# Bad Science In Good Fiction



## VonBradstein

I came across this article and thought it raised some interesting issues to do with the relationship between science and fiction https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jan/21/real-science-science-fiction-sf-scholar

Obviously a lot of this pertains to science fiction authors, however I think it's probably still relevant to anybody whose work features some kind of scientific theory or practice, be it be forensics in crime fiction, elaborate death scenes, technology in war and thriller, psychology/para-psychology in horror, etc...

I read a lot of sci-fi, and a lot of it really doesn't deserve the 'sci' part. A lot of sci-fi is, in my opinion, just fantasy fiction set in a futuristic setting. That being said, I tend to _enjoy _those kinds of books more. While 'hard science' can on occasion still offer a good tale or two, the best science fiction works tend to be based on ideas are either knowingly false (we all know that a space ship traveling at light speed is not possible, yet still enjoy seeing it in _Star Wars)_ or outdated by modern day research. Similarly a lot of really good horror and thriller books use some far-fetched psychological phenomena. There's all kinds of wacky gadgets. Much of it is obviously 'unscientific' and yet even those who really love science and really hate bullshit can spend money on enjoying them in good conscience without feeling like we might, say, handing over money for a tarot card reading or snake oil salesman's magic hair restoration, or donating to the Peter Popoff Ministries...

Which is, of course, a luxury of fiction vs non-fiction. And that's great. The problem is that a lot of us do learn of things that way, and a lot of the bullshit sticks. Often we never do the research at all. Perhaps because we're too lazy or indifferent, or just because it's not been made accessible or interesting. There's a study I read about some time ago, and that I wish I could track down (I'll keep looking) that basically examined the extent that the (US) public believed in things that did not exist. It covered all kinds of bogus things used as plot devices in various books, movies and TV shows and found that crazy numbers of people either believed or were 'open to the possibility of' stuff that are actually known to be scientifically implausible or even impossible. Examples were things like "Dinosaurs could someday be genetically reproduced from extracted dinosaur DNA", which is known to be impossible due to the rate of decay. Another was the one where  "we only use *insert tiny number* percent of our brain and if we could only use all of it we would be able to do *insert awesome mental power*", which is also proven as total nonsense. Point being that ideas that were entirely made up and presented as facts within the context of fiction end up influencing what people consider to be actually true. 

Obviously there's a strong case that it isn't really a fiction writer's job to educate people, any more than its a rock & roll musicians job to stop their listeners becoming baby eating satan worshippers. However *is there not also an equally strong case that the term 'science fiction' should be applied more narrowly than it is, reserved for things that actually get the science right, at least when it is central to their plot? Should the use of 'science' applied to stuff that is based on fallacy be replaced in the interests of furthering the cause of real science?*

Neil Degrasse Tyson seems to think so. http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/cosmos/233814/does-bad-science-ruin-science-fiction


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## moderan

I read a lot of sf. Sci-Fi is what old guys like me call the stuff you're talking about, with rubber science and wonky concepts, suitable for beach reading or the Syfy channel. FTL and time travel have long since been accepted even by hard-science guys like Alastair Reynolds and Larry Niven and nobody bats an eye any more. The flip-side is what I'd call Bradburian, where the prevailing sentiment is poetic, not extrapolative. Roger Zelazny, Ballard, most of the New Wave writers would fall into this category.
Crichton started out writing it. Andromeda Strain, the Terminal Man, excellent hard-science stuff. His focus changed about the time Robin Cook put Coma (@1973) out and the rest of his stuff has varying degrees of deniability, though Crichton himself clearly understands the science. He just ignores it for results. 
Hard sf is a tough sell, especially in today's fantasy-dominant, science-ignorant environment. Writers like to eat.


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## Winston

I think many of us are forgiving with our ability to "suspend belief".  But we can only be pushed so far.  
It is almost insulting some of the tripe that is foisted upon us.  
It is beyond scientific illiteracy.  We are a post-literate society that is driven by images and feelings.   Thought, introspection and exploration are foreign concepts to today's media consumer.


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## HorseDragon

This is an interesting and perennial subject. It has been raised and discussed many times over the decades. It seems that any given generation has a different take on the subject - somewhat depending on what forms of entertainment are in vogue. Even so, I would agree that the 'science' in 'science fiction' at the very least implies that the subject within proceeds (by way of prediction - an important part of science) from some core idea based in solid science.

The problem arises with attempts to merge science fact with science fantasy. Something we have seen more often in children's and young adult science fiction over the years. In addition to that is the notion that wild speculation based on popular science ideas is somehow progressive or creative thinking. That does work sometimes - especially in _science fiction comedy_ or _absurdity_. I personal enjoy a well written absurdist comedy or even drama based on misconceptions of science facts. I have a mercurial mind in that regard.

Yet lately - as in the past 5-10 years or so - the line between science fiction and science fantasy has blurred quite a bit. Especially in TV and movie scripts. People doing impossible things just because they are written as being a science experiment gone wrong is stunningly popular in mainstream TV and movies, and also in books. It sells, apparently, because often there is social context. Spider-man, in its modern incarnation for example, is pseudo-science fiction, to be generous. Dark Matter is pseudo-science fiction. Both actually wander into fantasy fairly often.

I love the original _Twilight Zone_, _Philip K Dick_, _Stanislaw Lem_ and a litany of other very interesting experimental fantasies based loosely on principles of science; but I would not characterize _The Twilight Zone_ as science fiction. The problem is that a lot of people seem to think that it is. You know - like the programmers at SyFy. (SyFy is a good name for the channel considering how little actual sci-fi it produces. I think they justify it as soft sci-fi. Hey, they need to make a buck.)

All that said, I think that any story that proceeds from a solid science foundation but then flies off into the deep space of wild imagination is fine by me. Why not? The greats had allowed for that in the genre. But if the story smells like hogwash from the opening salvo, then it's something else. I might enjoy it anyway because I don't mind going for the ride, but I tend to call such things, when I'm being charitable, _pseudo-science fantasy_ and leave it at that.

And no, science fiction has no expectation of teaching anyone anything about science. That's what actual science courses and documentaries are for. But the genre should at least adhere to some standard and generally acceptable definition of science. The _fiction _part is where the truly entertaining and creative bit comes in.

In my opinion, of course. I'm often wrong.


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## Terry D

Good topic.

I don't read as much SF as I once did, but back in the day I was always partial to 'hard' SF. The stuff that tried to get the science as right as possible. Clarke, Niven, Pournelle, Ben Bova, those guys. Even then, they bent the science to a degree for the sake of story. We all do that, though, don't we? By its very nature fiction has to twist the truth. Serial killers aren't as diabolic, or as smart as Hannibal Lechter. Forensic investigators aren't as brilliant an Lincoln Ryme, nor are real spies anything like James Bond. No cops like Harry Bosch or Sam Spade, no lovers like Romeo and Juliette. So some freedom is allowable even in the hardest of SF.

What I like about hard SF is the possibilities and perspectives it holds. Two of my favorite short stories (both by the same author) are good examples. In Larry Niven's Hugo winning story, Inconsistent Moon, the protagonist notices that the moon is very bright on this one particular night. Much brighter than it has any right to be and he starts trying to figure out why. Soon he realizes that the moon is brighter because the Sun has grown brighter due to a solar flare. The story is about his reaction to the implications of a huge solar flare. The story mixes very real science with some great character development as he spends what may be his last night alive with his girlfriend. What I like about that story is that it is 100% true. Eventually there will be a flare big enough to do massive damage to the Earth, just as there will be another extinction level comet, or asteroid impact. That's the possibilities part.

For the perspectives part I'll use his story, Neutron Star (another Hugo winner). Neutron Star is a sort of detective story. In it a man is hired to figure out how two people were killed inside a spacecraft that was designed to be absolutely impervious to any form of matter or energy. When the story was written we knew far less about neutron stars than we do today, so I was fascinated by the eventual solution to the problem. Even though there is faster-that-light travel within the story as well as some other SF tropes, the main theme -- the neutron star itself -- is handled with great accuracy. I learned a lot about these odd, powerful stars from this story. 

So that's what I like about technically accurate SF; its ability to educate as it entertains.

Of course, as was stated in the OP, sci-fi also has the power to build shadow-castles of belief also. FTL is a good example. It's been used so much in books and movies that people assume it's just a matter of time until it happens even though everything we know about physics tells us that a practical application of it is virtually impossible.


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## Kevin

Reading the bolder part of the op, it occurred to me that if you go far enough foreword in the future and leave out an explanation of how the technology works you can speculative-fiction any sort of tech you want. I wonder how far into the future Jules Verne thought it would be before we actually got to the moon? Or if he thought we'd never really go there. I suppose someone has looked into it, but I was thinking of Dune and how much of the technology was merely hinted at ( it seemed to me). You couldnt really say it was impossible, it being so ...vague and far off. That was my impression. So I think that's a way to write around it, to put it out so far in the future and concentrate on what it does ( to further the story), not how it does it.


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## Ralph Rotten

Where's Robert Heinlein when you need him?


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## VonBradstein

The main problem is when the writer presents ideas in a way that suggests they are scientifically sound while clearly knowing better and then has the gall to sell it as 'science fiction'. As Tyson mentions, it is even worse when to get it accurate would have achieved the same or a better effect. 

Just to be clear, I don't get too upset about books that play fast and loose with what is possible. That is a fiction writer's prerogative and, without it, we would be limited.  In any case, these ideas are real on a conceptual level and that makes them worthwhile: I know time travel is not possible, yet I wrote a novel about it. I also know there is zero evidence for ghosts, demons, Stoker-style vampires, werewolves, mutant cyborgs, zombies or psychic powers, but I have written about all these things at some point. I can justify that on the basis that they form part of our imaginative world, if not our real one. Ultimately the public is responsible for their own ignorance and stupid people are the fault of their parents and the educational system.

