Just Some Friendly Strangers

I just finished day one of a three day move to a new place halfway across the country where I get to start my new teaching gig (yays!)

The trip was going smooth...for the most part...

Oh Noes!

Thanks to a friendly tow guy, we found out that the car was still driveable and even without the muffler, the car isn't that loud.  Excellent!  So we kept driving until...

Well, hell!

We pulled off to try to fix the now dragging tailpipe, when a random friendly trucker showed up who was an awesome super magical car fixing genius and did an amazing job of rigging up the tailpipe/exhaust with wire!  So friendly and so nice.

Which of course got me to thinking, why don't more random friendly strangers pop out of no where to help main characters in fantasy?  I mean, okay, sometimes they do.  You have random wise people chilling in huts in fantasy worlds everywhere ready to help, or sometimes a nice guy with a cart but for the most part the random friendly strangers are either a) evil b) become part of the story c) are part of a larger story/world, like Elrond in LOTR.

I know, I know, you have to have events like that be plot points, otherwise its to 'convenient,'....but, you know, random strangers *do* just show up in life for no reason than simply to help, and then move on.  So instead of being convenient, isn't it just realistic?

Or maybe there are more random strangers than I remember and the answer is just that simple :)

Putting the "Science" in Science Fiction

Lately I’ve come across people discussing/a few posts/ general comments regarding science in science fiction.  More specifically: how detailed should the science in science fiction get?

What a fascinating problem!

At first, I thought it was a straight forward answer, but as I started writing (and rewriting) this post, I found myself thinking more and more of my own opinions on the matter, and what a truly interesting issue this was.

Too much detail, and you get something akin to a technical manual (don’t forget the fiction part of science fiction), too little detail and people have no idea what’s going on.  It’s a delicate balance so how can a sci-fi writer meet that balance and not confuse or bore their readers?  In other words, how can you get the science “good enough” so that the reader maintains his or her suspension of disbelief?

I’m not a sci-fi writer, nor am I a sci-fi reader (for the most part) but I am a scientist and so this topic interests me, thus I tried to figure it out for own little self.

The first thing I did was eliminate the obvious.  I don’t think anyone out there needs to be told that too much detail is a bad thing.  When I think of science-y detail, I think of allll those peer reviewed articles that, while on one hand are really cool, is not something you want to write a fiction novel out of.  It can be boring, convoluted, and your reader can forget that there is a story buried in there somewhere.  Also, with all details exposed, you run a higher risk of people (you know, those people) trolling for accuracy.

So, with that point put aside I asked myself two questions that I hoped would allow me to understand my thoughts on the subject:

1)How is science introduced/used in published science fiction to be made acceptable

And

2) Under what circumstances do I get annoyed, as a geoscientist, with science in fiction.

To tackle the first question, I thought of the few sci-fi books I’ve read over the years, and it helped that I just finished Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, so that sci fi was fresh in my mind.  It seems to me that a lot of the science in sci-fi operates on basic scientific principles and also builds on itself in a scientific way.

By basic scientific principles, I mean scientific theories or premises that the general public has a handle on.  Good examples are gravity, the laws of motion, evolution, laws of thermodynamics, etc.  The general public may not understand these in great detail but they understand them well enough that if an author uses it as a foundation for say, space travel, or world building (in terms of evolution), the general populace will get what the author is saying without the author having to go into detail.

For example, in Out of the Silent Planet, the ship Ransom, Watson, and Devine travel in is circular and has a gravitational center.  The side that faces towards the sun as they travel is hot, while the side that faces away is cold.

When I read this, I didn’t really spend my time questioning it, or questioning how they created gravity in the ship or any of those other details because it made sense in a general way.  It is set up similar to the way the earth functions and that was enough to suspend my disbelief.

The key here, however, is that the point of the story wasn’t about the gravity on the ship or how the ship functioned.  In fact, the only time I saw a high degree of technically explanation in sci-fi is when the science in question was specifically important to the storyline.

Now science can be sort of important to the story line in a lot of science fiction, but readers can accept it because the science/technology/alien creatures build on these basic scientific principles in a logical way.  Science is all about following something to a logical conclusion, so once an author establishes a few basic principles, be they real (gravity, evolution) or made up, and follows them logically then the reader is less likely to nitpick or get confused.

This last realization led me to my answer for question 2.

My question to myself was when have I gotten annoyed at science in fiction.

I have to really focus more on fantasy, since that’s what I mainly read, but I think the same conclusions can apply.  If I’m dealing with a fantasy world, I tend to go easy on landscape development because I think to myself ‘Hey, it’s a made up world.  They can do what they like.”

The only time I found this attitude didn’t apply was when an author strayed from the principles they established in the beginning.

I’m talking about that insulting book A Darkness Forged in Fire.  I reviewed it a while back and among the many things I hated about it, was the laziness of the author in terms of his concept.

The author introduced a forest of metal trees that fed on the ore beneath the mountain to grow.  Now of course we know in the real world this is impossible, but it was acceptable initially to me because you make things out of metal from ore.  Galina is the ore of lead, bauxite is the ore of aluminum, so I could accept that there was magic involved in making these trees.

Then I ran into a problem with a line discussing one particular tree:

"Glinting, obsidian-shelled acorns covered the ground beneath [the tree]."

*sputters*

Okay this is obsidian:

Thanks cool geology site!

This is where obsidian comes from:

Metal is in no way related to obsidian.  How on earth would a metal tree make obsidian acorns??   Especially since he explained how those trees grew—by feeding on ore in the mountains.  If you’re going to acknowledge certain basic principles of how materials are formed, i.e. how metals come from ores, then you can’t just ignore the other principles of geology and toss them out the window.

