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| discuss the evidence |
Before discovering
science fiction as a literary genre, I had already adopted a scientific outlook in my life. My interest in science created a problem for me and made it difficult for me to deal with the types of narration that are commonly used for science fiction stories. How so? Well.....
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| who wrote this? |
My first reaction upon reading anything is to wonder: "Who wrote this? Why should I believe anything that this author says?" Due to my love of science, I'm a skeptic and I really want to know if a story writer cares about little things like logic, collecting evidence and testing hypotheses.
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Job 1: entertain. ...then maybe
we'll worry about scientific plausibility.... |
Too many writers spew page after page of creative nonsense; they spin stories that are too disconnected from reality for my taste (which leans very heavily towards
hard science fiction). Here is a short definition of "hard" science fiction: science fiction that was written by science nerds for other science nerds.
Many Sci Fi stories are told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator who is free to try to slip anything past editors and on to the poor defenseless readers. For me, such stories can be a real turn off when they disconnect from reality and get entangled in
fantasy. I believe that there should be some constraints on science fiction story tellers. There are some things that I don't want to hear from an omniscient narrator when I'm reading science fiction. Perhaps the most fundamental constraint is that science fiction story tellers should be scientifically literate: I don't want to find scientific nonsense in a story.
Also, just because a story is set in the future or has a spaceship in it, that does not mean that the story is a science fiction story. I lament how much time I've spent during my life sorting through the ocean of stories that are labelled "science fiction" in search of the types of stories that I will enjoy. Sometimes it is easiest just to go back to old science fiction stories that I know are safe...
10 Years
In my
previous blog post, I traveled 10 years into the past in order to look back (through time travel-tinted lenses) at the film
Next. Another movie that came out in 2007 was
The Man From Earth, written by Jerome Bixby. I no longer remember how I first became aware of Bixby as a science fiction story teller, but he provides an interesting case study as a writer who could sometimes entertain me and at other times annoy me.
I first discovered Bixby's Sci Fi either through the episodes of
Star Trek that he wrote (and that I watched in re-runs during the early 1970s) or it was when I read his short story "
The Holes Around Mars" that was originally published in
Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1954.
I read "The Holes Around Mars" when it appeared in
Where Do We Go from Here?, a collection of stories assembled by
Isaac Asimov and published in 1971, right when I discovered that a written literature of science fiction existed.
I've
previously described how I grew up at a time when old stories about life on Mars were over my Sci Fi event horizon. By the 1960s, too much was known about Mars as a real planet. A little science nerd like me could not pretend that there might be canals on Mars and jungles on Venus. However, even if you ignore all mention of Martian life in "The Holes Around Mars", the story failed to be believable (even for a 12 year old kid). It was obvious that Bixby had constructed the entire story around a silly pun. There was nothing in "The Holes Around Mars" designed to satisfy a science nerd like me. The idea of a moon of Mars that would behave as depicted in the story was scientifically absurd.
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One of the first Sci Fi books I bought
cover art by Paul Lehr (1969) |
I can understand why Asimov included "The Holes Around Mars" in
Where Do We Go From Here? Asimov's famous story called "
The Last Question" was designed to lead up to the last line of the story: a fantastically advanced artificial life form simply says "Let there be light!" and a new universe comes into existence. I first read "The Last Question" in
Nine Tomorrows. The cover of my copy of
Nine Tomorrows proclaimed: "Tales of the Near Future", but the final line of "The Last Question" is in the far future, after the stars have all gone cold.
Some Sci Fi stories simply cannot be resisted. Their authors are compelled to write them, even if they are written just to express a pun or a silly joke. There is room in science fiction for humor (I accept the axiom: entertainment is the first priority), but if I want to hear something funny, I'm not going to look towards the science fiction genre to provide me with laughs. I seek out and read science fiction for nerdy science and technology-encrusted "what if?" stories, not chuckles.