For me, the line gets crossed when writers try to peddle what they are talking about as either a 'true story', or based on real science. That's when we get into the snake oil territory, IMO. On occasion this happens overtly. The whole 'based on a true blah blah' used at the start of something that is _not _based on anything true; or some cobbled together line summarizing the mystical 'power' of ouija boards, stuff like that. Perhaps a quotation from an eminent scientist, historian, statesperson taken out of context and printed at the start of a book to suggest that there is some factual validity to the premise. That's bad, but at least it doesn't happen too too often. 

The more common, and so arguably more insidious, problem is when we start to play fast and loose with terms like 'science' or 'history' that carry real academic meaning and use them to gloss up what is essentially just fantasy sans dragons and elves. I think just about everybody is guilty of doing that at some point. Science Fiction is probably one of the worst for it, not least because of the current problems of people accepting science in a 'post truth' era, and I think we should probably start being more discerning about what qualifies. 

I sometimes talk about my work as 'sci fi' but it isn't really, and I'm trying to avoid doing it. I use it simply because it's a short hand for futurism or work of speculation, one that makes more people understand the kind of work it is and the sort of tropes it explores. But that's just the problem, the fact people could read a story with all the actual scientific intrigue of a cereal box and say "ah yes, this is science fiction" is depressing. It's a vicious cycle, because if I referred to it by a name more true to what it is - urban fantasy with strong themes of alternate history, say - nobody outside of a fiction forum or academic talk-shop would know what that meant. There's so much of it. L. Ron Hubbard is commonly described as a Science Fiction author, and yet has pretty much nothing to say about science - its just future-themed bullshit in a hackneyed space setting. Star Wars is the same - albeit better than most. 'The Handmaids Tale" contains zero science and is really more a work of social fiction, yet it gets constantly tagged as such (despite the objections of the author to the term). Anything vaguely dystopian seems to get thrown in the same bin. Why is dystopia so automatically labeled as science fiction? I think I know the answer, because we presume the causes of the dystopian reality to be caused by _something scientific, _which is fine when that's actually part of the freaking book - but a lot of times it isn't. Somebody needs to explain why something like _Slaughterhouse Five_ is called science fiction. It's a great book by a great author, but it has about as much science as Winnie The Pooh.

By calling them 'science fiction' we may think we build up the author and their work, but in actuality I think we degrade Real Science.

I like the term Speculative Fiction. That's a good name for a genre based on ideas rather than reality. The ensuing problem, of course, that it is so embryonic and covers such a vast range of stories it starts to feel a little weak, a little too open to interpretation - and abuse.


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## VonBradstein

Ralph Rotten said:


> Where's Robert Heinlein when you need him?



Dead, I think.


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## Winston

VonBradstein said:


> Dead, I think.



After that horrid screen adaptation of Starship Troopers, he probably killed himself


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## VonBradstein

Terry D said:


> Good topic.
> 
> I don't read as much SF as I once did, but back in the day I was always partial to 'hard' SF. The stuff that tried to get the science as right as possible. Clarke, Niven, Pournelle, Ben Bova, those guys. Even then, they bent the science to a degree for the sake of story. We all do that, though, don't we? By its very nature fiction has to twist the truth. Serial killers aren't as diabolic, or as smart as Hannibal Lechter. Forensic investigators aren't as brilliant an Lincoln Ryme, nor are real spies anything like James Bond. No cops like Harry Bosch or Sam Spade, no lovers like Romeo and Juliette. So some freedom is allowable even in the hardest of SF.
> 
> What I like about hard SF is the possibilities and perspectives it holds. Two of my favorite short stories (both by the same author) are good examples. In Larry Niven's Hugo winning story, Inconsistent Moon, the protagonist notices that the moon is very bright on this one particular night. Much brighter than it has any right to be and he starts trying to figure out why. Soon he realizes that the moon is brighter because the Sun has grown brighter due to a solar flare. The story is about his reaction to the implications of a huge solar flare. The story mixes very real science with some great character development as he spends what may be his last night alive with his girlfriend. What I like about that story is that it is 100% true. Eventually there will be a flare big enough to do massive damage to the Earth, just as there will be another extinction level comet, or asteroid impact. That's the possibilities part.
> 
> For the perspectives part I'll use his story, Neutron Star (another Hugo winner). Neutron Star is a sort of detective story. In it a man is hired to figure out how two people were killed inside a spacecraft that was designed to be absolutely impervious to any form of matter or energy. When the story was written we knew far less about neutron stars than we do today, so I was fascinated by the eventual solution to the problem. Even though there is faster-that-light travel within the story as well as some other SF tropes, the main theme -- the neutron star itself -- is handled with great accuracy. I learned a lot about these odd, powerful stars from this story.
> 
> So that's what I like about technically accurate SF; its ability to educate as it entertains.
> 
> Of course, as was stated in the OP, sci-fi also has the power to build shadow-castles of belief also. FTL is a good example. It's been used so much in books and movies that people assume it's just a matter of time until it happens even though everything we know about physics tells us that a practical application of it is virtually impossible.



Faster than light is a real sore spot for me. I still remember the day my physics teacher told me it was impossible and was genuinely devastated about it. That was until I found out about wormholes and other still-plausible theories for space exploration that, actually, are more intriguing than just a spaceship flying really fast. Which is kind of the thing. When we have a particularly fascinating shadow castle before us it serves to distract from the real world which often is equally, if not more, interesting. In large part because it is possible.

I'm not sure if anybody on here saw the recent movie "Interstellar"? That was a pretty good example of something that managed to be simultaneously engaging and semi-hard (that's what she said). Actually I was surprised to read reviews from scientists applauding the extent that it did adhere to scientific theory and retained Kip Thorne as a consultant for that purpose because, when you watch it, it seems so out there. Of course there are still areas which stretch plausibility (the idea of anybody surviving a black hole, for one) but largely in that story they are either so minimal as to make no matter or were restrained to things for which there exists little or no scientific knowledge of anyway - e.g nobody has actually entered a black hole. So, for me, that was one way of having a rollicking good time while still being educationally valid and respectful to facts and evidence. 

An older example would be "2001: A Space Odyssey" which I still consider to be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever made in any medium. Even Star Trek toes the line reasonably well (the old series anyway, no idea about the new stuff) and manages to be entertaining. Of course none of these are perfect, but they are vastly more valid than crap about sending Bruce Willis to nuke an asteroid.


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## HorseDragon

VonBradstein said:


> An older example would be "2001: A Space Odyssey" which I still consider to be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever made in any medium. Even Star Trek toes the line reasonably well (the old series anyway, no idea about the new stuff) and manages to be entertaining. Of course none of these are perfect, but they are vastly more valid than crap about sending Bruce Willis to nuke an asteroid.



Absolutely agree with you on this point. _2001 _is a great example of launching an idea from a solid science footing while exploring great ideas. In this case the evolution of intelligence as seeded by a never revealed alien civilization - eventually resulting in a new star and a new world in the solar system in _2010_. Clarke makes no effort at teaching anything, but rather writes a story that stands on solid principles and beyond into the 'sufficiently advanced technology that seems like magic' that was the seed and catalyst of human evolution. It's a brilliant masterpiece in my opinion. Or at least as I perceive it.

[edit]
I agree that science fiction can be used as a tool to educate, but ultimately that is not its purpose. Based on solid principles or even questioned and uncertain principles good sci fi leads us to question, to imagine, to make leaping assumptions that expand horizons and inspire the imagination, to reveal ourselves perhaps, and to explore ideas even to the limits of absurdity.

I feel that it's not the purpose of sci fi to educate - it is to inspire, expand our imaginations and to just plain entertain. In doing so, I feel that science fiction stories should have some grounding in reality. At least as a launch point. The 'science' in science fiction infers that the story will have empirical roots and possibly even existential themes.


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## VonBradstein

HorseDragon said:


> Absolutely agree with you on this point. _2001 _is a great example of launching an idea from a solid science footing while exploring great ideas. In this case the evolution of intelligence as seeded by a never revealed alien civilization - eventually resulting in a new star and a new world in the solar system in _2010_. Clarke makes no effort at teaching anything, but rather writes a story that stands on solid principles and beyond into the 'sufficiently advanced technology that seems like magic' that was the seed and catalyst of human evolution. It's a brilliant masterpiece in my opinion. Or at least as I perceive it.
> 
> [edit]
> I agree that science fiction can be used as a tool to educate, but ultimately that is not its purpose. Based on solid principles or even questioned and uncertain principles good sci fi leads us to question, to imagine, to make leaping assumptions that expand horizons and inspire the imagination, to reveal ourselves perhaps, and to explore ideas even to the limits of absurdity.
> 
> I feel that it's not the purpose of sci fi to educate - it is to inspire, expand our imaginations and to just plain entertain. In doing so, I feel that science fiction stories should have some grounding in reality. At least as a launch point. The 'science' in science fiction infers that the story will have empirical roots and possibly even existential themes.



Pardon me for throwing a monkey wrench in...

Your definition of science fiction's purpose is thoughtful, however some might say science fiction needs a little bit more than a grounding in reality. For one thing, all fiction pretty much has that. Same with "empirical roots". As for existential themes, I agree that's something more common to science fiction than, perhaps, epic fantasy. However existential themes are pretty common in other genres, too. A lot of the best horror novels use them (albeit in a twisted way). Contemporary war and drama and literary fiction generally is rife with that sort of stuff. So I don't know that one can use that as part of a definition. Genres tend to be defined by what makes them unique.

