Criminal Justice Through Science Fiction, Olander & Greenberg, eds

[Omphalos]

Over the last year or so I have become very interested in how SF authors treat the law in their fiction. Finding good legal themed SF has not turned out to be as difficult as I thought it would be. This review is of a book of legal themed SF by a variety of authors. Some of the following is absolute crap. Thankfully, not all of it. A few of these stories are spectacular; some of the finest social science fiction out there without even considering the legal angle. I've taken some liberty here in deconstructing these stories. Many of the stories take place on alien planets with different legal systems, and though they all seem to be based on either the English common law or Napoleonic code systems, there are some stark differences in public policy. I figured that it would be too difficult to deconstruct these stories in their native environments, so what critical commentary that you see here came from our own modern perspective...Please click here, or on the book cover above, to be taken to the complete review..

 

[The Judge]

Phew. A long one. Had to take this review in two bites.

The law in fiction is also an interest of mine, so I was particularly drawn to your review - which as ever I thoroughly enjoyed - but I think as lawyers we make a mistake in assuming the general populace is as interested in the minutiae as we are! I also think it's perhaps slightly unfair to criticise the authors for not paying greater attention to legal issues cf your comments over 'Guilty as Charged' - their first duty is to write a good and entertaining story (though in that one I'd seen the punchline coming a long way off from your description so perhaps it was a failure in that respect also).

Sorry, I'm too lazy to check but have you previously reviewed 'A Jury not of Peers'? I know I've read about it somewhere. Certainly to me the premise sounds ill-conceived and the ending positively ridiculous.

What I find intriguing is the role of women in these stories - save for 'And Keep us from our Castles' (and 'Guilty as Charged' I suppose) they seem very much off-stage objects - fought over by too many men; denied to inmates; used as payment for workers; killed in population-control experiments.

Anyway, thank you again for sharing your thoughts on these works - though I have to say I shan't be rushing out to buy the book!

J

 

[Sparrow]

I'm not really interested in it as a subgenre, though I do appreciate an offbeat legal perspective mingled in with the science fiction I read.

If you've never read Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist Novels you should consider them as they revolve around an alien justice system. Intergalactic jurisdiction can get very tricky.

 

[Omphalos]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

@ The Judge:

Phew. A long one. Had to take this review in two bites.

Tell me about it! I think I put more time into this one than any other Ive ever written. Might have put two months into it.

The law in fiction is also an interest of mine, so I was particularly drawn to your review - which as ever I thoroughly enjoyed - but I think as lawyers we make a mistake in assuming the general populace is as interested in the minutiae as we are!

I tried to stay away from minutiae, so if its there, I failed in that. I'd really like to stick with broad public policy and the legal issues that get a lot of face time in the culture, like hearsay as shown on Law and Order or curtilage, which some may have in mind from CSI, and things like that.

I also think it's perhaps slightly unfair to criticise the authors for not paying greater attention to legal issues cf your comments over 'Guilty as Charged' - their first duty is to write a good and entertaining story (though in that one I'd seen the punchline coming a long way off from your description so perhaps it was a failure in that respect also).

That's were I disagree. The purpose of SF is to give an experience in the head, not the heart; that is what fantasy and mainstream are for. I expect SF writers, for example, to understand the sciences that they are writing about. So why would I expect a SF author who is writing about law to ignore connections between the law, science and culture, which is what Porges was trying to write about. I really was not writing about the failure of Porges to use the law effectively in the end anyway. I was a little miffed that he failed to explain how the culture came to view executions for witchcraft as legitimate. Maybe if he had put a bit more thought into the story, and allowed voice to carry through the device, it would have turned out differently.

Sorry, I'm too lazy to check but have you previously reviewed 'A Jury not of Peers'? I know I've read about it somewhere. Certainly to me the premise sounds ill-conceived and the ending positively ridiculous.

Yep. Here. Im still trying to figure out how to handle two similar blogs. I do have a bunch of different reviews on that blog, once you get past the short stories of this volume. Maybe someday Ill figure it out.

What I find intriguing is the role of women in these stories - save for 'And Keep us from our Castles' (and 'Guilty as Charged' I suppose) they seem very much off-stage objects - fought over by too many men; denied to inmates; used as payment for workers; killed in population-control experiments.

