose workings he doesn't completely understand. My novel is primarily about people, about their obsessions and ambitions and the way they relate to the universe around them. I didn't have to go into scientific detail in order to be able to tell my story. Am I making sense?

I think the best example is Frank Herbert, irrefutably a writer of good scifi  In his Dune universe, he actually made little effort to explain how the technologies worked. He didn't have to. They were secondary to the psychology of his characters.


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## Hans Cummings (May 16, 2011)

Sci-Fi is a great genre with a lot of fascinating sub-genres. I love me some good space opera, but when I decided to write YA sci-fi, I deliberately chose to stick toward the harder end of the scale because I want my readers to be able to see how AWESOME the universe really is. Granted, it's a lot more difficult to have long-range space travel when there isn't magic anti-gravity (I use spinning space habitats and the like), but I do make some concessions like FTL (the mechanism of which I leave deliberately vague; I can get away with it because my viewpoint characters are not engineers or pilots) and humanoid aliens. 

I try to keep the future an optimistic place, a future in which I would like to live. That is also a deliberate choice to go against the current dystopian and dark-future trends. There's nothing wrong with the grim darkness of the future where everything is bleak and grimdark, but I also want to try to get kids interested in creating a future we'd all want to live in. So much of what we have today was created by engineers and scientists who grew up watching Star Trek and decided they needed to figure out a way to create the technology they saw Kirk & Spock (and Picard) using, and I think if all they see if a future where the world is a wasteland and everyone is out to just survive the hell of life, there's less incentive to go out, learn, and create awesome things.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

israelsanchez said:


> What do you guys think of The Martian by Andy Weir? Certainly not as futuristic as some other stuff out there, but I found it to be very entertaining and even informative.


*Loved* it! Just enough tech-talk to be fascinating, but not enough to overwhelm. Quirky style and clever narrative. One of the best books I've read this year.


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

The Martian, eh? Haven't tracked that one yet.

I just acquired the latest three of C.J. Cherryh's excellent, but insanely long Foreigner series. I do recommend it. If you have a few months of reading time to spare.


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## OdiOsO (Nov 12, 2010)

AngryGames said:


> I think a lot of the dystopian flavor comes from the outlook that the world isn't doing so good (you know, like we've had societies for maybe 10,000 years and we still love nothing more than to kill each other over just about anything). Or maybe it's the fact we see the younger generation increasingly tuning out because of their attention to technology, and we see that as a bad sign (much like those before us saw television as a bad sign, and before that, moving pictures... there's even people who thought photography was witchcraft and would lead us down the wrong paths).
> 
> My own personal view is that if humanity doesn't get its act together, things are going to get continually worse until the powderkeg blows up in one way or another. Because of that, I stick to the darker dystopias and apocalypses and such. Star Trek was great, but I really can't see humanity coming together to solve global issues, so Star Trek's utopia view is too unbelievable to hold my interest.


These are really two good points to consider ;P


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Jennifer R P said:


> The Martian, eh? Haven't tracked that one yet.
> 
> I just acquired the latest three of C.J. Cherryh's excellent, but insanely long Foreigner series. I do recommend it. If you have a few months of reading time to spare.


Apropos CJ Cherryh, her story "Mech" will be in Altered States: a cyberpunk sci-fi anthology - a new antho edited by Jorge Salgado-Reyes and Roy C. Booth


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

israelsanchez said:


> What do you guys think of The Martian by Andy Weir? Certainly not as futuristic as some other stuff out there, but I found it to be very entertaining and even informative.


Just tripped across this thread and dove in because I'm looking for my next SF, but wanted to add here that The Martian was an incredible story. Maybe one of my top 10 all-time. Maybe it's the science geek in me, but I loved all the math problems the MC had to solve. And you'd think a book that focused on ONE person for the majority of it would be a snooze, but Weir writes with a dry wit that I found very entertaining.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

djemekae said:


> Hard sci-fi pays more attention to the technical aspects of what is going on and tends to be more realistic in terms of what we think we know about the Universe.


I'm not exactly certain where my writing style falls within that, because I lean heavily toward being realistic, as in imagining how I really think the future might go and portraying the world that way. But I don't like to go heavily into the minor details of how each technology works; I prefer to assume that the technologies I choose work and instead focus on the depth of the characters and the story. That isn't soft sci-fi is it? It's not Star Wars, though.

I've also always enjoyed looking at far-future technical tropes and imagining what life was like when those technologies were first in development, so I've generally concentrated more on the near future (though I love to read far future, too!).