For me, good science fiction should contain real science. Not merely as a basis but as a constant rule, in much the same way that good erotica should commit to the basic nuts and bolts of sexuality and good memoir should adhere to the basic facts of its subject's life. Yes there is room for exploration and expansion, but that should not be at the expense of what is known to be true. 

So, in practical terms, I'm fine with people speculating to their hearts content about what happens if you fall into a black hole since there is no scientific knowledge at present for that situation - we suspect the person would die, but it isn't a given because, at that point, all the physical rules are basically out of the window. I am, however not fine with them flagrantly disregarding the laws of physics when it comes to asteroid avoidance -  a subject that while not done before is nonetheless well understood from a physics perspective. I am not cool with stuff that tries to say humans only use 10% of their brain and if they could only use all of it they would be like Scarlett Johannson and Kick Some Ass. I am not cool with people restarting the earth's core with a big bomb, or the sun, or anything else. It's nonsense.

I would note, however, that speculative fiction using bad science may still be permitted to exist - I have no truck with the Millenium Falcon or contemporary dinosaurs - but I don't want to hear it called "Science Fiction" nor see such work touted by its creators as having a factual basis, nor - most of all - see legit scientific concepts sloppily interpreted for the purposes of filling a plot hole when it would be possible to explain it otherwise. I don't want that any more than I want to hear rhino horn spoken of as a medicine. You can keep it, it just doesn't deserve to be called Sci-Fi.

Again, do appreciate that writing should not be policed by the self-righteous or pedantic, and probably would not be even passionate on this point if it concerned anything else. I didn't care overmuch when Dan Brown decided to just make stuff up for "Da Vinci Code" because he was essentially exploring a non-issue. The problem is that, at least in the US, we have such a ridiculous anti-science movement that its difficult to square bad science in any form from people who know better. I am just waiting for some clown 'sci-fi' writer to produce a bestselling "science fiction" novel/movie/HBO show about how vaccinations are used by governments to control the world and for the measles rate to triple as a result. The general population just isn't smart enough to know better, unfortunately.


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## JustRob

Regarding what should be called science fiction, I have no real idea. I assume that, in keeping with terms like "historical fiction", it implies that the story is about science that we don't believe happens in reality. Presumably the science in a story is singled out because it is central to the plot. I wrote a story that was a thriller, a mystery, a romance, in fact many things but, because the setting for all these motifs was a time machine of sorts, readers saw it as science fiction, which was not specifically how I offered it to them. I would agree that in such circumstances the term "fantasy" might be more appropriate, although it is subjective whether something like love at first sight is purely a fantasy, a whimsy or actually has hard scientific causes.

I suspect that the term "science fiction" may just be a warning to readers who don't like "that sort of thing". Amusingly a scientist friend of mine who used to lecture in chemistry at Oxford University started reading my novel but gave up on it commenting that he preferred to read about "reality". I'm not sure where he would draw the line though. We have also corresponded on the wider implications of quantum mechanics and his view on it is that it appears to be a reliable way of working out what happens in chemistry, his specialist subject, but that doesn't mean that it is actually anything real. We were at school together and I know of the rigorous education in the scientific method that he gained there, so it was interesting to hear from an out-and-out scientist that science is simply a way of modelling reality rather than a definition of what it is. 

That view implies that science fiction may simply be a way of modelling something that is _unlike_ our reality but nevertheless potentially equally rigorously defined. In that case the term "hard science fiction" might not refer to something that was almost entirely based on our own working scientific model of reality but rather a system that was self-consistent no matter how much it deviated from our perceptions. Some good science fiction has this quality of being self-consistent even though it may have fantastic implications. Certainly that was what I was aiming for in the science within my novel with each wrinkle carefully ironed out to make the whole seem more plausible _within itself_. Open-ended science fiction where an entirely new fictional concept can appear almost on every page may be fun but is a different genre from a story which works with just the minimum fictional concepts. My novel contains just three, one of which could become fact within a few years if not already so.

On the subject of a story's genre being a warning to readers who don't like "that sort of thing" I have remarked that my novel could equally be called mathematical fiction, which would probably scare off even the few readers that it has had so far. In fact the mathematics is probably fiction because even I didn't understand it fully when I wrote that part of the story and I consider myself to be a moderately competent mathematician despite being no scientist.

Regarding the article mentioned in the OP and its reference to hard scientists writing science fiction, in our school days my aforementioned friend recommended Fred Hoyle's novel _The Black Cloud_ to me and I agreed after reading it that it was a good mix of hard science and space fantasy totally appropriate to the era when it was written. The article specifically mentions Fred Hoyle of course.

Moving on to the present day, I saw _Interstellar_ relatively recently and of course added its inspiration to the compendium of ideas provided by the Nolan brothers for my novel. Of course, as I wrote the novel in 2011 before encountering any of their work my perception of inspiration may deviate from what others see as the stock scientific model of reality, but there's nothing that I can do about that. In fact interestingly, although scientists may have seen the film as well based in hard scientific theory, although the film was directed by Christopher Nolan his brother Jonathan wrote much of the script but distanced himself from the film's ending as he had studied the relevant science to make the story authentic but couldn't bring himself to accept that information could be passed backwards in time through an Einstein-Rosen bridge created by a black hole. I hope I got the terminology right there. I can only assume that, by writing a novel substantially based on his TV series _Person of Interest_ even before it was broadcast and modifying the plot to include the idea of "the machine" collecting information from the future, I was actually asserting that he was wrong to doubt the possibility. In fact in my experience in reality it isn't even necessary to fly into a black hole to achieve the effect. 

So far as the question of where fiction writers get their ideas from, as posed in the article, I would of course say that they get them from the future, not the anticipated future but the _real_ future. _Person of Interest_ was found to be prophetic about the subsequently revealed extent of the surveillance culture within the United States to the surprise of even its writer, who evidently didn't consider prophesy to be scientifically possible. 

Anyway, personally I wouldn't rush to call anything that I write science fiction, certainly not nowadays. I would prefer to class it as preternatural fiction. For examples of preternatural stories in the world of science we should probably consider things like the works of Jules Verne. His stories that in his day might have seemed quite fantastic are now almost mundane.


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## moderan

> I suspect that the term "science fiction" may just be a warning to readers who don't like "that sort of thing".


 Almost certainly right. Gernsback called it "scientifiction" and explicitly expected stories to include actual science. Campbell just upped the ante to include well-written stories to boot.


> I don't want to hear it called "Science Fiction" nor see such work touted by its creators as having a factual basis


EVER. And I hate that the term has been annexed and bowdlerized. I am a lifelong sf fan. As noted previously, even my specfic includes actual hard science. I take pains to get it right. I enjoy talking to scientists. One of my pals is a biologist and spends a good deal of his time putting the science in Lovecraft.
Extrapolation of principles can be predictive. Ask John Brunner or Harry Harrison or Thomas Disch, who all correctly pegged the results of overpopulation, or the aforementioned Heinlein, who applied scientific principles (especially engineering) to his work until the late 50s, when he started getting New Age-y and to my mind lost most of his impetus.
Ah...but I was fen in the seventies. I produced filk. I bent the elbow with Fred Pohl at the O'Hare Hyatt in 1982, and have been put in my place by Unca Harlan, who wrote specfic and sci-fi be DAMNED. FIAWOL. I gafiate.
Ah, culture like a Petri dish. My very handle reflects this. If you don't know the stories, you won't understand my behavior. My flesh-strips are few and played down, and the butterflies are eagle-big EVERY DAY.


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## EmmaSohan

I read an article once about inventors who had been inspired by reading Tom Swift. That (obviously) included the creator of Tomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle, which is in widespread use today, though known only by its acronym.

The inspiration wasn't so much the facts of hard science. It was thinking about things that did not yet exist and realizing they were possible. That science could create amazing things. At its best, science fiction takes us outside the box and let's us live there for a few hours.

And before we ever had robots, authors were already exploring worlds with robots. That's kind of amazing too. First contact, other ways of constructing societies, cyborgs, the list just goes no. Two of my all-time favorite ideas, which I have used, came from Orson Scott Card.


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## moderan

That's what _extrapolation_ means. It IS hard science.


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## Kyle R

Fun discussion!

Would you guys consider this scene Science Fiction, Fantasy, or something else entirely?

[video=youtube;V4OYGpwhuxU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OYGpwhuxU[/video]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OYGpwhuxU)

Would you consider the writers' attempts to push this scene into the realm of "scientific plausibility" something worth applauding, or denouncing?

Is this a:

"Congrats to the writers for at least trying to give this some grounds in science"?

or is this more of a:

"How dare the writers attempt to pass this bullshit off as actual science"?


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## Kevin

Omg, little Kyle was so cute, and he still had both eyes... And look, there's Glen, before he got his brains bashed out. And Rick's crazy ex-partner who hooked up with his wife, and... 

 I'm gonna say congrats. The music was a little cheesy and the show is not perfect. These zombies are basically like vampires with accepted rules and standard...audience expectations. The science of how exactly something motile without actual fuel consumption and digestion violates basic biology and... anyway, it's entertaining, and I think the allegory out ways the breakdown in the science. The show is about social interaction in the aftermath, not science.


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## Winston

Kevin said:


> The show is about social interaction in the aftermath, not science.



Yes. I consider TWD a good horror / drama.  The viewer knows the rules and the writers follow the rules fairly well.  But they are not scientific rules.
And Kev, the boy is Carl, not Kyle


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## moderan

Sociology is a science too 
I guess congrats. The problem I have with that show is that the satire so often misses the mark as the prevailing mentality is unibrow. Zombies are mouth-breathers, you know.
Strictly speaking, all of those 'forensics'-based cop shows are science fiction. So are the medical shows. Sometimes good science fiction despite all of the soapsuds.
So, okay. Kudos for trying to get something right and making the effort despite apparent audience indifference.


