james_nicoll (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} james_nicoll) wrote,@ 2008-09-02 13:01:00 |
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The check list of things that turn up in SF that annoy James: A Work in Progress
1: The assumption that humans, particularly masses of them, have negative value.
2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
3: Inconsistent application of technology without reasons why it is applied so unevenly [A] This goes double for technology that should be universal but is not applied on Earth. Note that implied reasons are OK.
4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake") a gas giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg lofted to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use reflected light to warm something up hotter than the light source you are using. And so on.
5: The embrace of ignorance as a social good (This pops up more as a meta than in stories [B] but it's the rallying cry of thousands who I assume were forced to read Thomas Hardy in high school). I call this the "For fucks sake, the New Wave was over and done with before most people reading this LJ were born!" principle.
6: The unconsidered use of ideas that may have made sense 50 years ago or which perhaps never made sense at all but sounded good at the time.
7: Any mention of Zheng He. I know, it's a pity such an interesting individual has to be sequested for the moment but right now SFnal discussions of him almost always end up Bad Touch SF.
8: Speaking of real Bad Touche SF, creepy sexual politics without any apparent awareness of how creepy the creepy sexual politics are.
9: The joyful embrace of highly restricted human rights (and if you waterboard a variety of SF authors on this subject, you will see that this is not a right-left thing. It probably ties into 1).
10: Scale errors, like stories where humanity settles the literally dozens of stars in the Milky Way or where the author provides a handwave for the Fermi Paradox that works for a period of thousands of years but not the billions of years it needs to work for.
A: Earth for example has quite a range of technological kits in common use but there are reasons why it works like this here.
B: Although there is the fact that when authors like MacDonald or Williams dip their toes in the pool of regions outside the core Anglosphere, this stands out because it is unusual. Comments like
"This system (Pohl and Kornbluth used to write) has evident virtues, together with some defects. For istance, as in Wolfbane [...] you may get a brilliant analysis of the Oriental life pattern, developed and projected onto a future civilization on this continent (1500 calories a day: slouching gait, politeness, minuscule sub-arts-- Water Watching, Clouds and Odors, Sky Viewing...people named Tropile and Boyne, in towns called Wheeling, Altoona and Gary, walking through an elaborate life-long ritual, purely and simply because their diet permit nothing better) [...]."
are probably not as dated as I'd like to think they are.
1: The assumption that humans, particularly masses of them, have negative value.
2: The singularity used as the secular End of Days.
3: Inconsistent application of technology without reasons why it is applied so unevenly [A] This goes double for technology that should be universal but is not applied on Earth. Note that implied reasons are OK.
4: Inexcusably stupid science. Stars move. Lasers cannot be used as radiators. If you skim (or as we like to call it, "aerobrake") a gas giant's atmosphere, you still need to pay the delta vee for each kg lofted to orbit. Don't get me started on space-straws. You cannot use reflected light to warm something up hotter than the light source you are using. And so on.
5: The embrace of ignorance as a social good (This pops up more as a meta than in stories [B] but it's the rallying cry of thousands who I assume were forced to read Thomas Hardy in high school). I call this the "For fucks sake, the New Wave was over and done with before most people reading this LJ were born!" principle.
6: The unconsidered use of ideas that may have made sense 50 years ago or which perhaps never made sense at all but sounded good at the time.
7: Any mention of Zheng He. I know, it's a pity such an interesting individual has to be sequested for the moment but right now SFnal discussions of him almost always end up Bad Touch SF.
8: Speaking of real Bad Touche SF, creepy sexual politics without any apparent awareness of how creepy the creepy sexual politics are.
9: The joyful embrace of highly restricted human rights (and if you waterboard a variety of SF authors on this subject, you will see that this is not a right-left thing. It probably ties into 1).
10: Scale errors, like stories where humanity settles the literally dozens of stars in the Milky Way or where the author provides a handwave for the Fermi Paradox that works for a period of thousands of years but not the billions of years it needs to work for.
A: Earth for example has quite a range of technological kits in common use but there are reasons why it works like this here.
B: Although there is the fact that when authors like MacDonald or Williams dip their toes in the pool of regions outside the core Anglosphere, this stands out because it is unusual. Comments like
"This system (Pohl and Kornbluth used to write) has evident virtues, together with some defects. For istance, as in Wolfbane [...] you may get a brilliant analysis of the Oriental life pattern, developed and projected onto a future civilization on this continent (1500 calories a day: slouching gait, politeness, minuscule sub-arts-- Water Watching, Clouds and Odors, Sky Viewing...people named Tropile and Boyne, in towns called Wheeling, Altoona and Gary, walking through an elaborate life-long ritual, purely and simply because their diet permit nothing better) [...]."
are probably not as dated as I'd like to think they are.
