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It's hard to project 30 years out. Ask Charles Stross (he's written near-future SF, and -- I'm probably misrepresenting him -- has said he's abandoned story lin

by kabdib 11y ago

It's hard to project 30 years out. Ask Charles Stross (he's written near-future SF, and -- I'm probably misrepresenting him -- has said he's abandoned story lines because technology caught up with his predictions). Predicting 100 years is pretty much impossible. But absent "nanotech" or "micro-mechanical biotech" or some similar game-changing advance, self-replicating machines will need to incorporate self-replication of so much of their technology base that they will basically look like factories. Now, there's nothing wrong with a self-replicating factory, but it's not portable and cuddly, and you can't stick it on a rocket and launch it (not in one piece, anyway). I would be delighted to be proven wrong.

KineticLensman 11y ago
Stross (who is active on HN) explores the subject of abandoning stories in some detail on his blog, e.g. regarding the Halting State series [1]. He also describes here how political uncertainty can kill a story; in this case uncertainty regarding the outcome of the 2014 Scottish Independence vote. Halting State books 1 and 2 are set in a near-future independent Scotland, but were written well before the vote happened. Regarding Halting State 3, he said (2013) "In just two years the map of the Scottish near future will have changed, unpredictably and drastically, from where it is now. I therefore conclude that there is simply no point in my starting to write..." [EDIT: added quote, made it clear that it was the third book in a sequence that was canned] [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  It sounds like he set his story too near in the future. Set your story 25-50 years into the future and then you can make reasonable predictions and avoid political things ruining them, for the most part (until a couple of decades have passed). Scottish independence could still happen, just not in the next couple of years. But in 30 years, it's possible. That far out, the state of the entire EU is in serious doubt. Look at 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. In 1969, it looked like a fairly reasonable prediction of what things would be like in 2001 (42 years away), given the rate of change at the time in aerospace technology. By 1974, it still didn't look too bad. It didn't start looking overly optimistic until probably the late 80s, 20 years later. Also, if Stross is one of those writers who makes multi-book story arcs spanning over a decade (like Herbert did with the Dune series), that's a sure recipe for total failure when doing near-term sci-fi. Stuff just changes too fast; Herbert's stuff worked sorta-Ok because Dune was set 8000 years in the future (IIRC), but even there one big premise was the idea of genetic memories, which were postulated when he started, but eventually disproven with greater knowledge of genetics, probably before he finished his last book. This is stuff like Blade Runner worked well: it was a singular story, set about 35 years into the future. At the time, it looked like a somewhat reasonable depiction of 35 years in the future, though rather grim. Of course, now it's almost 2017 and things don't look anything like that, so it's interesting to watch from a historical perspective. It is a little disturbing that they now want to milk it with a sequel after all this time, when obviously things aren't going to look anything like that in 1 year, but I guess I can ignore it like I ignore the Matrix sequels.

by kabdib 11y ago

KineticLensman 11y ago

Stross (who is active on HN) explores the subject of abandoning stories in some detail on his blog, e.g. regarding the Halting State series [1]. He also describes here how political uncertainty can kill a story; in this case uncertainty regarding the outcome of the 2014 Scottish Independence vote. Halting State books 1 and 2 are set in a near-future independent Scotland, but were written well before the vote happened. Regarding Halting State 3, he said (2013) "In just two years the map of the Scottish near future will have changed, unpredictably and drastically, from where it is now. I therefore conclude that there is simply no point in my starting to write..." [EDIT: added quote, made it clear that it was the third book in a sequence that was canned] [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...

Grishnakh 11y ago
It sounds like he set his story too near in the future. Set your story 25-50 years into the future and then you can make reasonable predictions and avoid political things ruining them, for the most part (until a couple of decades have passed). Scottish independence could still happen, just not in the next couple of years. But in 30 years, it's possible. That far out, the state of the entire EU is in serious doubt. Look at 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. In 1969, it looked like a fairly reasonable prediction of what things would be like in 2001 (42 years away), given the rate of change at the time in aerospace technology. By 1974, it still didn't look too bad. It didn't start looking overly optimistic until probably the late 80s, 20 years later. Also, if Stross is one of those writers who makes multi-book story arcs spanning over a decade (like Herbert did with the Dune series), that's a sure recipe for total failure when doing near-term sci-fi. Stuff just changes too fast; Herbert's stuff worked sorta-Ok because Dune was set 8000 years in the future (IIRC), but even there one big premise was the idea of genetic memories, which were postulated when he started, but eventually disproven with greater knowledge of genetics, probably before he finished his last book. This is stuff like Blade Runner worked well: it was a singular story, set about 35 years into the future. At the time, it looked like a somewhat reasonable depiction of 35 years in the future, though rather grim. Of course, now it's almost 2017 and things don't look anything like that, so it's interesting to watch from a historical perspective. It is a little disturbing that they now want to milk it with a sequel after all this time, when obviously things aren't going to look anything like that in 1 year, but I guess I can ignore it like I ignore the Matrix sequels.