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## VonBradstein

Kyle R said:


> Fun discussion!
> 
> Would you guys consider this scene Science Fiction, Fantasy, or something else entirely?
> 
> [video=youtube;V4OYGpwhuxU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OYGpwhuxU[/video]
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OYGpwhuxU)
> 
> Would you consider the writers' attempts to push this scene into the realm of "scientific plausibility" something worth applauding, or denouncing?
> 
> Is this a:
> 
> "Congrats to the writers for at least trying to give this some grounds in science"?
> 
> or is this more of a:
> 
> "How dare the writers attempt to pass this bullshit off as actual science"?



I actually am really glad you posted this scene! I watched TWD religiously through season 1 and most of season 2 and my favorite part of what I saw by far was the CDC stuff - specifically the part you posted where they attempt to provide a scientific explanation for the walkers. It is well done, chilling and definitely adds a level beyond what is typical for the genre. So definitely congratulations for that.

I lost interest in the show not because of anything to do with science, really, but because I just started to find less reasons for watching it. In my opinion it became too silly, and overly focused on the inter-personal drama, which try as I might I could not care about. Glenn was a likeable character (I say was...not sure if he got killed off yet?) and his relationship with Maggie was charming, if rather void of chemistry. I was sort of moved by what happened at the farm with Herschel or whatever his name was, and Maggie's mom. It waned quickly for me after that. My understanding from listening to those who are still devout followers (married to one) is that it is an increasingly ridiculous show and probably has been on too long but, like so many successful US series, it is another exercise in prolonged agony just like _Lost _and _Breaking Bad._ Doubtless it will continue through its various spinoffs, etc for as long as there is money in it regardless of how tired the premise becomes. On the flip side, I believe it continues to be a polished piece of television with high production values, a mostly decent script, some strong characters and serviceable acting. So I'm not about to criticize it for a moment as a piece of fiction.

I have not heard it referred to as a science fiction show. Not even once. Do people call it that? Most people call it horror or action or a post-apocalyptic adventure, or something along those lines. Really, though, its a drama isn't it? A drama that uses a non-traditional situation and plenty of gross-out injuries, brief action sequences and melodrama. Kind of a Grey's Anatomy for survivalist oddballs and those with secret fetishes for imagining an even worse world than what already exists. And that's a perfectly legitimate place for it. I (usually) like that sort of thing. But it isn't science fiction and any attempt at science in it is no more valid than the Wookie.

In itself scene in question is scientifically valid, from what little I know about brain biology, insofar as it does not appear to contain glaring errors (like the 10% premise from Lucy) and is presented in a way that is believable. It is legitimate to extrapolate that certain traumas or changes to brain chemistry could lead to a huge Phineas Gage-style transformation in human behavior. But, if one puts it as an explanation in the context of the entire story (which admittedly I am not entirely familiar above, though I did read a lot more of the comics than I watched on the show) I think there's some pretty big hurdles to clear before one can state that the zombies of TWD are scientifically valid. 

For one thing, they do not seem to require food or water - which is ridiculous - and they cannot be killed without a headshot, right? Well how does that work? If they are reanimated biological machines based on human bodies (and they are, these are not tardigrade zombies) there would presumably still be a need for basic human biological systems, at least those that cannot be overriden by changes to the brain. One would be respiration, which means breathing, which means circulation and a functionality of heart, lungs, etc. You can Phineas Gage a brain all you want, Phineas Gage still breathed and theories that changes to brain function can alter major biological necessities belong to new age charlatans and the mad. So the very fact they adopt a kind of paranormal state renders them incapable of being scientifically possible - unless I missed something that was explained later on (which would have to be damn genius). Therefore the very notion of their existence is tenuous at best, and creatures with a tenuous or illogical existence are obviously anti-science by definition.

None of that is a problem, of course, because TWD is not selling itself as a science fiction show. The moment it does, it gets pelted with eggs and sent to bed. I think there needs to be a clear definition between stuff that toys with certain sciencey ideas and stuff that _is _science. TWD adopts the former, science fiction must adopt the latter.


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## JustRob

I've never seen TWD as it sounds like it's just another exploitation of the mind-body identity issue. I do agree that any story which flouts the basic science concerning the expenditure of energy loses my belief very quickly. Transformations are one thing but they almost inevitably seem to imbue the transformed creature with an incredible apparently endless amount of energy which usually isn't explained. Mass transformations never seem to be explained either. Small creatures somehow transform into monsters, which in scientific terms implies a substantial change in density, but these monsters always turn out to be even more dense than the originals from which they emerged. A rapid increase in both mass and energy implies that something very weird is happening and the creature cannot be regarded as a closed system. About the only explanation would be that a white hole had appeared within it. Therefore the problem ought not to be to discover what is happening within it, as in that film clip, but where the external source of energy is and how to shield against it. Mankind has little chance of prevailing if the planet has many white holes walking around on it though.

 Conflict in science fiction, and apparently all stories need conflict, almost inevitably takes the form of conflicting evolved survival strategies. As social behaviour is one of the more advanced survival strategies that have evolved in humans such stories inevitably gravitate towards emphasising that human trait as the winning factor. When some other evolved survival strategy manifests itself as an alien lifeform and challenges humanity inevitably it is our social behaviour that takes centre stage as the solution and the science takes a back seat to what is effectively a soap opera.  

The more general survival strategy that evolution created within us was actually a virtual environment within which it could experiment with many strategies without the need for the far slower process of trying them out physically, as it had in the past with the evolution of species. In other words evolution did exactly what humanity did quite recently; it created powerful computers in the form of our higher brain functions where strategies could be played out virtually. In other words it gave us conscious thought, self-awareness, emotions to motivate us and all the other things that we perceive as what it means to be human. Suppressing those higher brain functions as in that film clip and replacing them with some other survival strategy therefore scares the shit out of us, implying that evolution got our design radically wrong and is trying something else. On the other hand perhaps setting us these problems is just evolution's way of encouraging us to continue evolving rather than just smugly carrying on as we already do.

So, maybe the real question about the nature of science fiction is how many fundamentally different plots there are within the genre. Have I oversimplified things with my just-another-survival-strategy-conflict view?


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## VonBradstein

JustRob said:


> So, maybe the real question about the nature of science fiction is how many fundamentally different plots there are within the genre. Have I oversimplified things with my just-another-survival-strategy-conflict view?



I don't think so. I'm no scientist, but it always seemed to me that the bedrock of science has always been survival in some form. It's most obvious in evolutionary biology, of course, but its there in some form regardless of whether the subject is even alive. Perhaps a better word than survival would be "persistence" or 'resistance'.

On a chemical level the interactions between different elements and compounds forms a kind of Darwinian survivalist model, insofar as we see clear relationships in the various interactions of substances, and therefore a kind of social structure - though not one born of any consciousness of course. Could one not infer a kind of romance in the fusing of two compatible substances to create something benign? I think so. Equally there is a very real conflict that exists between, say, Francium and water. Sometimes it is extremely violent. Certain elements, like Carbon, win out (at least on earth) where others find it impossible to survive in most conditions. 

Even in something as unemotive as physics there is a certain 'survivalist' aspect. The way certain particles break through barriers and others do not, the way light bends to gravity, the way stars die, all of it has potential to be interpreted in such a way. Don't want to get too misty about stuff, but I see a great deal of emotional capacity in science. The improvement of AI in this regard has furthered this even more. We understand how viruses work, for instance, and can extrapolate that to envision a scenario when technology would act within its own interests like HAL. In essence, this is where the best science fiction begins.


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## Terry D

VonBradstein said:


> I don't think so. I'm no scientist, but it always seemed to me that the bedrock of science has always been survival in some form. It's most obvious in evolutionary biology, of course, but its there in some form regardless of whether the subject is even alive. Perhaps a better word than survival would be "persistence" or 'resistance'.
> 
> On a chemical level the interactions between different elements and compounds forms a kind of Darwinian survivalist model, insofar as we see clear relationships in the various interactions of substances, and therefore a kind of social structure - though not one born of any consciousness of course. Could one not infer a kind of romance in the fusing of two compatible substances to create something benign? I think so. Equally there is a very real conflict that exists between, say, Francium and water. Sometimes it is extremely violent. Certain elements, like Carbon, win out (at least on earth) where others find it impossible to survive in most conditions.
> 
> Even in something as unemotive as physics there is a certain 'survivalist' aspect. The way certain particles break through barriers and others do not, the way light bends to gravity, the way stars die, all of it has potential to be interpreted in such a way. Don't want to get too misty about stuff, but I see a great deal of emotional capacity in science. The improvement of AI in this regard has furthered this even more. We understand how viruses work, for instance, and can extrapolate that to envision a scenario when technology would act within its own interests like HAL. In essence, this is where the best science fiction begins.



I'm not quite sure what you mean by "science" being all about survival. Do you mean science the discipline, or the actual physical properties being studied? I think, based on the entirety of your post, you mean the actual physical interactions we study with the various disciplines we call 'science'. That's what I'll address. I think when we start to anthropomorphize chemical reactions, physical reactions, and various interactions at any level -- from the Plank level on up to the multi-dimensions and multi-universes string theorists predict -- is when we build the foundation for pseudo-science and all the wacked out 'scientific' concepts so many people believe.

