The Laws of Science Fiction

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by GlennD

If memory serves me correctly I believe at least part of "Startide Rising", by David Brin, is written from the point of view of the dolphin captain.

No kidding? I MUST read that book!

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by GlennD

If memory serves me correctly I believe at least part of "Startide Rising", by David Brin, is written from the point of view of the dolphin captain.

Originally Posted by DixieGal

No kidding? I MUST read that book!

Well, here's an extract for you:

"Click, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, click, click".

It really works better as an audio-book

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Well, here's an extract for you:

"Click, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, whistle, whistle, whistle, click, click, whistle, click, whistle, click, click".

It really works better as an audio-book

Aw shucks, that doesn't sound good at all.

[Steven Lake]

ROFL!

[Tom Wood]

I'm not sure if it's a 'law' but I'd say it's a bad idea to introduce something that is clearly paranormal like 'the force' and then come back later and prop it up with invented 'science' like midichlorians. Just sayin'....

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by Tom Wood

I'm not sure if it's a 'law' but I'd say it's a bad idea to introduce something that is clearly paranormal like 'the force' and then come back later and prop it up with invented 'science' like midichlorians. Just sayin'....

That doesn't count because it is true!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Recently another member here started a thread on the laws of zombionics, which of course dealt with all the laws about zombies and the like. So here's my spin on it for science fiction. What do you believe are the top rules of science fiction? Now, to make it more interesting, I'm looking for a top twenty list, but this will be broken down into two categories: Sci-fi Do's and Don'ts. IE, what things should always happen (or they are things you highly recommended should happen) in a scifi book, and what items should NEVER happen in a good sci-fi book. Let's hear your thoughts.

I can think of some guiding principles, but won't try to do a Top 20 Dos or Don'ts.

The biggest one, offhand, is that you can speculate all you want on what we don't know, but you have to get what we do know right. You may not have to go through the trouble Robert A. Heinlein once went through, where he and his wife Virginia unrolled a sheet of butcher paper on a table, each started at a different end, and they independently did a complex orbital ballistics computation, to make sure a spacecraft could get from place X to place Y in time Z as required by the story. (Bob had Ginny cross check because he thought her math was better than his.) But you do have to have your known facts straight, to avoid getting greeted with unintentional laughter. You can write an SF story where you send your protagonist to Venus, but you better be aware we've already sent robot probes and we know damn well that what's under the clouds isn't the tropical rain forest some of the old pulp writers hypothesized.

Another is not to get too enamored of a plot device at the expense of the story. There's a chap elsewhere who wrote a three volume series, and shot himself in both feet. He was exploring the effects of a certain circumstance, did a lot of research to bolster the idea, and learned everything except that the mechanism he was proposing to produce the circumstance wouldn't work that way. He could have chosen a different way to produce the circumstance whose effects he wanted to explore and told the same story, but he was too attached to a particular gimmick.

It was both an example of the first point I raised, and an inadvertent demonstration of a potential pitfall of self-publishing. A competent SF/fantasy editor would have called him on the notion and suggested a different approach.

Another it to be careful of your setting. The late SF writer editor, and critic Damon Knight once said "If it reads like it could have been set in Australia, it probably should have been!" A lot of bad SF is a standard present day story with a few SF tropes tossed in to make it part of the genre. The test is simple: if you remove the tropes, do you still have a story? Theodore Sturgeon once commented that an SF story is one that could not exist without the science component. If yours can, maybe you aren't writing SF.
______
Dennis

[Luke King]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Theodore Sturgeon once commented that an SF story is one that could not exist without the science component. If yours can, maybe you aren't writing SF.

I think this a little limiting. There are plenty of novels in the top 100 lists that could exist without their science component, and some simply have none at all.

In this class there is 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Man in the High Castle, A Clockwork Orange, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Handmaid's Tale, The Chrysalids, Flatland - and that's just what I can pick from what I've read on this list:

http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersy...oks_rank1.html

When it comes to science fiction, I prefer Damon Knight's definition - that it means what we point to when we say it.

I really don't think it's possible to make a list of do's and don'ts.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

If you want your character to be called Triathelete, then call him Triathelete. Don't spell it Tr'th'leit and expect me to care. Nothing turns me off faster than trying to sound out something with too few vowels and too many apostrophes. It is very intrusive and I can never lose myself in the story.

This reminds me of the introduction of the novelization of Nightfall, which can be read at Google Books.

(Mildly) interesting aside-- I see that there is a mistake on the publishing info page-- it says "This novel is based on the true story "Nightfall"..." when obviously they meant short story.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

No kidding? I MUST read that book!

You should.

_Startide Rising_ is part of the Uplift series by Brin.

The premise is that mankind has developed FTL travel and ventured out into the galaxy. It has also used genetic engineering to raise dolphins and chimps to human level sentience, and one of humanity's exploration ships has a dolphin commander and mostly dolphin crew.

