From: rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu (Richard M. Romanowski)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Diamond-Hard sf
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:20:26 GMT
Organization: UB

sherman@SOL1.LRSM.UPENN.EDU (Bill Sherman (Bill Graham's group)) writes:

>	I think that there are two aspects of sci-fi that make it
>particularly interesting and which attract thoughtful readers to the
>genre.  First of all, there is the  exploration of what could
>possibly exist or be built given the currently known laws of nature.
>Second, there is the exploration of how those things which might exist
>would interact with society and its individual members. 

	This sounds a lot like Philip K. Dick's definition of sci fi in
his new collected works volume.  (At least, I assume it's new....)
He says that sci-fi is in the realm of possibility, but it deals with a world
that is different from the real world in some way -- sometimes a future,
sometimes an alternate present.  Then you have people, and societies, which
are notably different due to the difference in universe.

	To me, sci-fi comes with science first.  Technology should be part 
of it, but it should be written with scientific reasoning in mind.  Stuff
like _Brave_New_World_ is sociological fiction, whereas Jules Verne or 
Lovecraft (e.g. description of geology in _At_The_Mountains_Of_Madness_)
are real physical, natural science.  Stories centered on logic problems
could be called logical fiction.  Cyberpunk could be called a particularly
repetitive kind of computer-science fiction.   Stuff like E.E.Doc Smith is
NOT sci fi, because if you take out "laser" and put in ".45 caliber" it
turns into World War II advanture.  


	I don't think societies are central to sci-fi.  We can't deal with 
them scientifically and physically.  Likewise, character is not central,
but look at Asimov's stuff.  All his characters are cardboard cut-outs.
Let us be generous and say that he has two characters, a good guy and a bad 
guy.  People are not like this: people are unpredictable and confusing.
Therefore Asimov is not realistic.  Therefore he is not good sci fi.  

	Who writes sci fi?  Niven, Verne.  There's physics and chemistry 
in it.  But there's a lot of stuff which is good -- Heinlein, Leiber,
Dick -- which has very little science, but a very strong capacity for
hypothesizing alternate worlds and writing stories about them.  According
to my definition, these are not "real" sci-fi, and most of the field is
rather divergent from science.  Well, yes.  There is a lot of utter crap;
there is  stuff predicated on ultra-hip cultural ideas, like cyberpunk;
there is an endless amount of stuff re-hashing other stories;  there is
too much social fiction;  there is too much stuff based on military adventure
with laser rifles instead of M-16's.  

	The real sci-fi goes un-noticed, because it's not memorable.  It's
stories about some trivial aspect of genetic engineering or spaceflight
that any high school student can grasp.  And, unfortunately, it's not 
ever realistic enough, because in order to make it readable, compromises
are made and the author will base conflict in the 23rd century on 20th
century technology that will be utterly obsolete in 20 years.  

	Is it even possible to write good Hard Sci Fi?  Well ... anything
can happen.  The absence of proof does not constitute disproof.  And I 
suppose there is stuff like Lem and Niven, which is fairly accurate in
portraying both humans and technologies.  To an extent.  But as scientists
we must want the same kind of accuracy in writing and imagination that we 
can get from digital calculations and the same definiteness that we see in
mathematical proofs, and that is a lot to ask.  I have sure as hell never
written anything that comes close to that ideal, but I'm not going to stop 
trying.

Luck
Rick