Another thing he mulls about these days is the romanticized view of the scientist in fiction. He doesn't think that scientists are portrayed in a particularly realistic manner. As an experimental scientist, Landis also has ideas about how technology is portrayed in science fiction. He has a better feel for the fact that, in general, technology, doesn't work the way its supposed to. Equipment doesn't work.
Rockets blow up.
Well, heck, the average theorist couldn't tell a transistor from an electrolytic capacitor. It is somewhat fitting that after all Landis' successful work with solar panels, the first story he won an award for was about a woman on the moon who used solar panels to save her own life. Editor Gardner Dozois buys a great portion of Landis' work for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine . Yet despite those handicaps, he has won the two major science fiction awards and is popular with the readers. Lots of science fiction is bright clever ideas.