daemon@decwrl.UUCP (02/09/84)
From: amber::chabot (Lisa Chabot) Excerpt from a letter by ... uokvax!andree on Sun Feb 5 20:09:07 1984 about @i[The Lathe of Heaven]: > In that case, she failed. The reason I said <uncomplimentary> about the book > was that I didn't like it. Watching people flail around for far too many > pages, trying to find a solution that was obvious two pages after the > problem was stated, does NOT make a good book. Question: Does watching people flail around for many pages, trying to find a solution that may be obvious two pages after the problem was stated necessarily make a bad book? Many reputedly :-) great works of literature suffer :-) from just this lack of directness. For example, book obvious solutions :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crime and Punishment don't kill the pawnbroker, but if you must, why not confess right away and avoid days of needless guilt trips Pride and Prejudice go ahead and marry the rich guy An American Tragedy a. don't plot to kill your pregnant girlfriend b. treat your kid to ice cream now and then so he doesn't grow up to plot to kill his poor girlfriend The Grapes of Wrath don't move to California (gee, this is fun!) Yet each of the above take several hundred pages! And in many of them, the characters not only flail around, they either don't amend their ways or never even see the correct solution. Why do we read science fiction? (or speculative fiction, if you prefer) English professors will tell you people read fiction (although they probably would restrict it to mainstream fiction (or mundane, if you prefer)) to learn about life. We can learn about the pitfalls of selling the farm or of first-degree murder without actually having to experience Needles or the electric chair. Much science fiction, on the other hand, really seems to be useful in learning to solve technical questions. Such as: problem solution ------------------------------------------------------------------- How can I transport several Have you thought of enlarging tons of cargo several upon tunnel diodes lately? hundred miles without a truck? We're running out of fossil Time travel will let you mine fuels! during the Pleistocene era. How can I travel instellar Long ago, the universe was colonized distances? by a race of wise and ancient cats. Maybe they left a ship somewhere. Maybe it's in running condition. These are neat hacks, but aside from the entertainment of exotic locations, not imminently (although perhaps eminently) useful. Many stories dealing with technical problems also spend time on the logistics of implementation-- who's going to pay for it, how to conduct a discussion with a skeptical expert in the field (or science fiction fan, if you prefer) and convince the expert you're right, the problems of accumulated waste (water, depleted fuel, angular momentum, whatever). And how many angels we could get to dance on it. Yawning through the technical discussion about how we can build a tower to the moon, we find that the story often lacks any worthwhile characterizations: the skeptical expert is only a foil and is largely discarded once convinced; the hero, great guy that he or she is, inevitably becomes a better person at the end. Still, any advice on how to accomplish this would be imminently useful--wouldn't we all like to know fail-safe ways to win arguments with managers and how to pilot across the story seas of life while avoiding lurking white whales. Yawning through the characterizations, we don't find such advice. So, here we are, avid solution fans, with a large body of literature (or at least many pages) devoted to solutions. Solutions which may not really be solutions because they may contain a vital flaw. You can get away with murder as long as you don't get caught; you can travel through time if you've got a time travel machine. Shouldn't we all feel a little silly worrying whether or not somebody's inconsistent universe is consistent? If science fiction is to be admired for its content of technical solutions, then, say, folks, have I got a deal for you on the next colony ship leaving for Venus ("Would you buy it for a quarter?"). Another solution: Don't bother reading science fiction, the solution will be obvious in the synopsis in net.sf-lovers. Another solution: Don't. Good Grid! Is this really a fanzine?! Not me, I just read the stuff. Lisa Chabot UUCP: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot ARPA: ...decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot@{ Berkeley | SU-Shasta } reality:...DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlboro, MA 01752 fantasy:...Marlboro-in-the-Woods shadow: ...avalon!chabot