It's not about survival. At the most basic level it is all about energy. Matter interacts based on energy levels, from the smallest subatomic particle, to the entire periodic table, to the way dark matter interacts with galaxies to hold them together while dark energy is forcing them apart, to the way our bodies process the foods we eat. If there is a bedrock to the nature of our universe, it's not survival, it's entropy. Every interaction that takes place happens because the materials involved will default to the lowest energy state possible. Sometimes that happens violently -- as with Francium and water* -- other times it happens slowly as with radioactive decay. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling anyone not to see the beauty, or the romance (if you want to use that word), in science. I do. That's why I majored in zoology and botany and why astronomy is one of my hobbies. But when we get too emotive with our scientific view then phrases like 'the intent of evolution', or 'the reason for a disease' start to creep into our collective subconscious. Reasons are for philosophers. They study the why. Science is about the how. There's no need for purpose and intent in the study of the how. That leads to bad science.

Entropy is the antithesis of survival. Eventually the universe will achieve a zero energy state, the ultimate level of non-survival. Everything between now and then is just a step along that road.

* It should be noted that there has never actually been an instance of Francium coming in contact with water. It can only be generated in minute quantities and has a half life of about 22 minutes (for its most stable isotope). But here's what it looks like to put a small amount of pure sodium (Francium's second cousin twice removed) in water:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODf_sPexS2Q

So it's easy to extrapolate what Francium might do.


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## Kevin

Well if sociology is a science then that is what TWD is about , a sort of speculative sociology fiction. As far as interpersonal relationships it more like Marco Polo ( the series) in that it's about leaders and subordinates, and decisions by groups interacting with ( or against ) other groups, and there is some one on one relationship details which often effect the greater arc of the storyline. The technology ( other than the zombie aspect) is all _now_ stuff so I don't know how that fits exactly into science fiction ( no light sabres or time/space travel ).


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## VonBradstein

Terry D said:


> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "science" being all about survival. Do you mean science the discipline, or the actual physical properties being studied? I think, based on the entirety of your post, you mean the actual physical interactions we study with the various disciplines we call 'science'. That's what I'll address. I think when we start to anthropomorphize chemical reactions, physical reactions, and various interactions at any level -- from the Plank level on up to the multi-dimensions and multi-universes string theorists predict -- is when we build the foundation for pseudo-science and all the wacked out 'scientific' concepts so many people believe.
> 
> It's not about survival. At the most basic level it is all about energy. Matter interacts based on energy levels, from the smallest subatomic particle, to the entire periodic table, to the way dark matter interacts with galaxies to hold them together while dark energy is forcing them apart, to the way our bodies process the foods we eat. If there is a bedrock to the nature of our universe, it's not survival, it's entropy. Every interaction that takes place happens because the materials involved will default to the lowest energy state possible. Sometimes that happens violently -- as with Francium and water* -- other times it happens slowly as with radioactive decay. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling anyone not to see the beauty, or the romance (if you want to use that word), in science. I do. That's why I majored in zoology and botany and why astronomy is one of my hobbies. But when we get too emotive with our scientific view then phrases like 'the intent of evolution', or 'the reason for a disease' start to creep into our collective subconscious. Reasons are for philosophers. They study the why. Science is about the how. There's no need for purpose and intent in the study of the how. That leads to bad science.
> 
> Entropy is the antithesis of survival. Eventually the universe will achieve a zero energy state, the ultimate level of non-survival. Everything between now and then is just a step along that road.
> 
> * It should be noted that there has never actually been an instance of Francium coming in contact with water. It can only be generated in minute quantities and has a half life of about 22 minutes (for its most stable isotope). But here's what it looks like to put a small amount of pure sodium (Francium's second cousin twice removed) in water:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODf_sPexS2Q
> 
> So it's easy to extrapolate what Francium might do.



Yeah, agreed, I was mainly hypothesizing on the theme of survivability in science fiction not scientific processes and how it could be explored without moving away from the facts. Point being that if I was going to write a hard science fiction piece there are ways one could increase the emotional power by looking at the potential humanistic (or emotive) aspects in real processes instead of junk science. This may make it more powerful as literature. Obviously it has no place in a laboratory...

Now, you are right to worry about the slippery slope. I worry about that too. I did not mention purpose or intent in non biological relationships and stated these were not born of any conscious decision making, so there’s no disagreement there. However in a literary sense one can still speak to powerful emotional constructs without reducing to bad science. 

For example, One could write about the death of a planet/star and describe it in a way that is entirely within the boundaries of scientific facts but nonetheless mirrors the death of a fallen warrior or some other human being in a purely poetic sense. That is what I mean by survivalism.


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## Terry D

VonBradstein said:


> Yeah, agreed, I was mainly hypothesizing on the theme of survivability in science fiction not scientific processes and how it could be explored without moving away from the facts. Point being that if I was going to write a hard science fiction piece there are ways one could increase the emotional power by looking at the potential humanistic (or emotive) aspects in real processes instead of junk science. This may make it more powerful as literature. Obviously it has no place in a laboratory...



Exactly. This is what 'hard' sf does so well, it shows the humanistic side effects of science and tech.



> Now, you are right to worry about the slippery slope. I worry about that too. I did not mention purpose or intent in non biological relationships and stated these were not born of any conscious decision making, so there’s no disagreement there. However in a literary sense one can still speak to powerful emotional constructs without reducing to bad science.



No, of course you didn't. I didn't mean to imply you did. Things just go off-the-rails very quickly when careless writers, or ill-informed readers start applying purpose to natural processes.



> For example, One could write about the death of a planet/star and describe it in a way that is entirely within the boundaries of scientific facts but nonetheless mirrors the death of a fallen warrior or some other human being in a purely poetic sense. That is what I mean by survivalism.



Sure. Metaphor and allegory are powerful components of SF. The same emotional punch can be had when dealing with 'pure' science in a more direct way too. I'm reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's short story, The Star, in which a spacefaring theologian/astrophysicist has returned from a mission to examine the remains of a supernova. At the site the crew found a vault built into the planet furthest out from the burned-out star. The vault contains the history of a human-like race who had lived on one of the planets, but were doomed by the explosion. Knowing what was coming, those people built the vault so that their history might live on. After returning from the voyage, the priest/scientist calculates the exact date when the nova would have been visible from Earth. He finds that the star would have been seen in the night sky at the time of the birth of Jesus. It was the Star of Bethlehem. That story carried a terrific emotional impact for me even though the science involved was almost prosaic.


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## Monaque

Interesting thread. 
No, in my opinion, the writer of fiction, as opposed to non-fiction, writes to entertain primarily. To be honest that's what I want to be when I read a Ben Aaronovitch or a Ted Chiang, I want to be engrossed to the point where I am taken to another place, another world. It`s just like watching a movie; people have such strong reactions to the themes and ideas presented in a film, or a book, that they will become angry and irrational in presenting their point of view. It's just made up stuff.
And that's exactly what I want.

That being said, Asimov and Dick wrote about concepts that were not even in the minds eyes when they conjured them. We make things up, but do those concepts then inspire others to fulfill them or were they going to happen anyway?


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## seigfried007

I'm not sure why science fiction writers seem to tear each other apart more so than seemingly any other group of writers. we fall into this trap of "your science isn't as good as *my* science" and "your science isn't even *real* science."

Science fiction is bluntly any work that includes some technology that has not been utilized yet. If there's something featured that doesn't exist, or hasn't been discovered and quantified yet in a story, it's science fiction, so long as it's not explained by the supernatural. The science doesn't have to be explained or even seem rational. Most current technology would seem impossible even two hundred years ago.  

Any given thriller from the modern era, if translated and handed back in time to Aristotle would be considered science fiction because it would feature fantastic devices that the people of that time had not encountered yet. And there would be big debates about if such devices as cell phones, cars, planes, GPS, computers, indoor plumbing, wall outlets, etc could even exist. And people would come to the conclusion that these fantastic devices were magic or otherwise not qualified to be "hard science fiction" and must therefore be relegated to this lesser, plebeian brand of speculative fiction. 

Science isn't actually about hard and fast "rules"; it's about "this is how we understand things *right now*". There are pretty much always exceptions to rules *somewhere* in the universe. We can see and experience but a peephole into the macrocosm, and I think we people in science tend to forget all the stuff we don't know. What we accept as facts right now could very well be disproved--partially or totally--within fifty years even. Just think about how new the fields of physics and calculus are, relative to a lot of other scientific disciplines. 

I've met a lot of really arrogant people in both the scientific fields and art. In my experience, physicists are among the worst about marching themselves into arrogant corners of "this is fact" and "this is a law" only to find out some of those things get bent and broken throughout the universe. Science fiction, then, is chock full of artists and scientists, so that might help explain why we're always in camps, yelling at each other. Perhaps the only people nastier than us are into law and politics. 


Current understanding at least tells us that you can't just step on the gas pedal and go faster than light. Great. All of that mass becoming infinite as you approach the speed of light thing... yeah, even approaching the speed of light would suck pretty bad. But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways of perhaps circumventing what we think is the truth and still getting somewhere faster than light could get there. Some of these proposed ways of getting somewhere faster could make for cool stories (like in Frank Herbert's Dune, or Stephen King's The Jaunt)--cooler than merely stepping harder on the gas pedal, even. However, the point of the story rarely hinges on it, when you think about it. Getting from A to B doesn't necessarily add so much dramatic potential whether you're doing it by fold engine or time warping or gravity slingshots or black holes or just walking across the street and taking a subway. It's just a vehicle to change the setting of the story. It moves the backdrop of the play, but isn't necessarily so important as to trump what's going on in the scene. Does it really matter if the character steps on the gas or folds space? Does it actually change anything how he gets across space, or are vehicles more like mobile McGuffins? 