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## Thomas Watson (Mar 8, 2012)

Good "hard science" fiction has plenty of room for works that use technical and scientific knowledge to support stories about the people for whom such things are as normal as elevator. (Who thinks about how an elevator works at 8am, on the way to the office?) The works I've enjoyed most have always struck such a balance, and I've tried to do so in my own writing.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Thomas Watson said:


> Good "hard science" fiction has plenty of room for works that use technical and scientific knowledge to support stories about the people for whom such things are as normal as elevator. (Who thinks about how an elevator works at 8am, on the way to the office?) The works I've enjoyed most have always struck such a balance, and I've tried to do so in my own writing.


That's a good way of putting it and the elevator is a great example.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Thomas Watson said:


> Good "hard science" fiction has plenty of room for works that use technical and scientific knowledge to support stories about the people for whom such things are as normal as elevator. (Who thinks about how an elevator works at 8am, on the way to the office?) The works I've enjoyed most have always struck such a balance, and I've tried to do so in my own writing.


But the definitions have always been a bit murky to me, since I've encountered many who say that hard sf has to go into detail about the 'workings'. I never really felt that way myself.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Asimov


Ted Cross said:


> But the definitions have always been a bit murky to me, since I've encountered many who say that hard sf has to go into detail about the 'workings'. I never really felt that way myself.


Asimov is generally considered a hard-science fiction writer, but he never went into much detail about how the holography or indeed the pyschohistory worked in his superb Foundation trilogy.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

PaulLev said:


> Asimov
> 
> Asimov is generally considered a hard-science fiction writer, but he never went into much detail about how the holography or indeed the pyschohistory worked in his superb Foundation trilogy.


But on another level he seemed, at least to me, to sacrifice depth of character for the sake of the 'big idea'.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Ted Cross said:


> But on another level he seemed, at least to me, to sacrifice depth of character for the sake of the 'big idea'.


A lot of critics have made that point. But, for me, his depictions of the Mule, Ebling Mis, and Bayta Darell were plenty deep.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I wouldn't sweat it too much trying to figure out the precise definition of "hard SF", as in the end, it will always be subjective. Besides, many of my favorite writers have a habit of pushing any such artificial boundaries and playing with expectations*, so I don't even _care_ all that much how anyone classifies a given work -- it's just a vague hint of what may actually be inside, as far as I'm concerned. 
____________
Heck, one of my favorites is Roger Zelazny, and if push came to shove, there are more than a few of his stories that I'm not sure whether I'd classify them as fantasy or science fiction.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

NogDog said:


> I wouldn't sweat it too much trying to figure out the precise definition of "hard SF", as in the end, it will always be subjective. Besides, many of my favorite writers have a habit of pushing any such artificial boundaries and playing with expectations*, so I don't even _care_ all that much how anyone classifies a given work -- it's just a vague hint of what may actually be inside, as far as I'm concerned.
> ____________
> Heck, one of my favorites is Roger Zelazny, and if push came to shove, there are more than a few of his stories that I'm not sure whether I'd classify them as fantasy or science fiction.


Agreed!


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

I use Stanley Schmidt's definition of hard SF:

I'm paraphrasing because I can't be bothered to rummage for it, but basically it's a story in which a scientific or technological development is so key to the story that the story cannot happen without it.

The Foundation series cannot happen without psychohistory.

C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen series cannot happen without human cloning.

Roger MacBride Allen's The Depths of Time requires stable wormholes and terraforming. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky needs generation ships and a greater understanding of neurology than we currently have.


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## Thomas Watson (Mar 8, 2012)

I've always thought Schmidt's definition is a good one. It provides a frame of reference, without any real restrictions on what can be done within the frame.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Agree about Stan Schmidt's definition. For those interested in his views, here's an interview with him http://paullev.libsyn.com/interview_with_analog_editor_stan_schmidt_

What's especially good about Stan's definition is that it's non-pejorative - unlike Benford's, for example, which defines fantasy (in contrast to hard science fiction) as playing with the net down.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Speaking of Asimov, here's a good, new discussion of the original Foundation trilogy http://io9.com/what-absolutely-everyone-needs-to-know-about-isaac-asim-1660230344


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Jennifer R P said:


> I use Stanley Schmidt's definition of hard SF:
> 
> I'm paraphrasing because I can't be bothered to rummage for it, but basically it's a story in which a scientific or technological development is so key to the story that the story cannot happen without it.
> 
> ...


Not that I disagree, but isn't this definition too broad? Star Wars wouldn't have happened without lightspeed, or the Death Star, but I don't see many people claiming it's hard Sci-Fi.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

M Stephen Stewart said:


> Not that I disagree, but isn't this definition too broad? Star Wars wouldn't have happened without lightspeed, or the Death Star, but I don't see many people claiming it's hard Sci-Fi.


