Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
I was talking with some co-workers (one of whom does not read for fun) about a current book I am reading, and a problem I am having with it. Basically, I feel that the book does not make any sense. The two main characters get transported to the future, where there is a highly advanced technological utopia-esque society. Yet the entire world (except for a portion of mid-town Manhattan) has been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear war and other catastrophes. There are literally no people living anywhere else.
So, after pages of a parade of cool new technology including some special bathtubs, I started wondering how a society as 'large' as mid-town Manhattan would be able to sustain the manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure to support such things. It just did not make sense to me. If Manhattan was all you had to work with, you'd lose a lot of useable space just growing food to support the people, never mind manufacture the special bathtubs. It just defied logic that the society portrayed in the book could exist.
And he told me that it's all pretend anyway so it doesn't have to make sense. I say fiction or not, it still has to make sense and if there is some special explanation for something illogical, they need to clue the reader in. So, what do you think...it's all pretend so who cares, or I am right to demand an explanation.
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Haven't read any of this thread except this post, so this is all my reply relates to.
I saw a really interesting special on green architecture recently. There are now designs for workable highrise no-soil "fields." The crops actually grow in this substrate, and they can pack several acres of substrate into each level of a highrise. Same thing for manufacturing ... if you put your manufacturing, and living space into a tall enough building, you can have a fairly healthy community in a really small space.
I will have to find a link (if there is one) to the substrate farming buildings. Oddly, if I recall correctly, they were planning one for New York.
Oh, here, I found the link to an article by Cory Doctorow. It's actually called "Vertical Farming."
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/24...rming-hig.html