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1. I don't mind if the science is not perfect. If the science conformed 100% with what we know it would not be science fiction, it would simply be fiction. I h
by projectramo 8y ago
1. I don't mind if the science is not perfect. If the science conformed 100% with what we know it would not be science fiction, it would simply be fiction.
I have heard people say that hard science fiction has to simply not contradict something we know. And that is a whole genre of course.
2. But what does bother me is when books, or movies, violate laws of human behavior. A perfectly gentle person suddenly becomes a killer, or an immoral law breaker sees the error of her ways and suddenly starts doing something to make amends.
3. What fascinates me about the books that Sagan grew up -- the classic age -- is the weird direction people thought science would go in. Radiation changes genes? Okay, instead of cancer it might give us super powers. There is current in your nervous tissue? Maybe you can "harness" it to produce currents etc.
- coldtea 8y ago>A perfectly gentle person suddenly becomes a killer Hasn't that happened numerous times in history? Perfectly common and nice everyday people have become killers under stress/passion/etc.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoOr under a social structure, in a military.
- projectramo 8y agoThe purpose of the fiction is to show how it happens so we believe it, even expect it. The "suddenly" part is what makes it bad fiction. Even if it happens in real life, in fiction we want to see the mechanism and have it convince us.
- coldtea 8y ago>The "suddenly" part is what makes it bad fiction. Even if it happens in real life, in fiction we want to see the mechanism and have it convince us. If something happens in real life, and especially as often, it should be convincing enough when presented in a story without a contrived mechanism to "explain" it pulp-novel style.