The Atlanta Writers’ Club invited me to participate in their March 20 program. We talked about the special pleasures to be derived from science fiction. I‘ve had a passion for the genre since I was four years old. Aside from being able to provide more exhilaration (in my case, at least) than mainstream work, it provides an opportunity for discovery that is otherwise generally missing. How else can you hope to ride out and take a close look at Saturn from one of its moons? Or get a sense of the possibilities that distant shores hold for us?
Most people have no concept about the size or grandeur of the place in which we live. Hardly anybody is aware, e.g., that traveling to Alpha Centauri at the speed we used to get to the Moon back in the 60’s would require 50,000 years, give or take. That if we posted someone at the center of the galaxy and had him turn on a very big spotlight while we watched with a very large telescope, we wouldn’t see the light come on for 28,000 years. Even more striking, maybe, since those kinds of numbers don’t really register, is the fact that the sun that is so benignly shining overhead as I write this could have blown up five minutes ago and I wouldn’t be aware of it yet.
There are other aspects of the universe that are odd, yet necessary. For example, gravity. Why can’t we walk off a rooftop and keep going? What is it that causes us to fall? Ask that question of a group and they’ll usually respond that it‘s gravity. But ask what gravity is, and we’re all hard pressed to answer. Physicists tell us it‘s because space is made out of rubber. Put a massive body into it, like a planet, and space curves downward. Walk off that roof and we slide down the curve.
Or if you’d like to stay young longer, drive fast. We age at a different rate in a moving car than we do standing around. And I know it’s not a measurable amount, but nonetheless, ramp up the speed a bit and it becomes evident. Or, if we’d like to lose weight, we should go up on the roof, where we DO weight less.
I receive email regularly from engineers, physicists, physicians, researchers of all kinds, who tell me they first got interested in the sciences by reading SF. That’s one major benefit. Another: We live in an era of ongoing change. That requires us to keep pace, especially since major social and political decisions lie ahead. Is cloning, e.g., a good idea, even if its safety can be guaranteed? Most of the population, and at least one president, would say no without even considering potential benefits. But the people who’ve been reading Greg Bear and Catherine Asaro and the rest of that deranged crew might have other ideas. In any case, they have at least had the opportunity to consider it.
Does science fiction improve the way we see the world? I can’t imagine my life without it.
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I enjoyed myself last weekend at ICON in Stony Brook. A lot of friends were there, although we were kept too busy to do much socializing. Still, it’s a chance to touch base occasionally.
One of the issues that surfaced during a panel: Should someone who is trying to break into the SF writing field start with short fiction or with novels? Four of the five people on the panel thought it was better to start with a novel, or that it didn’t really make any difference. That you should start with whatever feels right.
I was the lone dissenter. I’m not convinced that anyone who‘s able to write a novel can‘t do an equally good job writing short fiction. Short fiction is easier to submit. (These days, you pretty much need an agent for a novel.) A story takes only a couple of days to write, as opposed to the year-long effort generally required for a novel. First submissions are usually rejected. The loss of three days is a lot easier to take than the loss of a year.