Funny you should say that. I was walking out of my office yesterday and the exact same thought struck me. If I was doing a literary/non-legal review I would have added that. Great minds, eh?

Though I note that a lot of them are old, and come from places like Amazing.

@ Sparrow:

Thanks for the heads up. Im always collecting new works for that Law and SF blog. Ill get them for sure. I have a few books read for the blog now, but I was thinking of reading Herbert's ConSentiency books next. There is a lot about an alien legal system of a race called the Gowachin in one or two of those books.

 

[Ursa major]

That's were I disagree. The purpose of SF is to give an experience in the head, not the heart; that is what fantasy and mainstream are for. I expect SF writers, for example, to understand the sciences that they are writing about. So why would I expect a SF author who is writing about law to ignore connections between the law, science and culture, which is what Porges was trying to write about. I really was not writing about the failure of Porges to use the law effectively in the end anyway. I was a little miffed that he failed to explain how the culture came to view executions for witchcraft as legitimate. Maybe if he had put a bit more thought into the story, and allowed voice to carry through the device, it would have turned out differently.

As someone who has never been in anything ressembling a court, I have to say that I agree with you. (So far, that is: I'm still only half-way through your review. )

Much of what appears in SFF can seem arbitrary, if only for the reason of economy: a short story is not long enough for a thorough description of a really strange society. Where a certain aspect of that society is the focus of a story, in most cases (I would have said all, but there are bound to be exceptions), the author should take the trouble to make that aspect seem plausible. In the case of legal systems, this is even more important; even where the law appears arbitrary, its genesis is highly unlikely to be so, not if each individual step is examined (although I fully expect that you lawyers will have case law to prove me wrong ).




By the way - and because The Judge is here - it strikes me that one great disadvantage of a pure POV system is that where POV characters are part of a society, most of it won't appear strange to them; not unless they're taken out of their usual environment. Of course, this is, in theory, easily circumvented: by introducing strangers, putting POV characters in situations unusual to them. (Easily enough done with adventures and mysteries.) The danger with this is that if done crudely and inappropriately, much of the story might be bent out of shape to provide the necessary ignorance (and the wise voice that tells them - and us - what we "need" to know).

So in the case of the low-flying car, the policeman knows (this aspect of) the law and the accused are well-aware of at least some of its provisions. Given who they are, none of them are going to be that bothered about why the law is what it is and how it got there:

"After I ask the question and the answer is in the negative, I must inform you that you will then be subjected to a polygraph test. Is that understood?"
​

"Yeah," said Slick.
​

"Here is the question," said the officer with the clipboard. "Did you, Rodney Cooper, knowingly tamper with the controls of your Mark Nine Phaeton null-vehicle so as to enable that same vehicle to traverse below the legal minimum allowable height on the alpha-type roadway when crossing a pedestrian mall?"
​

Slick pondered the half-hundred cases that had led up to this point: the appeals, the changes to the Constitution, the way that 'Jo Smith vs the State of Northern California' had come to loom so large in everything, and then there was that case in - where was it? Denver? the one where it had all hinged on....

"Yes," he said eventually.

The policeman looked at his watch; the perp had been nodding his head, deep in thought, for at least half-an-hour. "You do know you'll get another three years for wasting police time like that."
​

 

[The Judge]

That's were I disagree. The purpose of SF is to give an experience in the head, not the heart; that is what fantasy and mainstream are for. I expect SF writers, for example, to understand the sciences that they are writing about.

We'll certainly have to agree to disagree on that one! I suppose because I'm not a lover of 'hard' SF and I read with my heart more than my head - I want a good story first, last and always. And I hope there are plenty of people who agree with me, otherwise my literary career will be coming to a shuddering halt before it's achieved lift off... (mixed metaphors are my forte!)

And coming back to 'Guilty as Charged', I wonder if perhaps the author was doing something else. By not trying to explain why the people of the future believed in executing those convicted of witchcraft, was he making a different point about the unknowability of the future, and/or the way that humans revert to superstition without good reason... (OK. I know I'm trying desperately to justify that one! )

Much of what appears in SFF can seem arbitrary, if only for the reason of economy: a short story is not long enough for a thorough description of a really strange society. Where a certain aspect of that society is the focus of a story, in most cases (I would have said all, but there are bound to be exceptions), the author should take the trouble to make that aspect seem plausible.

