Electronic OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Part 11 Letters to OtherRealms An Open Letter to Greg Bear M. Elayn Harvey Hi, it's me, Elayn (the silent one, end chair, hard/soft SF panel, Norwescon 10?). I'm writing because I've finally put together something to say, an idea the panel grabbed at but, I think, was never able to pull out of its lair. We were debating the validity of the terms hard and Soft science fiction because of the false, unflattering division it creates, where none should exist, and we were trying to define these terms. You were all for throwing out the terms and I agreed. Did you see me silently nodding my head down there? Still, I came away feeling we hadn't gotten through to the audience. I felt some were still divided in the Serious Science versus Not-So-Serious- Science camps without understanding that we were saying "There's no such thing as non- serious science." you and Dr. John Cramer tried valiantly. Near as I can remember, it was defined that "Hard" SF is a term we gave to a book within which technological problems are solved by the characters, and "Soft" SF is a book within which the character's personal problems are solved despite, due to, amid a technological theme. With more succinct terms, we could say it's a matter of technology- problem books versus people-problem books. Then the idea that "Technology problems" are to be taken more seriously or given more importance than "People problems" gets unmasked as the ridiculous chimera it really is. But our attempt to side-step the terms didn't heal the issue. We are still plagued by the notion that some sciences are more valid than others. I sympathized with the biologist in the audience who complained about the "slight" the terms hard and soft were giving her field. I don't know who created these camps, but it amounts to a form of bigotry, and we who call ourselves SF writers, who care about the integrity of science, should do something. If I may offer an observation that helped me understand why this division exists? I believe it was John who said something about nuclear fission being sexy. It brought a laugh, but I don't think people realized how really close he hit on the crux of the whole debate -- I didn't, until I'd thought about it for a while. Science is being done by humans, and what's the most powerful drive in the human race? Right, sex. So, naturally, anything that demonstrates power gets the same attention and respect. The more power -- the more respect; it's natural, but unfortunate. We're confining our respect (adorations?) to the "hard" sciences of dominations, which includes the ability to destroy a rival. On the obverse, a science that demonstrates less power gets less respect, hence the term, "soft". Our own psyche is the source of the idea that hard science is superior. let's substitute different words and watch the leopard change his spots again: Dangerous sciences versus Safe sciences. That puts things in better balance, but again, we're human; the former gets respect because, like sex, it's a matter of our survival as a species. And again we're placing greater reverence on that which can destroy us, but that's fear masquerading as scientific respect. I don't think the biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists or psychologists have any reason to feel inferior. Maybe somewhere down the road we writers can point this out. I think you made a start, Greg, with Blood Music -- you made us respect biology. But you had to demonstrate its power, make it dangerous to get our attention. See what I mean? Okay then, lets do this for every branch of science, and in that way, get everyone in the same camp. After all, any technology problem is a people problem. Gee, aren't you glad I didn't think of all this during the panel? We might have been there two hours.... [To a good degree I agree with you, but there's an aspect I think you missed. One factor that differentiates the "Hard" and "Soft" sciences is familiarity. The sciences that define "Hard" sciences -- physics, math, astronomy, etc. -- have been traditional fodder of SF. People are familiar with them, they have been the main focus of Science Fiction since the Golden Age. The "Soft" sciences are newer to the field and therefore not as familiar to the reader. Because of this, the reader isn't as demanding about the science, and the writer isn't as careful in the research. This has been made painfully obvious to me since I met Laurie, who has degrees in both biology and psychology. Having a resource like that handy has made me very aware of the shortcomings of much science fiction, whether it be Hard or Soft. Sometimes it's fairly intricate. Sometime's its as basic as having a red-headed olive skin child born of two fair-skinned, blond parents (a quick hint in genetics: if this happens in your book, you better have a milkman handy....). "Hard" SF writers regularly get hate mail because they misplace a decimal point in their orbit -- and just as happily create hair and eye colors at random in a limited gene pool because it creates a nice effect for a given character. Laurie's going to be looking at these issues in more details in the coming months, trying to create an awareness that these details matter just as much as orbital speeds, star temperature and planet atmospheres. Frankly, if you're going to pride yourself on getting the details right, you better get all your details right. What this really comes down to is ghettoizing (or bigotry, although that's a word with emotional constraints I prefer to avoid). The mainstream ghettos SF because they don't understand it. The "Hard" SF folks ghetto "Soft" sciences for the same reason. Anything they don't understand is, by definition, inferior. ] Fred Bals (bals%nutmeg.DEC@decwrl.dec.com) The issue looks good and strong. I especially liked Resnick's Behind the Scenes article, and I look forward to reading his book after the interesting description of how it was created. I think the Behind the Scenes idea has a lot of potential and look forward to seeing more of them. I was also very impressed with the artwork this issue, and think it's probably the strongest use of art I've yet seen in any issue of OtherRealms. I also liked the parallel reviews (First Flight, Mercedes Nights, Metrophage, and Marlborough Street come to mind). I think having reviews of a book from two or more perspectives really helps a reader decide whether the book is something s/he should be looking for. To give a specific example, looking at Danny Low's and my own reviews of Mercedes Nights I found that what I didn't like -- the parallel storylines -- is exactly what Danny did. Taltos Denise Draper (denise@cwi.nl) Hi, I'm an avid reader of the electronic version of OtherRealms, and I think you deserve congratulations