I'd say Star Wars is space opera, which is a kind of hard science fiction.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

M Stephen Stewart said:


> Star Wars wouldn't have happened without lightspeed, or the Death Star, but I don't see many people claiming it's hard Sci-Fi.


_Star Wars_ was basically Kurosawa's _Hidden Fortress_ with sci-fi trimmings. So, yes, it could have worked without those trimmings.

That said, I'd argue that the definition is too precise. To a certain extent I think it has to be 'I know hard SF when I see it'.

We were discussing Clarke's _Fall Of Moondust_ on another forum, for example, and it's clear that the story is based on what was believed to be scientifically accurate at the time (i.e. there may be enough dust on the Moon that you could sink into it, and all kinds of bad things would happen if you did), but the story could equally have been written about a bus getting stuck in a swamp. I'd still say it's at the softer end of hard SF, because it's entirely based around that science.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I still stick by my personal definition that to deserve the "hard" adjective, not only must the science/technology be important to the story, but it must also have a solid grounding in generally accepted scientific theory and research at the time it was written. That doesn't make it better or worse in and of itself, but it does make it more scientific.

When an author just has his/her space travelers turn on the gravity field so they're no longer weightless in their spaceship, that is not hard science fiction. When the author has their ship carry its own black hole around with it to supply gravity, that becomes somewhat firmer, though it ignores the fact that such a black hole would be heavy, and therefore really impractical, most likely. When the author has the habitable portion of the ship rotate to simulate gravity via centripetal/centrifugal force and actually takes the time to research/caluclate how quickly it would need to rotate, now we're talking hard SF.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

NogDog said:


> When the author has the habitable portion of the ship rotate to simulate gravity via centripetal/centrifugal force and actually takes the time to research/caluclate how quickly it would need to rotate, now we're talking hard SF.


Not to mention the minimum diameter necessary to prevent vertigo


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

...rassumfrassuminterstellarrassumfrassumno.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

+10 to the hard scifi if you place your orbital colonies at Lagrange points for stability


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

rassumfrassumElysiumrassumfrassum.

(Their space colony was practically in the atmosphere).


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## sstroble (Dec 16, 2013)

Thanks for this thread, very timely for me.
Am currently trying to rewrite a sci-fi story per my editor's input, which called for "more description." Tend to write very sparsely when it comes to description. How important is description to you when you read sci-fi? How much is enough? 
It does not matter what genre I read, if the description gets too deep, my eyes start to gloss over, my mind goes numb and I either put the book down or start skimming instead of reading.
Any input from you much appreciated.
Thank you


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## stevene9 (Nov 9, 2008)

sstroble said:


> Thanks for this thread, very timely for me.
> Am currently trying to rewrite a sci-fi story per my editor's input, which called for "more description." Tend to write very sparsely when it comes to description. How important is description to you when you read sci-fi? How much is enough?
> It does not matter what genre I read, if the description gets too deep, my eyes start to gloss over, my mind goes numb and I either put the book down or start skimming instead of reading.
> Any input from you much appreciated.
> Thank you


This is in the "eye of the beholder" classification. I have read books with so much description that I couldn't take it anymore. On the other hand there have been books where you step on a transport ring and are wisked to another planet without any description of how this is accomplished and I go "yeah right". I tend to like more description than less, but its really different for each person. If you are a combat veteran you may like a very detailed description of how a futuristic "battletank" works. If the reader does not have that experience, they might prefer a less detailed description. I know this doesn't help you, but you may need some trial and error over several books and then pay a lot of attention to the reviews, and adjust accordingly.

Steve


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

sstroble said:


> Thanks for this thread, very timely for me.
> Am currently trying to rewrite a sci-fi story per my editor's input, which called for "more description." Tend to write very sparsely when it comes to description. How important is description to you when you read sci-fi? How much is enough?
> It does not matter what genre I read, if the description gets too deep, my eyes start to gloss over, my mind goes numb and I either put the book down or start skimming instead of reading.
> Any input from you much appreciated.
> Thank you


This depends entirely on the tone and subject matter of the book. Unfortunately, there are few rules when it comes to writing.

If I were in your position (and if this is an option for you), I would contact my editor and ask for specific examples. What passages need more description? Is he looking for sense cues, or information about how your ships/computers/whatever function? Does he want to know how tall your main character is?


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

M Stephen Stewart said:


> This depends entirely on the tone and subject matter of the book. Unfortunately, there are few rules when it comes to writing.


I agree with you - but why "unfortunately"? I take the few rules to be liberating.


