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Science, Progress, and Science Fiction

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As a novelist I often get categorized as a ‘hard’ science fiction writer, which I’ve never been entirely certain fit because I absolutely make use of the customary handwavium and even the occasional Unubtanium. Of course, I do try to at least explain my speculative technologies within the framework of real scientific hypotheses and theories… and that is where things can get sticky by times.

For your average reader in most genres, cutting edge research isn’t on their daily reading list. That’s just not the case in Science Fiction, however. Scifi readers tend to enjoy science, at least the knowledge of it, just as much as they enjoy science fiction. And that’s awesome, but it does make for interesting times as an author because science advances, and does so quickly, so sometimes your brilliant (or just acceptably clever) scientific plot point can be turned into fantasy magic overnight by some PhD at Cern or other research facility.

Ok, by this point it sounds like I’m complaining about science ruining my novels.

Not even close.

When you’re writing speculative works, you have to expect that some (most) of your speculations will be wrong. That’s just par for the course unless you happen to be a PhD with access to billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and a series of theories that you’ve, for some reason, not already put out to your peers.  If you’re that guy, I have to question your priorities.

Still, it can be jarring to have something you specifically wrote about be chucked out by scientists, even if you knew it was coming anyway. It’s happened three or four times over my time as a writer, and each time I go through the same stages of response.

First, there is the automatic face palm.

Yeah, that moment where you’re just grateful that you weren’t drinking anything when you found out, otherwise you know you’d have a mess to clean up. Your brain goes immediately to the vilest epithets you can imagine which, for me, is usually something out of Bugs Bunny… (Don’t judge me.)

Thankfully that only lasts for a few seconds because, hey, this is the game we play and we play it because we love it. Any advance in science is good for science fiction. When a door closes, a dozen others unlock, because that’s just how huge the universe is. Maybe someday we’ll know so much about how things work that every theory that’s disproven somehow makes the universe smaller, but that day isn’t going to be today.

So that brings us to the second stage, the question of whether we can adjust the story to work. This is an important question, particularly if the story is currently ongoing. If we’re working on a series and we know that there will be another novel coming out, or more perhaps, then we have to decide if we’re going to stay in our, now ‘fantasy’ world, or try and wrench the laws of physics back to reality as we’d like to know them.

Sometimes this is easy, especially with cutting edge theories. Quantum Mechanics is such that you can bury a lot of crimes in the uncertainty of String or M-Theory. Sometimes, though, it can’t be done without retroactively messing with novels you’ve already written and, quite likely, other people already love.

Don’t DO that.

It’s better to write fantasy than mess with the stuff people already love.

Ok, maybe it’s a close call… I mean, it is Fantasy and all. (I’m kidding! Relax, I like fantasy, just making a point about so called hard science fiction here.)

So we finally get to the third stage, Acceptance.

Yeah, we get there faster than for stages of grief, but we’re science fiction types. We’re just awesome that way.

Whether you’ve managed to fix the problem, or you’ve decided that it can go play in the Elysian Fields for all you care, it’s time to put it aside and go back to writing.

After several times through this process, I have to admit that I look forward to it now. Being proven wrong, even when it was relatively obvious, is fun. It means that you’re working with real ideas that real people are also tangling with in the real world. Even being wrong is awesome because of that connection to actual research.

We’re science fiction fans, all of us, and that connection with the cutting edge is what drives us just as much as the ancient link to the story construction itself. We care about both the future and the past, so science fiction connects both the cutting edge world we live in and the oldest art we know of…

Storytelling.

 

Evan Currie has been writing both original and fan fiction works for more than a decade, and finally decided to make the jump to self-publishing with his techno-thriller Thermals.

Since then Evan has turned out novels in the Warrior's Wings series, the Odyssey One series, and the first book in an alternate history series set during the height of the Roman Era. From ancient Rome to the far flung future, Evan enjoys exploring the possibilities inherent when you change technology or culture.

In his own words, “There's not much I can imagine better than being a storyteller.”

