From: doom@elaine6.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Re: Diamond-hard SF
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
	<1992Nov17.130534.20533@yang.earlham.edu>
	<1ecae0INNsqf@agate.berkeley.edu>
	<1992Nov18.165819.20554@yang.earlham.edu> <By0roz.5Jv@techbook.com>
Date: 21 Nov 92 19:46:42


I think you might consider relaxing the one/idea per page
criterion a bit (either that, or use big pages).  

I'd be happy with the H.G. Wells scheme of one idea worked
out thoroughly, in as tight a space as possible (though of
course, Wells' ideas were not typically all that "hard").

I'd also suggest that the distinction between the technical
and the social or political is perhaps a bit shallow... I'd
argue that the two tend to be synergistic (e.g. tech can
increase freedom, and the freedom can encourage the
development of other tech...).

Anyway, someone recommended Olaf Stapleton, and I think that
should be taken seriously.  Try reading STARMAKER or LAST
AND FIRST MEN.  His works were big influences on people like
Arthur C. Clark, and they have something like the compressed
density of ideas you're talking about (for example, within
the space of a few pages in LAST AND FIRST MEN, one version
of "humanity" dies out and another evolves from some
rabbit-like creatures in the outer solar system).

Some other possibilities: Gregory Benford, BIG SKY RIVER is
a bit weak as a novel (it never gets to where it seems to be
going at first so you might say that it's light on "plot"),
but it really does present a very detailed vision of a
technically augmented humanity.  However, the earlier book
ACROSS THE SEA OF SUNS strikes me as a much better novel,
also with a high idea quotient.  (Oh, and I guess you might
like to know that the first book in this series is IN THE
OCEAN OF NIGHT... net types seem very compulsive about doing
things in *sequence*.)

The short story "Slow Tuesday Night" by Lafferty (in the
excellent NINE-HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS collection) may have
something like the fast pace you're looking for.  

The story "Coming Attraction" by Fritz Leiber is a good
example of a story dense in ideas that aren't necessarily 
"technical".  

Similarly, Delany's novel BABEL-17, while it has some hard
science shtick going for it -- and quite a bit of the same
sort of flash the cyberpunks get praise for -- is largely 
focused on the "science" of linguistics. 

I agree that Sterling is definitely someone to watch.  The
CRYSTAL EXPRESS collection is excellent, though probably
my favorite is "The Beautiful and the Sublime", where the
main thrust of the story is about the interaction of the
social and the technical, i.e. science has gone out of
style, and scientists have become something like the
unappreciated, unfunded struggling artists of today.  

Also, a lot of Kim Stanly Robinson's stuff is very
interesting... take a look at "Ridge Running", a short prose
piece that sketches out an idea -- the accidental creation
of a human variant with a new mode of thinking -- and then
gets out of there, without bothering with plot.  (Which is
to say, it doesn't seem like a story to me, but I think
there's room for other prose art forms besides the "story".)

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