I think we get distracted from telling a good story in favor of taking astrophysics courses and doing mountains of research. The harder you try to make the science, generally the drier the prose comes off and the less time you can spend writing. Often, the research itself crushes the will to write the story. There's a balance to it.  No matter what we write, we're going to date ourselves, too. We're always going to be archaic further down the temporal road--and often too darn quickly.


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## Terry D

Like all genres, science fiction has divided itself into sub-genres, the readers of which all have different expectations of their chosen classification. Readers of space opera, steampunk, or science fantasy aren't going to worry overmuch about the feasibility of the tech in their stories. Hard SF readers care much more, but even they will allow for the currently impossible, so long as it isn't a primary theme of the story. What I mean by that can best be illustrated by one of my favorite SF short stories (and one I've used earlier in this thread) Neutron Star, by Larry Niven. The main plot of that story involves details about the gravitational gradient surrounding ultra-dense core of a dead star. The science of those effects is spot on, and Niven would have been (rightfully) pilloried for mucking them up. But, for his protagonist to get to that neutron star, he used a spaceship capable of faster-than-light travel. The FTL drive isn't explained because it's not the point of the story. 

It's good to know which sub-genre you are writing for, or, if you are going to mix and match those sub-genres, at least understand the expectations you'll be defying.

Here's a short list of some of the SF sub-genres:

http://www.scifiideas.com/writing-2/writing-advice/a-guide-to-science-fiction-subgenres/


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## moderan

Or just get the effing science right in the first place, and then you don't have to worry about it. Imo any other way is just lazy.


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## H.Brown

moderan said:


> Or just get the effing science right in the first place, and then you don't have to worry about it. Imo any other way is just lazy.



I agree, if your going to do something, then do it right the first time, research and really think about the science you wish to use and then make sureyou present it well. If you cut corners you do yourself no favors, as hardcore genre fans will tear it apart.


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## moderan

Well, it's not really that, though it's quite true. It's just lazy storytelling not to get the details right, or try to. One's byline has a cachet.


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## Bodes

This thread has made me rethink everything about science fiction. Let me just go edit the genre of my novel real quick....


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## ironpony

I think a lot of sci-fi authors just don't care about realistic science maybe, like in Frankenstein, how a person is brought back to life by dead body parts sown together, or how in the movie Silent Running, a futuristic space ship runs silent, undetected by sonar, even though there is no sonar in space, etc.


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## moderan

ironpony said:


> I think a lot of sci-fi authors just don't care about realistic science maybe, like in Frankenstein, how a person is brought back to life by dead body parts sown together, or how in the movie Silent Running, a futuristic space ship runs silent, undetected by sonar, even though there is no sonar in space, etc.



Umm, Mary Shelley was nineteen years old, and the science involved had not been disproven by the publication date ( 1/1/1818 ). The title of 'Silent Running' refers to reducing the heat signature of the craft. That's why Freeman Lowell/Dern shut the engines off. It's a direct rejoinder to the rash of ecowareness sf that was around at the time...things like Make Room, Make Room, which became Soylent Green, Thomas Disch's 334, JG Ballard's Billennium, and John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up. Dern didn't want to jettison the plants and animals that he tended.
The two publications are 154 years apart. Both were based on then-current scientific principles.


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## ironpony

Oh okay, on the special features of the DVD, they said that the movie was called Silent Running, such as when submarines run silent to not be detected by sonar.

And even though the science would have been disproven in Frankenstein, it would still cast a lot of disbelief and doubt, and they even made it into a movie and updated the setting to the 1930s, and still kept the same science, of sowing parts together.  What does Mary Shelley being 19 have to do with it?


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## Kevin

If you go far enough into the future everything as of yet unproven is possible.


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## Kevin

Being 19 Shelley was open to new ideas while at the same time lacking in years of accumulated conditioning. Considering how unsophisticated people were ( generally) at the time, being without access to knowledge that is commonly accessible today, she was quite remarkable. Today, we have instant access to things that only isolated pockets of society knew about in the past ( academics,scientist etc.) so fortunately, or unfortunately, generally, your readers are going to see any blatant inaccuracies regarding your story's 'science'. Therefor any 'pivotal' ( to the story) science is going to be scrutinized and questioned. That is not to say that you still might 'pull off' a scientifically incorrect premise, like re-animated zombies , but the chances are less.

shelley's basic understanding of organic electrical connections was flawed ( as with all re-animated scenarios) in that, yes, nerve impulses (messages) controlling the body are electrical, but at death (being organic)the body and especially the brain begin irreparably breaking down immediately. Your brain is damaged beyond use in minutes. Regeneration, displacing the damaged 'dead' parts would have to occur at a cellular level. The dead parts have no use. You would have to grow whole new parts while ejecting or rejecting the old, like doctors cutting out necrotic tissue. This from someone who has nearly zero understanding of the biology but even I can grasp the basic I've learned on tv.  So sewing together corpses is a lot more difficult than was technologically doable in 18-something.


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## moderan

ironpony said:


> Oh okay, on the special features of the DVD, they said that the movie was called Silent Running, such as when submarines run silent to not be detected by sonar.
> 
> And even though the science would have been disproven in Frankenstein, it would still cast a lot of disbelief and doubt, and they even made it into a movie and updated the setting to the 1930s, and still kept the same science, of sowing parts together.  What does Mary Shelley being 19 have to do with it?


I think Kevin answered that last sufficiently. They kept the same science because that's what audiences were familiar with, as it's part of the story. Also spectacular sfx. 


> And even though the science would have been disproven in Frankenstein, it would still cast a lot of disbelief and doubt


What does this mean? 
You can get DNA by swabbing dead cells off the surface of a table, but you then have to examine the DNA. You're examining the Lemon Pledge.
Try googling 'hard science fiction'. You'll find oodles of scientific accuracy, a goodly portion of which is/was written by actual scientists like Gregory Benford, David Brin, Carl Sagan...some of the best hard sf was written by high-school science teacher Hal Clement and self-taught polymath Frederik Pohl. That's a start. You'll find mathematicians like Rudy Rucker and Larry Niven, humanists like Ursula LeGuin and Alice Sheldon, feminists like Joanna Russ...and more.
DVD jacket copy is not authoritative. The shine may be lemon good, but it covers up the real wood.


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## Terry D

_Frankenstein_ is not a science-fiction novel. Science-fiction, as a genre, didn't exist until about a century later. _Frankenstein_ is a fable, a morality tale. As such, the conventions of 'science fiction' do not apply. The book has been retroactively lumped into the SF category, but I'd bet Shelly wasn't too worried about being scientifically accurate.


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## JustRob

Terry makes a very good point. Who dictates the genre of a story? Who even dictates what genres exist at any time? When I wrote my novel I didn't plan to write within the framework of any science fiction genre. It simply happened that the story embodied science that was fictional because the science wasn't what the story was fundamentally about. I read a really hard science fiction story and I found it boring because nothing unusual happened despite fantastic things happening, but they were fantastic in the sense of being outside of everyday experience rather than founded in fantasy, which is how much of science strikes most of us. 

On another thread someone recently asked how to avoid a character in their story simply phoning for help on their mobile phone, which is what would most likely happen in that situation in reality nowadays. My answer was that society strives so hard for perfection, finding stock solutions for every anticipated problem, that it is difficult for a writer to construct any intriguing story without relying on flaws of some kind that diverge from reality. Given that, I don't understand why science buffs insist on seeking out flaws in science fiction when the genre title includes that key word "fiction". Is science such a sacred cow that a writer can, and indeed is advised to, make his characters seriously flawed, grotesques even, in order to create his story but must not deviate from science as accurate as he can make it through painstaking research? Why? A writer creates a story by asking himself the question "What if ... ?" and there are no constraints that I can see on what that question might be.

The film _The Martian_ apparently contained a great deal of hard science, but it was criticised by hard science buffs because the initial premise was flawed. The situation was brought about by a storm on Mars, but the atmosphere is actually so thin that a storm involving high winds wouldn't do any structural damage and, even if it could, that factor would have been taken into account when planning the expedition as society always strives to be perfect. In reality when a manned expedition to Mars is planned it is likely that the plan will include everyone coming back again and the qualification for being part of the planning team won't simply be that one criticises science fiction stories. 

For some reason basing a story on a flaw in the science rather than a flaw in a character's personality is frowned upon by hard sci-fi buffs. This is strange because when my angel and I watch films or read books we are more critical of flaws in the characters than anything else. During television programmes we shout at the screen that a stereotypically wayward child should have been drowned at birth or that a particular person in a position of authority or responsibility simply couldn't have been put there in reality because they were so inherently flawed, and yet this is apparently how allegedly "good" stories are created. I'm sorry, but that mystifies me. Humans are only as chaotic as the rest of the universe, no more.

Society creates its own reality by eliminating the flaws and equally it creates its fiction by putting them in. Just accept that.

In such discussions I always come back to Arthur C. Clarke's book _The Fountains of Paradise_, in which he applied his usual diligence to scientific accuracy but introduced flawed geography, a shortcoming which he openly admitted. The story involves building a space elevator from a mountain top in Sri Lanka to a satellite in geostationary orbit above it as an energy efficient way of getting into orbit. The flaw is that geostationary orbits are conventionally over the equator but Sri Lanka isn't on the equator and Clarke only based the story there because that was where his home was. His solution was to relocate Sri Lanka to fit in with the science! So, apparently it's to hell with the geography and everything else in a story so long as we don't violate any of the science. That seems a distorted way of looking at fiction to me.


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## bulmabriefs144

Important thing to note. Many people want to suspend all laws of physics when writing a fantasy story. Don't. Another thing they like to do is try to needlessly limit their characters under contrived limits. Don't do that either.