Worldbuilding in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Worldbuilding.  It’s a term that gets bandied about quite a bit when discussing fiction, especially in genres like science fiction and fantasy, but for all the endless times it is repeated, I think sometimes the importance is overlooked.worldbuilding

It’s very fashionable to say things like, “character development is the important thing,” or “it’s the story that matters.”  And, of course, those things are absolutely essential.  But they’re not the whole story.  Not by a longshot.  Not in science fiction or fantasy.

A work of historical fiction set, say, during the American Civil War doesn’t need worldbuilding…it’s world is the world, and beyond pointing out some historical facts the reader might not know, the author can focus almost solely on characters and storyline.  But science fiction and fantasy demand more.  These stories take place in worlds that are the creations of their authors.  They may be set in the near future, based heavily on the real world, or they may be wildly different (a galaxy far, far away), but either way, the reader needs to understand this setting, and the only way that’s going to happen is if the author fleshes it out.

Imagine a work like Dune, without the immense detail of the empire, stripped of the customs, institutions, and history so carefully laid out by the author.  What is left?  A good story, some well-developed characters?  Yes, perhaps.  But an enduring classic of the genre? Doubtful.sandworm

Or Asimov’s Foundation series…with its galactic empire and its ‘world as one giant city’ capital.  The characters come and go in what is mostly a series of short novellas, but the overall plot of the fall of empire ties them all together.michael-whelan_isaac-asimov_foundation

On the fantasy side, could there be a better example than the Lord of the Rings?  The three books cover little more than a single year’s activity, yet Tolkien’s work wouldn’t be the classic it is without the massive worldbuilding that gives us thousands of years of fictional history interspersed with a few months of real time action.lotr

In science fiction and fantasy, the setting is like a character itself, often as much a part of the story as any hero and villain.  When I think of the books that have resonated with me in my forty-odd years of reading science fiction and fantasy, it is those that offered rich worlds in which I could lose myself that became the favorites I pull out every couple years to reread.

Writers pursuing effective worldbuilding sometimes get blindsided by terms like “infodump,” and efforts to show the reader the true vision of a fictional universe often falter on such endless attempts to oversimplify good writing into arbitrary ‘rules’ and nonsensical little blurbs like, ‘show, don’t tell.’  Should a book start with an encyclopedia-like multi-page blast of pure background information.  No, not usually at least.  But is it important to share the true scope and vision of a fictional universe?  Absolutely.  Do readers want to know about these worlds their favorite authors create?  Definitely.

There is no question that worldbuilding has to be done well, subtly, and not like a tank smashing through the wall.  Information needs to be doled out slowly, steadily, not in one massive torrent.  In a series it can come over several books.  But when it is done, and done well, the rewards are enormous, both to the author and to the reader.  The best fictional universes take on lives of their own, and they begin to feel real, at least to the readers who become ever more immersed in the escape they offer.

As an author, more often as not, I’ll begin a new project with a clearer idea of the setting and the realities of the universe than the characters themselves.  I want my heroes—and my villains and bystanders too—to feel like they’re from that setting, and not some generic creations I cooked up and dropped in…which is why worldbuilding remains the core of my writing process, and always will.

I’d like to add a note on another kind of worldbuilding, the kind that is behind this web site.  This is my first blog post for DiscoverSciFi, and I’m very excited to continue to share ideas and motivations with all of you.  I’ve got a long list of topics for future posts, and I know my co-author partners here do as well.

One of the things I love about participating in something like DiscoverSciFi is the chance to create another way to reach readers.  Authors today have the opportunity to be closer to their readers than ever before, and I think this is a great thing for publishing in general.  I get a lot of emails from fans, and I answer them all.  There is no substitute for input from those who read and enjoy your books, and no better source for new ideas where to take a story than those from fans.  I’m excited to see where this DiscoverSciFi journey takes us.  I’m sure it will be a great ride!

Jay Allan

jay@jayallanbooks.com