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| The needed sequel. |
Asimov's story "The Last Question" deals with three of the larger topics that have ever been explored in speculative fiction: 1) the ultimate fate of Humanity, 2) will it be possible for we humans to create artificial life forms that will eventually replace ourselves? and 3) is it possible to create a new universe? His entire story works as "hard" science fiction right up until the very end, then Asimov can't resist pulling his final line from the Bible. Other authors (such as Carl Sagan in his novel
Contact) have taken more seriously the question: could a living being create a new universe? However, "The Last Question" still has the look and feel of a Sci Fi story that was written by a science nerd for his fellow science nerds. In contrast, "The Holes Around Mars" reads like a vehicle for a silly pun and is full of scientific nonsense that will annoy science nerds like me.
A major reason why I find it difficult to enjoy most stories that get labeled "science fiction" is that they are not written by fellow science nerds.
Here is an example. A more famous example is "
By Any Other Name", one of the more scientifically absurd
Star Trek TOS episodes that originated from a story that was written by Bixby. I suspect that I would have been happier had I simply read Bixby's original story instead of watching the television episode. After
Dorothy Fontana re-wrote the story and it was crammed into 50 minutes of television, it was full of scientific absurdities.
I've
never enjoyed Sci Fi stories about super advanced aliens who always can be defeated by bumbling humans. In "By Any Other Name", we are told that alien invaders from the Andromeda galaxy have super technology that allows them to travel intergalactic distances in 300 years. However, after making the long trip to our galaxy, their super sophisticated space ship fell apart and now they need to borrow the
Enterprise so that they can return home. Also, we are expected to believe that the aliens created human bodies and transferred their minds into those "containers" because they must take human form while they ride in the
Enterprise back to their home galaxy. Also, we are asked to believe that the aliens want to invade and conquer our galaxy because they can no longer survive in their galaxy due to rising radiation levels. After 50 minutes with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, the alien commander realizes that he should abandon the evil plan of conquering our galaxy and he and his fellow alien invaders should live happily ever after in their new human bodies. This is the obvious conclusion to reach because the alien commander will get to live happily ever after with Barbara Bouchet.
"By Any Other Name" was intentionally given a light tone by Fontana. Besides the sexy alien played by Barbara Bouchet, the other memorable part of the episode comes when Scotty drinks an alien under the table.
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| The Man From Earth |
As much as I dislike the scientific nonsense of "By Any Other Name" and "The Holes of Mars", Bixby wrote one of my favorite
Star Trek episodes, "
Requiem for Methuselah". Sometimes I wonder if "Requiem for Methuselah" is autobiographical. I've long been frustrated by how little information is available about Bixby's early life and education. Supposedly Bixby began writing stories about an immortal human in the early 1960s. He did not finish writing about this idea until just before his death and his work was turned into the 2007 film
The Man From Earth.
Now, here in 2017 there is
a sequel to
The Man From Earth. I hope that this series of films will actually one day get around to including an interesting scientific account of what is going on, of how a human was able to live for thousands of years. Bixby seemed to be able to craft a science fiction story that would not offend me when he did not try to explain any of the details. It is probably good advice for most story tellers: when possible, leave the details to the imagination of the reader.
Third person omniscient
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You can call it a science fiction story,
and put it in your Sci Fi encyclopedia,
but do not expect us to believe
that it is really science fiction. |
More often than not, I reach a point in a Sci Fi story where I want to say, "This story is silly. That would never happen. The author has let his imagination run off the rails. This makes no sense." I often end up feeling that the author of the story got lazy and grew tired of trying to tell a coherent story. [And, in some cases, the author never even
tried to make the story believable; there was some other objective... the story is not really science fiction, it is from another genre, and only contains some superficial features of a science fiction story.
That is another issue. In this blog post I want to focus on stories that are true science fiction.] Absolute power can corrupt and the absolute power of omniscient narration can too often corrupt an author.