 It struck me as lazy, as if the author said to himself ‘Hey!  Obsidian sounds cool!  Let’s just add that here.’

That annoyed me.  In that instance, when established principles weren’t followed through, I found the science to be ridiculous.

So I think, as a sort of summarized conclusion, I think, for me at least, to keep a reader’s suspension of disbelief in terms of sci-fi, a writer has to keep focused on the story, not get too bogged down in nitty gritty details, and most importantly, establish principles that the reader can grasp and follow through logically with them.

Exciting things for this week!

I actually have one non-exciting thing, which is that I have to leave to visit relatives this weekend. Where it's hot.  And humid.  Ugh.

But that's not exciting and no one really wants to read about that.  So!  On to more exciting things!


1) This coming Tuesday, July 12, A Dance with Dragons is FINALLY going to come out!  I know I am among the multitude of folks who have been waiting years for this sucker.  The sad thing is I can't get it until I finish my move halfway across the country.  I already have 6 flat rate boxes of books ready to be shipped and I can't allow myself to buy more.  BOO.

2) Writerly friend has a publication up at Every Day Fiction!  Its not the kind of story that can be taken at face value and there's sort of a bitter humor to it that, if you do take it at face value, you miss.  It's clever, so go take a read!

That's all the exciting things I have!  Have a great weekend!

Book Review: The Blue Sword

Frustrating.

That’s the only way I can describe my feelings on this book in one word.

In a few words I would say: Beautiful world building, but the writing let it down. 

The Blue Sword has a classic fantasy plot. At the death of her father, a young woman named Harry is sent to join her brother at an obscure desert outpost in the farthest reaches of the Homeland.  There she lives with a well to do important family, makes some friends and hears the legends of the people that inhabit the nearby Hills which was once the ancient land of Damar.  However war is brewing in the North and the Homelanders need the cooperation of the mysterious Hill tribes: a group of ancient people who have magic called the Gift.   As negotiations with the Hill King, Corlath break down, Harry catches Corlath’s eye.  Or rather she catches his Gift, and his Gift drives him to kidnap her and train her in the Hill people’s ways.  Harry learns to speak, ride, live, and fight, like a warrior of Damar, before becoming a King’s Rider, and obtaining the blue sword of the legendary Aerin, then riding into battle to help defeat Damar’s enemies.

For me, to be very blunt, great world, boring writing.

*winces* I know.  Harsh.  But true.

Let's start off on the positive.  The delicious, tasty world building. the world building was spectacular.  Mckinley created a place I wanted to visit again and again, with all the small details of a culture—from clothing, to customary forms of politeness—that allow a world to come alive, and she did it without making the read boring.  The details were effortlessly woven in with Harry’s training which, in my opinion, was the most interesting part of the book.  As Harry learned about the culture, so did the reader.  I wish I could give Damar and its Hill people a giant hug because it reminded me of all the things I love about fantasy.  Bravo and an A+ for world building.

The characters were...good.  Corlath was very strong, especially as we could see him and his feelings change over time.  He was fascinating and engaging and I wanted to read about him and hear his point of view.  Granted he was also a Hill person and that was the strength of the novel so...

Anyways, once we get away from Damar, things get to be kinda...Meh.  Like the heroine: Harry.  Harry was…a heroine. She was a strong character, but I really don’t feel like she had a strong personality and there are many many heroines like her.  She fades, I think, in contrast to other characters.  At the time the book was written, I’m sure she stuck out more but now I could lump her in with a whole host of female characters that have come along since its publication.  I wasn’t disappointed in her, but I wasn’t impressed either.  I felt, “meh!” about her.

Of course there was a romance between Harry and Corlath and that was a sort of Meh thing as well.  At least, I have to say, it was done properly.  The romance certainly did not take center stage and, although the reader could see it coming, McKinley progressed it logically as a natural result of events that take place within the book.  As a romance should be.  It didn’t feel forced.  I didn’t feel deeply involved in it, however, and I think that comes down to my feelings about the characters involved.  I have to admit, there were definitely some cute points to it, but that came as a result of Corlath and because I cared about Corlath, those parts of the romance really struck me.  Most of it, however, I just sorta...accepted.  I didn't roll my eyes at it (which is an achievement), but it didn't do anything for me.  If I was more emotionally invested in Harry, or if Harry were stronger, I really think I would have enjoyed the romance aspect to this novel.

Okay, and now, I have to talk about the let down: the writing and writing style.  I didn’t find the writing itself to be engaging.  It didn’t suck me in and there were times when I just skimmed paragraphs.  And I’m not a skimmer.  Other times, although I liked the plot and characters, I just got bored reading and had to put it down and go do something else.  Then I would forget I was actually reading it.  Not a good thing at all.  I remember when I read The Name of the Wind, I almost went without dinner because I didn’t want to stop reading.  It was kind of the opposite with this book. 

Additionally, the author had the annoying and frustrating habit of switching POV in the middle of a paragraph without any warning and no reason.  Now, you can do this if it adds to the reading experience.  In this instance, however, it just made things confusing and I would have to go back and reread a paragraph just to figure out who was talking.  Sometimes, the author would introduce something foreign and wouldn’t explain it until pages later where it seemed out of place.  And still other times, I felt as if the author just assumed you knew something that hadn’t been explained, which made things even more frustrating.

As a result of the writing I had to do a lot of rereading, which of course knocked me out of the story and ruined my experience.

What’s frustrating about The Blue Sword is that there are so many good points.  I am so in love with the world and the people I would reread it just to read about the hill people again.  I could care less about Harry and her sword.  The Hill people carry this and they have a timelessness and a quality to them, and a sort of ‘this is a good fantasy’ feel.  I would recommend reading this book ONLY for the sake of being introduced to Damar and its people.