There is a big misconception that science fiction is about the future. SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY ARE ALWAYS ABOUT NOW Whether authors intend it or not, speculative fiction is always a commentary on the present. Ironically, often more than a lot of contemporary fiction. One of my favorite short stories by Asimov, and I wish I could find it again, had miners working in space with essentially, nanotechnology. But the conflict of the story was about women working in the mines, which was eventually solved with a priest. Women in the mines turned out to be fine, so long as there was somebody there to marry everybody! This is what I'm talking about. Successfully predicted nanotechnology, but thousands of years from now, everyone will act like it's the 1950s... Frank Herbert was particularly topical, whether he intended to be or not. He anchored Dune in politics, government, religion, power and those evolved to match the world from the 50s to the 80s. So I did a little … [Read more...] about The Future is Now… In Fiction
Science Fiction
Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune I listened on audiobook to all of the Dune books written by Frank Herbert. (There are over 30 now completed by his son Brian after his death, but I had to draw a line in the sand somewhere!) WHAT DID I LEARN? WHAT DID I NOTICE? WAS IT WORTH IT? WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW Herbert started the first book, Dune, in 1959 (published in '65) and published the last book Chapterhouse: Dune, in 1985. Those were pretty important decades in our history, and the change from the unrest and idealism of the 60s to the stability and disillusionment of the 80s drenches the text. WHO WAS FRANK? During my English major, we always debated how much of the author you could really find in a work of fiction. And whether it was useful or appropriate to play a game of Author Gotcha as literary critique. So now I'm going to do … [Read more...] about Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
The Best Magical Libraries in Fiction
I love getting lost in a library. It is extra fun when I get lost in a library in a book. And the most fun is when I get lost in a magical library in a book. Here are the best ones. 1984, George Orwell Definitely not a favorite, but a HUGE influence. The Ministry for Truth, where "ignorance is strength" rocked my world as a sophomore in high school. It was really the first true dystopian novel I read and I had no idea such a thing was possible! Little did I know how relevant it would be. It was a WARNING, not an instruction manual! The Midnight Library, Matt Haig I read this recently, (the inspiration for this post, actually), and was surprised to see a true parable getting mainstream play. It's a clever book about regret, choices, and quantum physics. And like I said, it's just a straight-up, unapologetic parable. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Time and Fate fall in love in a library for all stories beneath the earth. Also, there are bees. And the … [Read more...] about The Best Magical Libraries in Fiction
The Greatest Social Experiment in History
WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A BOX OF THUMBTACKS, A MATCH, AND A CANDLE?This isn't the start of a joke, but one of the best experiments ever devised.The Candle Problem shows how we can inadvertently ignore blatantly obvious solutions because we ignore function, made famous by Daniel Pink in his book Drive, from the research in the 40s of Gestalt Psychologist Karl Duncker.Participants are handed a collection of items and asked to affix a candle to a wall without it dripping on the table.Half are given a box of thumbtacks, matches, and a candle. Half are given a box, thumbtacks, matches, and a candle.Do you spot the difference? That one little difference drastically changed the likelihood of solving the problem.People who were given the thumbtacks separately from the box almost always solved the problem. Take a thumbtack and affix the box to the wall and put the candle in the box. It's on the wall and will not drip on the table.The people who were given the tacks in the box solved it far less … [Read more...] about The Greatest Social Experiment in History
Lesson from Star Wars: How to Fail Spectacularly
MY FIRST BRUSH WITH SKYWALKERS I was 7 years old and wandered into the living room to see what my parents were watching... And froze. The scene playing out onscreen was unlike anything I had ever seen in my short life. It was Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi, and the only thought in my head was that they had discovered Sesame Street for grown-ups. (Which, given Yoda's antecedents, was truer than I realized.) I was transfixed. It was dynamic, tense, and shocking for a girl whose main media diet was Disney and PBS. I was hooked. ONCE A FAN GIRL I watched all of the films, over and over again, which at that point numbered three. (And have never gotten over the fact that I watched them out of order and never got the shock of Luke's Father.) I ditched school for the first and only time with friends from marching band to see the first prequel when it came out in theaters. I avoided the … [Read more...] about Lesson from Star Wars: How to Fail Spectacularly
How do you Tax a Made up World?
Photo: ArtGrafx Authors of science fiction and fantasy have cultivated a special skill (beyond the ability to torture characters and be tortured by commas all authors acquire). Simply, we speculate. Yes, all authors need to build a world, but we spend hours (or months, or years...) creating an internally consistent alien species or a complete currency and economic system to back it up. Put more poetically, it’s the ability to see the water we are swimming in and imagine something different. How we pay for things is one of the biggest rivers One of the things I’ve been doing more recently is using these world-building skills on the real world. It’s so hard to get out of our bubble without jumping into someone else’s that may be even more bizarre. Deconstructing the world in the same way you can construct a fake world is a way to pop the bubble, at least for a few seconds. What a society is willing to pay for collectively, to tax, and what it insists is an individual … [Read more...] about How do you Tax a Made up World?