From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Diamond-hard SF
Summary: Character, plot, & cliched idea are for mundane fiction
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:58:02 GMT

>In article <1992Nov6.195713.14495@math.ucla.edu> dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:

>I'm willing to read a so-so
>written sf novel if it is full of original and startling ideas.

I second this, and go further.  Characters and plot are the
exemplar components of mundane fiction.  I do not care to see them 
at all, unless they are important to the technology or to the artistry 
of the story -- and almost always these days the artistry of the story 
is defecated upon by the introduction of mundane characters or plot 
elements, polluting the potentially fertile vast tracts of the SF 
landscape with the toxic reek of an inferiority complex to mundane 
genres.

For example: a poetic description of weird, original psychoactive 
effects of a genetically engineered aphrodisiac would be quite 
interesting.  The mere unaugmented desire of character X to take character 
Y to bed I could read about in other genres, or live out in real life 
myself for that matter, which is quite preferable to the fiction.  
In good diamond-hard SF, mundane characterization or plot movement 
is edited out, right along with the bad grammar, violations of the 
laws of physics, cliched ideas, engineering illiteracy, economic
illiteracy, and other crap that we should not have to put up with.   

One of this newsgroup's SF-as-mundane-fiction pushers decried 
_Analog_ in a recent post.  BFD.  I can't stand _Analog_ either, 
but it has nothing to do with the "quality" of their fiction, 
mundane style. No, I can't stand _Analog_ because it treats 
technological concepts like religious sacraments.  Take that 
muse-forsaken never-ending series _Assembers Of Infinity_, which 
combined cliched nanites -- if they'd read Drexler they'd know 
the things work much better with carbon -- with the saddest attempts 
at mundane charactertization I've seen in many a moon.  And speaking 
of moons, I've been nauseated by way too many lunar bases that 
function in no believable economy but merely as a religious 
tokens of some mass-delusional ritual that plagues SF authors.

Diamond-hard SF should be free from techno-cliches like space
stations, O'Neill space colonies, lunar bases, AIs, humanoid
aliens, etc. unless they are done in a radically different, 
interesting way.  Sadly, most SF has been polluted with 
either cliched styles from mundane writing style or cliched
settings from techno-religions, and as a result, most of what 
could be the best genre on the planet _reeks_.  Our task: to 
find the gems in the manure pile. 

Which brings up some questions:

* Who out there like me reads SF for its original tech and
  prose, not for the blather of "character development" and 
  "plot" that can be found in mundance forms of fiction?
* Do there exist any fan groups, critics, authors etc. dedicated
  to promoting diamond-hard, idea-packed SF, or is there interest
  in same?
* What should be the minimum criteria for diamond-hard SF?
  I would say for starters it should have at least one
  interesting, original idea per page.  If the first nine
  pages don't hit me upside the head nine times, I toss
  the loser!  
* What are the best works in this diamond-hard style?


-- 
Nick Szabo					 szabo@techboook.com