From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Subject: Re: Diamond-hard SF
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:07:30 GMT

In article <BxtJ4w.FDs@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:

>I second this, and go further.  Characters and plot are the
>exemplar components of mundane fiction.  

"Exemplar components?"  A marvelously tortured phrase.  You seem to be missing 
a point, though: characters and plot are the "exemplar components" of fiction,
period.


>I do not care to see them 
>at all, unless they are important to the technology or to the artistry 
>of the story 

Then why read science *fiction* at all?  Most of the "ideas" in SF can be found 
in purer form, and with a wider range of exploration, in non-fiction.  You 
provided an excellent example yourself, in K. Eric Drexler's ENGINES OF 
CREATION; other good examples would be A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, THE MEDIA LAB, 
GODEL, ESCHER, BACH, FEARFUL SYMMETRY, etc., etc.:  indeed, there's a whole slew
of good books, pretty much a non-fiction genre unto itself.

So why bother with fiction?  Clearly it disturbs your enjoyment of the "ideas,"
which seem to be all you're interested in.


>-- 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.

A delightful bit of invective, Nick, but that's really all it is.  

"Mundane characters" -- you mean people who act and feel as people?  That's an 
essential to any fiction.  Most readers want characters they can identify with,
whose triumphs and failures _mean_ something to them (and, vicariously, to the
reader).  "Plot" is intimately bound up with this (in fact, I think separating
the two is ultimately a mistake:  they are as closely connected as two quarks
in a proton), in that "plot" is the engine that keeps the character (and the
story) moving:  it _is_ those failures and triumphs.  

At a very simplistic level, a story is a character/characters who wants/needs
something, and how he/she/they goes/go about attempting to get it.  (EG: Hamlet
wants justice/revenge for his father's murder; Frodo wants to save his beloved 
Shire from the threat of the Dark Lord of Mordor; Huck wants to avoid being
"sivilized"; (Maha)Sam(atman) wants to deliver the people of his world from the
iron rule of Trimurti; etc.)  The story begins when the first serious attempt
on the goal is made, follows subsequent failures, achievements of subgoals,
etc., and ends when one of a few things happens:  the goal is achieved; the goal
is shown to be unachievable (though this may be shown only to the reader, not
the characters); the goal is discovered to be a false goal and the real goal is
achieved; etc.

If you don't have some kind of variation on this, you don't have a _story_, you
don't have _fiction_.  [Pace modernism and post-modernism:  there is some
variation on this even in Beckett, Joyce, et al.]

So again:  if you don't _like_ characters/plot, why read 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.   

Please:  that's "crap up with which we should not have to put." :*)

It seems clear (at this point) that you might be fairly isolated in this
opinion.  I've *never* heard *anyone* claim before that SF should be without
plot or characters:  at most, that they should be kept "thin" to avoid 
interfering with the "ideas," whose precious bodily fluids might be polluted
if by chance the characters ever thought about anything but the Wonder Of It
All.

Feh.


>One of this newsgroup's SF-as-mundane-fiction pushers decried 
>_Analog_ in a recent post.  BFD.  

Might well've been me.


>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.  

So, uh, Nick. . . what _do_ you like?  Is there _any_ fiction out there
that passes the Szabo test?


>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.  

So everything has been said that there is to say about these topics?  Damn,
you have a tight sphincter on your imagination.


			"You realize, pally, that your gun is
			likely *plugged* with tar an' won't
			fire proper."
				"A logical theory, old friend....step
				closer so that we may experiment."


Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written