Limit magic by the physical laws (to a certain extent) which means you research those laws. For instance, a person is falling. They have flight magic, but they were caught off guard and are now picking up speed. They don't just disregard gravity. Talk about terminal velocity. Talk about momentum, talk about stuff like that. Then talk about magic as a sort of counterforce and the character is exerting pressure against the ground. Talk about how the character can fly, but only by creating wind propulsion, and have a limit to height because after a certain height there is nothing to push against. Talk about how trying to fly near a body of water doesn't work quite the same as land (if we're going by propulsion or some sort of antigrav, the complications of solids vs liquids). Talk about the Law of Reality Opposition (made that up, but basically, the more something opposes reality and the laws of physics, the higher the amount of energy it takes).  If something works despite what you'd normally think, describe it. 

You also want to elaborate on the "science" of how your universe works. My novel has sort semi-science, semi-magic thing going on. Humans can produce energy (mystic power, or MP) through the use of runes. These are tiny carved symbols floating in the air, that draw towards people in response to speaking and writing. Atmospheric events (like rain) that wash written letters away have an effect on runes, and thus suppress magic.

=============================

Oh btw, here's an example of bad science in a fantasy film. The "Allegiant" movie has them cross into the new section. They are rinsed off, and their clothes are burned for decontamination. But at some point, they talk about plasma. Lacking a good grasp of what plasma really is, they have it sort of like lava lamp substance. Yes, there apparently is nonthermal plasma but in real life, typical plasma is far more likely to be stuff like lightning or fire. As a result, I started giggling.


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## Aschendale

For me, the key point to what I'll accept is a matter of time and species. My two favorite SF series are Kim Stanley Robinson's _Mars _trilogy and Iain Banks' _Culture _series, which couldn't be further apart in terms of scientific plausibilty. The thing is, the Mars trilogy (the first book of which was published in 1993) starts in, IIRC, 2024 and Robinson blends what we _can _do, what we _could _do if we wanted to, and what we might be able to do soon. As far as I know (and I'm an English teacher, not a scientist), there's nothing in the books that is outright impossible. 

Banks, on the other hand, deals with the technological far future. The Culture is contemporaneous with modern human civilization, but has been a spacefaring civilization for... ten thousand years? Their spaceships are composed almost entirely of force fields, run by hyperintelligent AIs, and capable of travel at thousands of times of the speed of light. Current science says this is impossible, but there was a proposal to close the US Patent Office in 1899. Powered heavier-than-air flight was considered impossible for a while. 

Additionally, I grant a lot of leeway when aliens are involved. I didn't like _The Arrival_'s idea that time is simply a function of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but had the movie posited that the aliens had an additional lobe (or some such) of their brains that allowed them to see outside of time, I'd have been much more receptive. I speak bits and bobs of five languages, but my cat absolutely refuses to study Turkish, says she's not capable. 

What I have a hard time tolerating is present or near-present day stories where someone comes up with something that is way, _way_ ahead of present-day tech, especially if they built it in their garage. The unobtanium chassis from _The Core_ was the least of that movie's sins, but still one put a further dagger into my suspension of disbelief.


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## Ralph Rotten

Terry D said:


> _Frankenstein_ is not a science-fiction novel. Science-fiction, as a genre, didn't exist until about a century later. _Frankenstein_ is a fable, a morality tale. As such, the conventions of 'science fiction' do not apply. The book has been retroactively lumped into the SF category, but I'd bet Shelly wasn't too worried about being scientifically accurate.




Frankenstein is a horror story.  Mary Shelly invented the genre in modern literature.  Amazingly, she also invented the post-apocalyptic genre with her book Last Man. She was really way ahead of her time. Way.

As for Mary's science, keep in mind that the genius of Doctor Frankenstein's [steen] work was the reanimation of dead flesh.  Of course it doesn't stand up to modern science...because we have not invented that technology yet.  But Doctor Frankenstein did, and that is the universe where the story takes place. 
_You would not balk at someone reanimating dead flesh in a sci-fi story_.

Sometimes science fiction employs black-box technology.  We all know that the galactic speed limit is fixed, yet we stand in line to see movies that propagate FTL travel without really explaining how it is done.  Sure, they use a warp bubble, or they fold space, etc.  None of these things have been proven possible.  No one has ever found a wormhole, or even escaped from this solar system.  Doesn't necessarily make it bad science, just speculative.


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## luckyscars

Ralph Rotten said:


> Frankenstein is a horror story. Mary Shelly invented the genre in modern literature.



No it isn't, and no she didn't. 

I have yet to meet anybody who found Frankenstein in novel form even remotely frightening. Moreover it does not even seem that evoking fear or repulsion was even a major part of Shelley's intent. Frankenstein has _influenced_ the horror genre hugely, much like it was itself influenced by the character of Prometheus but that seems rather irrelevant when discussing what a book actually is. 

No argument that the monster and the ensuing spin-off films etc have undoubtedly become seminal parts of the "horror" genre but lumping itin that genre is questionable at best and crediting Shelley with inventing a modern genre is absurd. Please explain why Frankenstein gets to be the 'invention of modern horror' but something like Grimm's Hansel & Gretel (a genuinely nasty story involving another seminal monster - witches - and published six years before Frankenstein) doesn't? What about Shakespeare's Macbeth? Faustus? The Castle of Otranto?

Frankenstein is, as was mentioned before, primarily a moral fable. Its attempt to address the nature of humanity and other existential topics is probably the most interesting aspect of the story and why people read it today. There are Gothic and supernatural elements, sure, as there is in much non-horror 19th century literature (Wuthering Heights, for instance) but there is probably about as much basis to call Frankenstein a horror story as there are to call it a science fiction. Not much, in other words.


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## Ralph Rotten

Frankenstein has a monster that kills a little girl.
In the 1820s that would have been a horror story.
You are analyzing it in modern light.


And yes, as you stated in your own reply, the book inspired a series of [horror] spinoffs and movies...which would make it the cornerstone of the modern horror genre.
Regardless of how it was a moral story, it nonetheless spawned a whole genre of horror flicks and stories.
Grim's fairy tales did not.
Ergo, Mary Shelly invented the genre.


She also invented the post-apocalyptic genre too.
She is on my list of people I would visit if I ever had a time machine.


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## luckyscars

Ralph Rotten said:


> Frankenstein has a monster that kills a little girl.
> In the 1820s that would have been a horror story.
> You are analyzing it in modern light.



Have you checked out any of the reviews of Frankenstein from the 1820's? A lot were written and I have not seen any such consensus that the book inspired widespread terror. That does not mean some people were not scared of it (just as some people today are scared of Willy Wonka) and it is definitely true many at the time found parts of it shocking or grotesque, particularly those of a more religious persuasion, but in that case Catcher In The Rye is a horror story too. I don't want to dwell on what is or what is not "real horror" (it is not my forte anyway) but the logic does not make a whole lot of sense. I think you are the one analyzing in a modern light by basing your assessment of the book on the Hollywood adaptions.



> And yes, as you stated in your own reply, the book inspired a series of [horror] spinoffs and movies...which would make it the cornerstone of the modern horror genre.
> Regardless of how it was a moral story, it nonetheless spawned a whole genre of horror flicks and stories.
> Grim's fairy tales did not.
> Ergo, Mary Shelly invented the genre.
> 
> 
> She also invented the post-apocalyptic genre too.
> She is on my list of people I would visit if I ever had a time machine.



Not if we are strictly talking literature...

 There are books and movies inspired to varying degrees by Frankenstein, however I do not know of any that date from close to the time the book was written. I strongly doubt Mary Shelley would recognize something like "Bride Of Frankenstein" as being inspired by her novel. So I don't think we can credit her with inventing the genre. 

Again, we have a problem of a character who was obviously written to be sympathetic and not especially scary (once you get past his physical appearance and the unpleasant nature of his creation) that was dug up and recycled into something frightening by Hollywood. I think you are conflating the two, to the point it almost seems like bias. Grimm's Fairy Tales did not actually invent the idea of witches (which further supports my point that horror has been around in some form long before Frankenstein...) but they possibly invented many of the traits typical of _modern _witches (old woman who lives in a house in the woods and wants to hurt children) and this idea of witches is every bit as pervasive in the genre as Frankenstein's Monster is and I know which I found scarier.

Can agree to disagree I suppose!!! I will agree you are right on the money that The Last Man is an outstanding book and probably responsible for the post-apocalyptic fiction genre.


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## Jack of all trades

luckyscars said:


> Have you checked out any of the reviews of Frankenstein from the 1820's? A lot were written and I have not seen any such consensus that the book inspired widespread terror.



I haven't seen any sign that King's books, or any other modern horror books, have inspired wide spread terror. By that logic, there is no horror genre.

Your argument is flawed.

On the other hand, I'm not sure Frankenstein was the first horror novel.

The Grimm tales were not novels, whether or not you care to classify them as horror.

There have always been gruesome tales. At what point did such become a genre? Possibly like evolution, it's impossible to point to one book or story and say, "That's it!" At least not without someone else saying, "Nah." 

How does this relate to bad science in good fiction?


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## luckyscars

Jack of all trades said:


> I haven't seen any sign that King's books, or any other modern horror books, have inspired wide spread terror. By that logic, there is no horror genre.
> 
> Your argument is flawed.
> 
> On the other hand, I'm not sure Frankenstein was the first horror novel.
> 
> The Grimm tales were not novels, whether or not you care to classify them as horror.
> 
> There have always been gruesome tales. At what point did such become a genre? Possibly like evolution, it's impossible to point to one book or story and say, "That's it!" At least not without someone else saying, "Nah."
> 
> How does this relate to bad science in good fiction?