Yes. That I do agree with - but it is a seeming plausibility only, I would say. After all, we are reading fiction, not a scientific, legal, economic or whatever text book. I want to be entertained, not lectured. I suppose though, I do want psychological realism - I don't care if the hero's spacecraft has FTL technology which is never explained; I do care if the hero himself acts and talks like a plank of wood. But that is perhaps the subject of another thread.

And thank's for the POV foray, Ursa. As pertinent, helpful and funny as ever.

J

 

[Ursa major]

I suppose because I'm not a lover of 'hard' SF and I read with my heart more than my head - I want a good story first, last and always...

I do care if the hero himself acts and talks like a plank of wood. But that is perhaps the subject of another thread.

If you want to start such a thread - and would like to appear more favourable to harder SF than you apparently are - you could do worse than name the thread, "The Plank Constant".


(Oh, and thanks for the compliment. And also apologies to Omphalos for hijacking his particularly interesting thread. )

 

[Omphalos]

Knock yourselves out guys. This is why I put these things up in the first place. For conversation about them, tangential or direct.

We'll certainly have to agree to disagree on that one! I suppose because I'm not a lover of 'hard' SF and I read with my heart more than my head - I want a good story first, last and always. And I hope there are plenty of people who agree with me, otherwise my literary career will be coming to a shuddering halt before it's achieved lift off... (mixed metaphors are my forte!)

Personal bias of mine too. And its probably the reason that I prefer SF to fantasy by a vast margin. One of the characteristics of contemporary SF is that this rule of thumb has become blurred, and writers of the past wrote for both...um...organs?...as well. But that seems to me to be one of the defining characteristics of SF. You must make things work logically. James Gunn said that SF sprang from a place of naturalism - where the prose had to reflect the natural order of things. I suppose there is something heartening in that - but I generally don't appreciate SF that misses details.

And coming back to 'Guilty as Charged', I wonder if perhaps the author was doing something else. By not trying to explain why the people of the future believed in executing those convicted of witchcraft, was he making a different point about the unknowability of the future, and/or the way that humans revert to superstition without good reason... (OK. I know I'm trying desperately to justify that one! )

I suppose so, Judge. I wondered aloud along those lines about A Jury Not of Peers. Something makes me doubt it though. And the problem is that Wyal did not really discuss it. He ignored it I don't need to be spoon fed the answer, but little drops of information certainly are nice, and generally make food for though.

So in the case of the low-flying car, the policeman knows (this aspect of) the law and the accused are well-aware of at least some of its provisions. Given who they are, none of them are going to be that bothered about why the law is what it is and how it got there:

Pretty much why in the introductory paragraph I mention that these stories really cannot be evaluated in their native environments. I can't know all the decisions and directions that the culture has taken to get where it really is. All I can do in this context is pull the legal elements out and analyze them from my own perspective. Flawed, I suppose, but its the best that can be done.

 

[Ursa major]

Actually, all I was doing was making a "technical" point about the current emphasis on close 3rd person (and first person) POV writing and not about the stories themselves or your reviews of them (which I find fascinating, and not only because of your legal expertise).

Oh, and I chose the quote I did simply because it seemed most susceptible to a minor rewrite (I'm lazy that way) to emphasise the point I was trying to make.

 

[Connavar]

You dont have to write Hard SF to have science that makes sense in your story.

Many softer sf authors care about their science. I was reading a Jack Vance short story in a collection where in the afterword he was sort of sorry for not getting it right the time it took some stars die out or something. Thats not a Hard SF author !

I agree fully with the others you have some sort science social or technical. You read sf for different reasons than fantasy for example.

The sf law story idea interest me alot. After Minority Report a quality PKD story i have wanted to read more stories like that. I did have a anthology called Future Cops which was good but it was more about detectives than about criminals,the law.

Hope there are more anthologies like this one you review.

 

[Omphalos]

Thanks, Con. Im working on an something on a SF courtroom battle story right now. A juvenile colony book called "Little Fuzzy" by H. Beam Piper.