Hi guys,
The Arcanist is in editing at the moment so I have a little time to spend on my blog. This time I thought I'd turn my thoughts to a controversy that keeps coming up.
This is a far from a new topic. In fact it's one that keeps coming up again
and again and again in my various writing groups (Damn – almost said gropes – fingers
aren't working well today!) How much science should we put in our books? One that rages through the world of sci fi. How
far can we move from what we know – or what we think we know – about how the
universe works as we write?
My answer is that sci fi is a genre based
on two simple words – “what if?” It doesn't operate on the phrase – “well this
what we know so lets work with that.” It goes beyond that to speculate on what
we don't know. And sometimes to cross the boundaries between what we know and
what might actually be.
Nowhere in sci fi is this tension between
what we believe we know about the workings of the universe and what we need to
speculate might be for our stories to work, more pronounced than in my own
sub-genre of space opera. Because space opera is based on one founding
acceptance, the idea that we can travel to the stars. Relativity on the
other hand quite clearly says no. You can't go faster than the speed of light,
and really that's pushing it too far. So realistically speaking the closest you
can come to space travel is generation ships. I don't know about you guys, but
if someone offered me a ticket on a spaceship heading for a new star to
explore, with a round trip time frame of a century or more – I'd say no. I
might sign up for a trip lasting a few months, but once we start talking
generations I have better things to do.
So for me like generations of sci fi
authors before me, I'll resort to cheating to write my space operas. I'll use
hyperspace and subspace, warp drives and time dilation drives, worm holes and
slip streams – maybe even the dreaded spin dizzy drive of Doc Smith. And though
some people may – and have – criticised me for it, I won't apologise. Call me a
scientific heretic – I'm comfortable with that though I prefer fantabulist!
Because the ultimate reality is that I want to write books about travelling to
the stars, about alien invasions, and interstellar wars.
In my mind those who want sci fi to limit
itself to science fact, have lost a large part of the joy of the genre. They
have lost the what if that is the heart of what sci fi is all about.
Cheers, Greg.