for the work your doing. I read it mostly to get recommendation for books, particularly for books from authors that I've never read. But anyway, I'm writing to add something to your review of Taltos. Many people have observed the difference in feel of the series, with Taltos at the light end, and Teckla at the heavy end, but I have yet to see anyone mention what is (or may be) behind it. If you compare the books by feel and simultaneously by timeline, you will notice something. Vlad starts of (in Taltos) as a hard-and-nasty punk who is making something of himself, and who doesn't have much on his mind other than his own survival, which is rather precarious. As we follow him, *in time*, through the series, he changes. First, we see that there are things that occur to him, but he doesn't want to think about. Later, when "mature personal relationships" become a part of his life, he does more thinking. As of Teckla, he still doesn't want to talk to us about it, though -- what we get is indirect, our own observation of his obvious pain. What will happen in the future, we have to wait to see. I am really impressed with Brust for doing this. Personal growth is a common enough theme in novels, but I think it is unusual for the author to deal with it in this way -- with a first person narrative, where the entire style of the book must change as the character changes. And moreover, when seen in this light, the early novels (in time) are actually just as full of "deep meanings" as the rest, because without them the contrast to Teckla (and presumably to later books) wouldn't be there. I just had to say this, because to me it is the most important facet of the entire series, and I haven't seen anyone else mention it. On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong; maybe Brust just felt like writing a "light" novel with Taltos... Artificial Kid Andy Dwell (andy@ecrcvax.UUCP) I wanted to make a short comment on Alan's review of the Artificial Kid in the last issue of OtherRealms I received. I often don't feel strongly enough about these things to bother writing, but it just so happens that I had read the book for the first time the day before I read the review; I was astonished by the difference in our perceptions. It's true that the book is highly stylized, but there is a fairly good reason, it's meant to be funny. It's not another Hitchhikers Guide, but the jokes occur fairly regularly, and were enough to make me laugh out loud once or twice (the concept of 'posthumous assassination' which is what happened to Moses Moses, for example). [Alan Responds: I didn't make myself very clear in the comparison of ARTIFICIAL KID and Greek tragedy. What I meant was that he used some of the *techniques* of Greek tragedy (e.g. having action happen 'offstage' & someone comes 'onstage' to talk about it). I agree that there's a fair bit of humor in the book.] Ace Specials Kevin Anderson In Dan'l's last "Much Rejoicing" review of Metrophage, you stated (implied?) that this was the last of the Ace Specials. Not so, my friend -- there are at least two more forthcoming, and I think there are three. Black Snow Days by Claudia O'Keefe, is the only New Ace Special written by a woman -- Terry Carr bought the book from her chapters and outline. Then there's the last Ace Special, bought by Damon Knight after Terry Carr's death. Black Snow Days won't be out until a year from this fall. Chuq, I suppose I like your "standard" rating system, but it seems to mean vastly different things to different reviewers -- just look at the ratings given by Alan, say, compared to those given by Charles de Lint. The two people obviously have different standards, and it's hard to compare. Unfortunately, it's easy to point out this problem and next to impossible to solve it. Your editorial on reviewers in OtherRealms was excellent. I'd also add my two cents' worth that reviewers are never "right" or "wrong" -- they are just critiquing a book against their own set of preferences or distastes. The reviewers who panned Moby Dick weren't necessarily wrong, they were people who didn't like the book. Readers need to get it through their heads that reviews aren't the Last Word -- just find a reviewer whose tastes seem to parallel your own, and then listen to his or her recommendations. I generally agree with Roger Ebert and generally disagree with Gene Siskel on movies -- that doesn't mean Siskel is wrong, it just means that Ebert and I like the same sort of stuff. [I think Dan'l meant to say that Metrophage was the last special that Carr edited. And yes, the ratings tend to be somewhat arbitrary. So it goes. There isn't a whole lot I can do about it without scrapping the standard completely, which I think makes it worse. Compare, for instance, my numbers with Dave Shea, who's about a full point under what I think it ought to be compared to what his reviews say. Or my reviews in the last couple of issues and a year ago, since I've tried to be a little tougher and more consistent. But getting people to try to think their way into a standard is better than each reviewer having their own different standard. And the reviewers have the option of not giving a rating at all (as Dan'l's chosen to do) when they don't feel the standards work for them.] The Princess Bride Janice Eisen I must make a comment about Alan's review of The Princess Bride. I'd never argue about his opinion of it, but he's missed a very important point about the book. It isn't abridged from anything; there is no S. Morgenstern. Goldman wrote the whole thing. He doesn't make this hard to figure out: Morgenstern is described as a Florinese writer, and there isn't and never was a country named Florin. Once you understand this, you'll realize that the "interruptions" are in fact an integral part of the book, that Goldman is weaving the fairy tale and the life of the narrator together to illuminate his themes. I'm not saying you have to like this technique, but you should try to understand what the author was doing. Having just read The Kindly Ones, I was fascinated by Melissa Scott's article. I'd definitely like to see this feature continue. I haven't read any of the Alien Speedway books, but I did read William Wu's Robot City book and concluded that the series was a colossal waste of time and talent. Not to mention the fact that all these books "franchised" series are marketed in a very misleading fashion: the actual author's name appears on the cover only in very small print, and not at all on the spine, leading the potential purchaser to believe that the book was actually written by the Big Name who sold his universe. I'm quite annoyed by the existence of these series. For God's sake, it's not as if Asimov et al are short on money. OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author.