Humanity discovers there is a billions of years old galaxy wide civilization. Intergalactic, in fact, which extends though five galaxies, and once extended to fourteen. Billions of years ago, a species known as the Progenitors became the first to achieve sentience. They built ships, developed FTL travel, and went looking for other sentient species. Because they were the first, they didn't find any. They did find worlds with species which might become sentient with a little help. The Progenitors provided that help, began the tradition of Uplift, and vanished millennia ago.

Uplift has become the closest thing to a religion the galaxies possess. Many galactic species believe the Progenitors will one day return, and seek to make the galaxies the sort of place they think the Progenitors desired. When humanity comes on the scene, every known sentient species has been Uplifted by an older species. Species who are Uplifted become Clients who owe their patrons 10,000 years of indentured servitude in return, and status in the galaxies is measured in part by how many species your race has Uplifted.

Along comes humanity. We appear not to have had a Patron. This is anathema to half the galactic clans, because attaining sentience on their own is a holy act only the sainted Progenitors could achieve. But if we had a Patron, whoever it was dropped the project and disappeared halfway through. This is anathema to the other half of the galactic clans, because Uplift is a sacred responsibility you do not simply drop in the middle. And humanity arrives with two already Uplifted Clients of its own and instant status.

Half the galactic clans think humanity should be extinct on general principle. The other half think we need 10,000 years or so of proper seasoning as someone's Client, preferably theirs.

And that Dolphin crewed exploration ship may just have found out what happened to the vanished Progenitors...

Lots of fun.
______
Dennis

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

If you want your character to be called Triathelete, then call him Triathelete. Don't spell it Tr'th'leit and expect me to care. Nothing turns me off faster than trying to sound out something with too few vowels and too many apostrophes. It is very intrusive and I can never lose myself in the story.

To follow on this, it is probably best to avoid potentially punny names unless humor is a part of the series. As an example, in the comic book series "Legion Of Super-Heroes" (set 1,000 years from now) the hero Ultra Boy's real name is Jo Nah. He got his powers (basically each of Superman's powers, but can only use only one at a time) from being swallowed by a space whale.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by kcmay

Great list!

Remember that planets usually have complex weather systems. Writing "It was raining on planet Flabizoo when the aliens arrived" makes me think that's a very small planet.

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

RULE #1 about science fiction.

It's about people in new environments and the problems they have, not new environments that happen to have people in them! (I'm real broad-minded about what you consider people...The world awaits a yarn about a intelligent dolphin, from the dolphins point of view....)

Perhaps not from a dolphin's point of view, but the later Pern novels of Anne MaCaffrey spring to mind.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You should.

_Startide Rising_ is part of the Uplift series by Brin.

The premise is that mankind has developed FTL travel and ventured out into the galaxy. It has also used genetic engineering to raise dolphins and chimps to human level sentience, and one of humanity's exploration ships has a dolphin commander and mostly dolphin crew.
Dennis

Must be a big exploration ship to cope with all that water;
wonder is it a mixed crew that needs dry areas also ?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Must be a big exploration ship to cope with all that water;

Big enough to hold the water for the dolphin crew.

wonder is it a mixed crew that needs dry areas also ?

Yes. There are human members of the crew.

The water comes in handy. At one point, being chased by unfriendly aliens, they dump most of the water into space behind them. It promptly becomes a cloud of ice crystals. The cloud forms the metaphorical brick wall the pursuer runs into. Splat! (At the speed the pursuer is going, that cloud of ice crystals might as well be a brick wall.)
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Luke King

I think this a little limiting. There are plenty of novels in the top 100 lists that could exist without their science component, and some simply have none at all.

In this class there is 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Man in the High Castle, A Clockwork Orange, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Handmaid's Tale, The Chrysalids, Flatland - and that's just what I can pick from what I've read on this list:

http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersy...oks_rank1.html

I wasn't attempting to propose Sturgeon's notion as a definition of SF. I just thought it was a useful measuring stick. If you can remove the tropes and still have the story, maybe you aren't writing SF, and should consider removing that window dressing.

A lot of stories ultimately fail because the author doesn't clearly understand just what story she is telling, and what form that story should take.

Ultimately, good fiction is moral fiction. Characters are presented with challenges, and either grow and change to meet and surmount them, or fail. The advantage to SF is that it lets us present challenges that don't and can't exist in the world we live in.

When it comes to science fiction, I prefer Damon Knight's definition - that it means what we point to when we say it.

So do I.

I really don't think it's possible to make a list of do's and don'ts.

Nor do I.

[dgillette.rm]

Originally Posted by curtw

Kind of a meta-law, but...

Never leave a well-loved and best-selling series idle for more than a decade without a new book (I'm talkin' to YOU, David Brin!)

Right on.