I do agree with your statement that there isn't really a single book that invents a genre. There are books that one can point to and say "this was the first x" but its more a designation of convenience than anything else. Convenience, of course, is the only reason the idea of genres exists at all.

The wikipedia defintion of horror: "*Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror."

*My reading of that definition: A horror novel does not have to be scary but it has to be evident in its intent to try to cause a sense of fear. That is where I base my argument Frankenstein does not qualify because I do not see any evidence that Mary Shelley was attempting that. If anything one might argue it is something of an anti-horror because the running theme throughout the novel is the idea, commonplace now but quite revolutionary in the 19th century, that the real monster is not the hideous creature but the prejudices of the society in which it exists and that true humanity can exist outside of "normal humans". To that degree it is much closer to a novel like The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, which was incidentally written shortly after Frankenstein was published.

Stephen King? I have not read him much however I find your comment that "I haven't seen any sign that King's books have inspired widespread terror" to be laughable and I don't think you can possibly have thought it through before you said it. You don't think people in droves found The Shining scary? What about It, essentially the reason why fear of clowns is one of the most common phobias? You don't think Salem's Lot or Pet Semetary frightened a huge chunk of their readers and unsettled a good deal more? Pardon me but that is an absurd statement. I am positive that not all King books are scary (not all of them are horror) but the ones which are horror are clearly fitting of the definition. Go to a site like Goodreads, read the reviews and count the number of times people use adjectives like 'terrifying' to describe his books. This is not the same as what was written about Frankenstein, now or at the time.

Either way I have nothing further to say on the topic. I only jumped in to this thread because I saw Frankenstein was being debated and it happens to be a favourite book of mine. Bad Science In Good Fiction may be returned to forthwith.


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## Jack of all trades

luckyscars said:


> Stephen King? I have not read him much however I find your comment that "I haven't seen any sign that King's books have inspired widespread terror" to be laughable and I don't think you can possibly have thought it through before you said it. You don't think people in droves found The Shining scary? What about It, essentially the reason why fear of clowns is one of the most common phobias? You don't think Salem's Lot or Pet Semetary frightened a huge chunk of their readers and unsettled a good deal more? Pardon me but that is an absurd statement. I am positive that not all King books are scary (not all of them are horror) but the ones which are horror are clearly fitting of the definition. Go to a site like Goodreads, read the reviews and count the number of times people use adjectives like 'terrifying' to describe his books. This is not the same as what was written about Frankenstein, now or at the time.



I'm glad we agree that identifying the first anything is somewhat arbitrary.

But getting back to King's books, if it weren't for the technology making people's thoughts more permanently known, would there be any evidence? Are there laws banning clowns, or any other more permanent indication? My intended meaning was there has been little, beyond preserved writing, that reflects the horror of, say, It.

I'm suggesting that we might not have an accurate assessment of public perception at the time of Frankenstein. More might have been word-of-mouth, which doesn't last over time.


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## Terry D

In 1818 when Frankenstein was published there were no 'genres' of fiction to apply to the book. Basically there were two fiction classifications; romance and novels. 'Romance' in this usage doesn't mean what we think of today as 'romantic fiction', they were books which dealt with ideas which were viewed as unrealistic, or fanciful, while 'novels' dealt with realistic situations. Frankenstein is a romance written in the Gothic style. Since the concept of genre did not exist in 1818, no one would have called it horror, science fiction, or anything else. Our best indication of how it was received would be from the reviews at the time (which we quite mixed), and the fact that it was very popular.


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## Ralph Rotten

luckyscars said:


> I will agree you are right on the money that The Last Man is an outstanding book and probably responsible for the post-apocalyptic fiction genre.




Like I said, Mary would be on my list of people I'd visit if I had a time machine.
Right after Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith, and Ma Rainey.


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## sicariote

I think the most simple answer for this is that science fiction is a genre, and there are many sub genres within: hard science, space operas, bio/steam/cyber punk, time travel, science fantasy, etc. It's all sci-fi, in the broad scope of things -- otherwise, it's just narrowing down the genre. I really enjoy hard science, but prancing around science fantasy is just a good time!


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## Ralph Rotten

sicariote said:


> I think the most simple answer for this is that science fiction is a genre, and there are many sub genres within: hard science, space operas, bio/steam/cyber punk, time travel, science fantasy, etc. It's all sci-fi, in the broad scope of things -- otherwise, it's just narrowing down the genre. I really enjoy hard science, but prancing around science fantasy is just a good time!




Amazon certainly has a lotta sub-categories for Science Fiction. 
Hell; even Post-apocalyptic & Dystopian fall under sci-fi.


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## moderan

Ralph Rotten said:


> Amazon certainly has a lotta sub-categories for Science Fiction.
> Hell; even Post-apocalyptic & Dystopian fall under sci-fi.



That would be because they are, in most cases, works of science fiction, or at least specfic.


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## Ralph Rotten

I think TEOTWAWKI stories should be their own genre.


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## epimetheus

Terry D said:


> The book has been retroactively lumped into the SF category, but I'd bet Shelly wasn't too worried about being scientifically accurate.



Maybe she didn't but it's worth noting that when the story was written reanimation was a serious scientific study: this was just a few decades after scientists discovered neurons passed messages to muscles via electricity, doctors were still doing far more harm than good, wriggling spikes in people's brain to cure them from epilepsy and i guess Franklin's kite would have been on the public conscious too. The story seems to fit with the scientific knowledge of the time.


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## moderan

Ralph Rotten said:


> I think TEOTWAWKI stories should be their own genre.


So does Michael Stipe. Ain't gonna happen. But I feel fine.


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## JustRob

Terry D said:


> In 1818 when Frankenstein was published there were no 'genres' of fiction to apply to the book. Basically there were two fiction classifications; romance and novels. 'Romance' in this usage doesn't mean what we think of today as 'romantic fiction', they were books which dealt with ideas which were viewed as unrealistic, or fanciful, while 'novels' dealt with realistic situations. Frankenstein is a romance written in the Gothic style. Since the concept of genre did not exist in 1818, no one would have called it horror, science fiction, or anything else. Our best indication of how it was received would be from the reviews at the time (which we quite mixed), and the fact that it was very popular.



When I wrote my first and doubtlessly also last novel I didn't want to be constrained to any genre, which is evidently a relatively modern concept anyway. I certainly viewed it as a romance in both the old and new senses but readers saw it as science fiction because of the fanciful concepts in it. Not long ago our local library stopped filing fiction by genre and instead filed it alphabetically by author although they did put stickers on the spines of books which had clearly defined genres. Maybe the concept of genre is going out of fashion again. 

Even the distinction between fantasy and reality is becoming blurred by scientific trends. Oddly though a friend who was reading my novel told me that he preferred stories based in reality, which surprised me as he is a scientist and when I asked him about quantum mechanics, which he regularly used in his chemistry research, he said that it was just a model that evidently gave the right answers but that didn't mean that it actually was in any way reality. If a professional scientist regards science as just being a convenient analogy of reality but not reality itself then where does that leave science fiction? Good science fiction extrapolates on an established scientific model to create a potential reality beyond our current experience, so maybe what he meant was that he preferred stories based in our _familiar_ reality. 

To my mind the distinction between good and bad science in fiction is simply whether any deviation from accepted science was intentional or not. If a writer knows the accepted science but chooses to deviate from it for the sake of the story then that is very different from a writer who accidentally gets the science wrong to no advantage. As for the genre, I regard genre itself as a fictional concept, much as our library evidently does.


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## Guard Dog

moderan said:


> So does Michael Stipe. Ain't gonna happen. But I feel fine.



Fixed it for ya.


G.D.


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## Hill.T.Manner

My preferred writing genre is mostly confined to fantasy with a heavy steampunk element, so the idea of trying to ensure any technology/science present in my works makes sense with respect to reality is something I gave up a long time ago. I'll make an effort to include some scientifically sound elements but trying to convince a reader that a vehicle with tubes and lines sticking out all over the place that's powered by steam will actually work seems a little far-fetched. I've always treated reading, especially fantasy as an escape from reality. Which I don't think I'm alone in thinking, however I also appreciate that there is a fine line between sci-fi/fantasy and outright doesn't make sense.


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## epimetheus

JustRob said:


> Even the distinction between fantasy and reality is becoming blurred by scientific trends. Oddly though a friend who was reading my novel told me that he preferred stories based in reality, which surprised me as he is a scientist and when I asked him about quantum mechanics, which he regularly used in his chemistry research, he said that it was just a model that evidently gave the right answers but that didn't mean that it actually was in any way reality. If a professional scientist regards science as just being a convenient analogy of reality but not reality itself then where does that leave science fiction? Good science fiction extrapolates on an established scientific model to create a potential reality beyond our current experience, so maybe what he meant was that he preferred stories based in our _familiar_ reality.



Your friend is just expressing the idea science is a _description_ of reality, not some fundamental insight it exactly _what_ reality is. A common refrain in science is that 'all models are wrong, but some are useful'.

But that doesn't mean anything goes. If you were writing a medical sci-fi you would base it current medical models of disease, not on the medieval medical theories of humours and miasmas which did far more harm than good: not a useful model.



Hill.T.Manner said:


> I've always treated reading, especially fantasy as an escape from reality. Which I don't think I'm alone in thinking, however I also appreciate that there is a fine line between sci-fi/fantasy and outright doesn't make sense.



I like sci-fi and fantasy in order to explore reality rather than escape it. But that doesn't mean i wan't all my sci-fi extrapolated from the latest science. It's the human condition i usually want to explore and the tech doesn't necessarily matter to this.


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