What with my new-found spare time, I’ve been catching up on space science. Not just because it’s something that’s always fascinated me- I don’t count myself a trekkie or a Star Wars geek, but some of the first novels I read were Heinlein juveniles, and science fiction has always been my primary source of reading material- but because I also want to write science fiction. With role models such as Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, and Pournelle, is it any surprise that I want my writing to be as scientifically accurate as possible? My hard science background is rather limited- I was a biologist in college, not a physicist- but there are plenty of people with the same interest, and a burning desire to catalog what they know. I have to give Rocketpunk Manifesto and Atomic Rocket a lot of thanks for providing my reading material over the last week. There have been some advances since the last time I took a serious look at the state of the art in space travel and proposed travel, but no huge surprises for me. The future of sci-fi, space-opera, Trek and Star Wars style space flight is, on a realistic level, very depressing.
Why? Those pesky laws of physics. Faster than light travel? Not so far as we know. Travel times measured in months and years, finite amounts of fuel and food available to our intrepid explorers, ships that look like an erector-set explosion rather than some sleek, sexy dreadnaught; studded with ugly habitation rings (forget artificial gravity) and heat radiators (because no one escapes the laws of thermodynamics). Great space battles with masses of space-battleships crossing the T of the enemy fleet? Nope; you’ll know where they are from across the solar system and when they do get in range, the weaponry even by today’s theories is pretty devastating, if not visually exciting. No clouds of Battlestar Galactica Vipers or X-Wings, either; there’s little point in open space.
Which is why even the hardest of the great hard-scifi authors has to do some magic hand-waving and allow some bit of impossibility into the story to get the universes they do. The biggest, of course, is faster-than-light travel; it’s all but essential to the scifi most of us have come to know and love. They do try and keep some internal consistency, however; if you postulate X for your FTL drive, the side effects will be Y, and your characters will have to deal with them.
There’s a movement afoot, though, that says even this amount of handwavium is a cheat. “Mundane SF” says that look, what we know so far is that there’s no FTL, no alternate universes, very few habitable planets anywhere, much less close enough that we’d ever have a hope at reaching them- and the same for intelligent species, with whom we couldn’t hope to communicate and who are under the same restrictions as we are. Stop with the FTL battleships and Mos Eisley spaceports; they can’t exist. Our SF must be pure… no hand-waving allowed. One quote that struck me was “Geoff Ryman has contrasted mundane science fiction with regular science fiction through the desire of teenagers to leave their parents’ homes. Ryman sees too much of regular science fiction being based on an ‘adolescent desire to run away from our world.’ However, Ryman notes that humans are not truly considered grown-up until they ‘create a new home of their own,’ which is what mundane science fiction aims to do.”
So. Every great SF author of the past 100 years has been childish. Past SF has been escapism, and only “mundane SF” is pure, and adult in theme.
Wow. That sounds a little… childish. Not pink-unicorn-rainbow childish, but grumpy-teenager-locking-themselves-in-their-room childish. Here’s a hint: All fiction is escapism, no matter how based on reality it is. Why else are people reading it? Why are they writing it? Saying that having a bit of handwavium FTL drive in an otherwise superbly consistent story is childish, as you sniff pretentiously and push your glasses back up the nose you’re looking down, is ridiculous. Don’t you think the author knows what e=mc^2 means, and its implications? Don’t you think the average hard-sf aficionado does? Here’s a hint, it’s called “willing suspension of disbelief”, and it plays a part in just about every work of fiction in some way and amount. Without it, your story reads like… well… like most blogs you read, including this one. Dry as a dog biscuit.
Does this mean I won’t be reading any mundane SF? Of course not… just because they’re hobbled by physical reality doesn’t mean they won’t be interesting and engaging. By the same token, is any SF that gets the science really wrong worthless and deserving of nothing but contempt no matter how compelling the story? Again, of course not. My complaint here is the assumption that any SF that requires a bit of handwavium to exist- whether it be an FTL drive, thousands of habitable planets, or a menagerie of exotic aliens- is automatically forfeit of any consideration; and, in fact, is no better than childish fantasy, no different from a Dr. Suess coloring book.
I bet the most vociferous Mundate SFers grind their teeth and stomp off to their room to play some Morissey at the very mention of Star Wars. Heh. Fiction is entertainment, it is escapism. Otherwise, what’s the point? When the pseudoscience reaches the point of interfering with the story, sure, then it’s bad. But for the most part, some bit of handwavium is inevitable, and even enjoyable. There is such a thing as being TOO much of a geek, you know. You know you’ve reached it when it interferes with your enjoyment of things.
Sourpuss.