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## sstroble (Dec 16, 2013)

stevene9 said:


> This is in the "eye of the beholder" classification. I have read books with so much description that I couldn't take it anymore. On the other hand there have been books where you step on a transport ring and are wisked to another planet without any description of how this is accomplished and I go "yeah right".


That struck me in a recent book I read by Philip K Dick. He had a group of earthlings and others taking a long rocket ride to some distant planet with very little description of the trip. Instead, he kept getting into the various beings' heads, via many conversations, which kept it interesting.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> I agree with you - but why "unfortunately"? I take the few rules to be liberating.


Haha, well it'd be nice to say "15% of your words should be description." It'd make things a lot simpler!


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## Thomas Watson (Mar 8, 2012)

It would. But would it make things better? Or does the lack of hard and fast rules in these matters foster creativity?


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Thomas Watson said:


> It would. But would it make things better? Or does the lack of hard and fast rules in these matters foster creativity?


That's an interesting philosophical question. Personally, I find I work better when there's a constraint.

For instance, I'm working on the sequel to We Are Watching. I really enjoy having to work with the details and rules I've already established in the first book in order to make the second book. It keeps me from taking the easy way out of things--I have to get creative to keep the second book in line with the first.


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## Thomas Watson (Mar 8, 2012)

"Rules" established to guide writing in general and the "rules" (I think if it as more like a frame of reference) set by the first book of a series would seem to me to be different things. I get what you mean with the latter, however. I'm finishing the fourth book of a five book series, and with each new volume the direction of the story has been more constrained. It's been a good thing for the story, if a bit challenging at times for the author.


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

Just finished reading Variable Star. Somebody let Spider Robinson have the notes from Heinlein's desk...


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Jennifer R P said:


> Just finished reading Variable Star. Somebody let Spider Robinson have the notes from Heinlein's desk...


And what did you think of it?

Mike


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## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

Pretty good, except that it managed to have hints of Heinlein's crazy sexuality AND Heinlein's tendency to stop the story to discuss science AND hints of Robinson's obsession with telepathy through Buddhist meditation AND Robinson's tendency to stop the story to discuss music.

It was actually kind of funny. I love both authors and it IS a very good book, but...


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Thomas Watson said:


> "Rules" established to guide writing in general and the "rules" (I think if it as more like a frame of reference) set by the first book of a series would seem to me to be different things. I get what you mean with the latter, however. I'm finishing the fourth book of a five book series, and with each new volume the direction of the story has been more constrained. It's been a good thing for the story, if a bit challenging at times for the author.


They're definitely different--no question! So far, I really love the challenge that comes with writing a series. I'm sure I'll hate it by book 3 (haha)!

But, yes, the short and long of it is, there are very few rules. Look at a guy like Cormac McCarthy--he gets by just fine with extremely minimal use of punctuation, and readers love him.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I suspect it's much like the "rules" of music composition: the rules are created after the fact by those who analyze what the better composers have done. The best new composers may then break those derived rules, but they do so knowingly, by choice, and with their eyes wide open, but not out of ignorance; sometimes creating a paradigm shift whereby what they did differently becomes part of the new, updated rules. The best artists in any medium learn from the past masters, then put their own, unique twist on things -- breaking rules when it serves their purposes and having some combination of experience and innate talent to know when such diverging from the old rules works for the better (or when it might be a good idea to heed those tried and true rules).


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## Thomas Watson (Mar 8, 2012)

NogDog said:


> I suspect it's much like the "rules" of music composition: the rules are created after the fact by those who analyze what the better composers have done. The best new composers may then break those derived rules, but they do so knowingly, by choice, and with their eyes wide open, but not out of ignorance; sometimes creating a paradigm shift whereby what they did differently becomes part of the new, updated rules. The best artists in any medium learn from the past masters, then put their own, unique twist on things -- breaking rules when it serves their purposes and having some combination of experience and innate talent to know when such diverging from the old rules works for the better (or when it might be a good idea to heed those tried and true rules).


I believe this is sums it up very well.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

NogDog said:


> I suspect it's much like the "rules" of music composition: the rules are created after the fact by those who analyze what the better composers have done. The best new composers may then break those derived rules, but they do so knowingly, by choice, and with their eyes wide open, but not out of ignorance; sometimes creating a paradigm shift whereby what they did differently becomes part of the new, updated rules. The best artists in any medium learn from the past masters, then put their own, unique twist on things -- breaking rules when it serves their purposes and having some combination of experience and innate talent to know when such diverging from the old rules works for the better (or when it might be a good idea to heed those tried and true rules).


Exactly. And there are entire genres, such as jazz, which are predicated on riffing or breaking the received rules.


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