...the human mind is so far from omniscient...
"The Exile of Time" was published in 1931, near the start of the Sci Fi era. Ray Cummings used a first person narrative, but he was trapped in the pre-science fiction past, when the need for action and a struggle of "good vs. evil" routinely trumped any efforts directed towards believable science and technology.
The type of
murderous clanking robots that Cummings depicted in "The Exile of Time" provided motivation to a young Isaac Asimov, driving him to imagine robots from an engineering perspective rather than the Frankenstein's monster perspective. I like to imagine that in
another Reality, writers like Ray Cummings might have managed to start the golden age of science fiction a few years earlier than in our
Reality.
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Asimov's robot Daneel.
Engineered to help Humanity,
not exterminate the population
of New York City. |
When I read a science fiction story, deep down inside, I have a bias towards wanting a
first person narrative, just like what we read in a scientific journal article that is reporting new data from experiments. I want to hear about a known person (a sane person who is reliable) and what their experiences have been. In all honesty, what I'd
like is the opportunity to ask questions of the narrator and what I'd
really like to be able to verify what I've been told by the narrator.
Given my personal biases, I feel like there is something magical when
1) the author of a story is part of the story and
2) I feel like I can trust that author to tell me the truth.
However, I also like objectivity. Any one person can have too narrow of a perspective on a story. I like to imagine that a group of collaborating authors should be able to tell any story better than a single narrator could.
The Editor
My biases (outlined above) account for how I arrived at the idea of story narration that is organized by an editor. For the
Exode Saga, there is a group of collaborating authors and all their various experiences are assembled, organized and presented to the reader by an editor.
For example, I pretend that parts of the Exode Saga are told by
Ivory Fersoni.
The Editor was able to interact with Ivory and collect some of her stories and include important parts of Ivory's stories in the Exode Saga.
Within the Exode Saga, characters such as Ivory and
The Editor are depicted as struggling to understand the world and trying to share what they have learned with the reader. The reliability and believably of information is explicitly examined and questioned. In particular, the Editor does not want to be tricked into misinforming readers.
Evil Author
Characters such as Ivory are explicitly depicted as wondering if they can trust the Editor. Similarly,
The Editor must wonder if Ivory's stories can be trusted and verified. Ideally, the Editor would like independent confirmation of anything Ivory claims to be true. The struggle for proof and verification of information is explicitly part of the Exode Saga, just as the struggle for truth is explicitly part of scientific endeavors.
In particular,
The Editor is depicted as struggling with the question: "Should
I be trusted?"
Stated more dramatically, is
The Editor evil?
The Editor is forced to wonder: am I just a puppet, being forced to play a particular role, a role that will turn out to have disastrous consequences? Again, stated dramatically,
The Editor wonders: am I a force for good or evil?
Side characters
Some of the lesser characters in the Exode Saga are Interventionists. They believe that Earthlings should know the truth about their origins. From the perspective of such
Interventionists (such as Ivory),
The Editor is performing a necessary function that will help the human population of Earth survive and spread outward among the stars.
Other characters in the Exode Saga stand in opposition to
The Editor and his efforts to share the Exode Saga with the people of Earth. For example, the
tryp'At Overseers feel that
The Editor is dangerous. Some of the Overseers worry that
The Editor is being used for evil purposes.
Isaac Asimov believed that good science fiction stories can successfully present readers with characters who are caught up in a struggle while leaving the reader uncertain about which characters are right (or "evil") and how the struggle should turn out in the end (see
this discussion). I put "evil" in quotes, because it is not necessary to depict anyone in a science fiction story as "evil". Being quick to depict a character as evil is often a sign of authorial laziness. When an author is lazy, sophisticated readers notice and they quickly become bored.
So, for the Exode Saga, I encourage the reader to wonder if the author is evil. I should probably be very explicit and have a member of the
tryp'At council present the evidence supporting that view.
Next:
fixing the Foundation
