How to keep from becoming dated.

[JoanDrake]

Besides the obvious ways of just really knowing your stuff, is there any way to avoid being dated by the really rapid advance of computers in SF? I was recently reading a book written in the 90's and supposedly set in the "near future" and while it had many story points which were based on everybody being very much connected to the Internet they all communicated with LAPTOPS, not I Phones, and Social Media of any kind wasn't mentioned at all.

Since the points weren't that important and the subject matter meant these people would have NEVER used Social Media anyway they didn't really matter, but here was a book scarcely a decade old and already showing dating problems.

This can get really bad when you go back to the 70's and 80's. I remember one of Harry Harrison's Deathworld books. (Deathword III, I think) in which Jason dinAlt's possession of a PC was a major plot point. The problem was the PC was the size of a large old style TV, had cost a quarter million credits and this was supposedly some millenia, or at least centuries, in the future.

OTOH other stories, like Ghost In the Shell, seem to use futuristic technology quite extensively, and it enhances the story quite well, somehow staying at the cutting edge of computer development a decade later without any trouble at all.

Is there any rule on how to use computers in hard SF stories, so we don't end up making ourselves look outdated or silly ten years down the road?

 

[The Judge]

Joan, if I'm reading you correctly, you're asking how -- as writers -- we can avoid this problem in our work. Have I got that right? If so, I think this is better suited to General Writing Discussion. If I've got the wrong end of the stick, and this is really a question about reading and books, do say, and I'll let it remain here in GBD.

 

[JoanDrake]

Oh, no, very sorry. You're right, please put it where it belongs and pardon my mistake Thank you.

 

[Venusian Broon]

JD,

Unfortunately I think you can't future-proof near-future SF computers in writing (and most other things that we invent to be fair). The best you can do is make it read futuristic now. And then it's pot-luck whether the real world grows into your vision or (probably!) not.

If technology is not a big issue in your writing, then probably best to mention it tangentially perhaps and not go into great detail - maybe try and just mention what the characters are doing by their actions and use of devices rather than exactly what the devices are? (The latter I think fixes your world's technology to some static pattern.)

It is interesting to see how visions of the future just get things wrong. Ever since the 1920's when they first demonstrated videophoning it has been a staple of practically all SF that that is what the future wants and needs. However I have yet to see any real demand for it.

Now that we actually have the networks and technology to do this cheaply if it was a technology that people really wanted it should be taking off. And concievably there are hundreds of millions of people and growing that use their PCs/Laptops/Smartphones to do live Videophoning, but it doesn't seem mainstream to me at all.

 

[Sapheron]

I think I'll answer the original question with a no.

If you really don't want to end up being surpassed by real life, you just have to set your technology so far ahead that it's 'space magic' as we see in things such as holo decks or light sabres. In ten years, those will probably still be scifi.

For more simple things, like everyday phones, pc's, kettles, cars, it's undoubtedly difficult. Look for trends such as phones getting smaller, lighter, easier to break, and capable of a more diverse number of roles. Chances are these trends will continue. To what extent is where the guesswork comes in, and there's definitely no rule you can use to help you with that. It's all, as you said, knowing your stuff. Making it up, would be another good way to put it.

That said, why worry? Ten years, twenty years down the line few books are really remembered anyway, and when they are it's for the sake of the quality of their writing, or the impact of their message, and not for the 'accuracy of the scifi technology in hindsight'. That's a good thing, because that would be a silly measure by which to judge a book.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

...holo decks or light sabres. In ten years, those will probably still be scifi.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

While that echoes throughout the canyons of time, my response would be that it generally doesn't matter. I still love watching sci-fi movies set in apocalyptic 1996, for example, and for me that adds to their charm. If someone is going to not read a book because of such things, then you probably don't want them as a fan anyway.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Light sabers...Light sabers a futuristic 'space magic' technology!!! Nooooooooo

It was an excuse for George Lucas to get some old-fashioned Errol flynn type sword play into his 'Flash Gordon' universe.

It's a throwback

To make it work he had to make the jedi virtually omnipotent so that they could deflect virtually anything that comes towards them and also have enemy forces so inept at shooting that they couldn't hit an extra-large hanger door at five metres.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Well Lucas himself has said that that is what Star Wars is, basically a medieval fantasy novel set in space. Look at the tropes:

Dark Knight kidnaps princess...
Farmboy discovers destiny...
Joined by a rogue...
Who has an unusual companion...
And a wise old mentor...
Who dies...

Yadda yadda, we know the drill.

 

[nightdreamer]

Well Lucas himself has said that that is what Star Wars is, basically a medieval fantasy novel set in space. Look at the tropes:

Dark Knight kidnaps princess...
Farmboy discovers destiny...
Joined by a rogue...
Who has an unusual companion...
And a wise old mentor...
Who dies...

Yadda yadda, we know the drill.

Well said. I've been arguing for years that Star Wars is fantasy, not really sci-fi, but no one seems to believe me.

 

[alchemist]

I have a similar worry about my own story, set at the end of this century. I also started off with a lot of voice controls, as it seemed to be the way of the future, but I've cut back now. Sometimes it's easier to push a button or scroll through a menu on a screen than giving a device voice instructions.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Well said. I've been arguing for years that Star Wars is fantasy, not really sci-fi, but no one seems to believe me.

I think most people accept it as space fantasy. And why not? It incorporates the best fun bits of both; a gung ho adventure with a format people enjoy with spacey bits and no scientific accuracy whatsoever.

I strongly believe there should be a resurgence of such tales. Immediately. Please.


(without the farm boy, he irks me. )

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Unfortunately anything similar will draw inevitable comparisons from both SW fanboys and the haters, and subsequently fall down flat, I'm afraid. Bold statement, but Star Wars is successful because of the time, not the content.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I think most people accept it as space fantasy. And why not? It incorporates the best fun bits of both; a gung ho adventure with a format people enjoy with spacey bits and no scientific accuracy whatsoever.

I strongly believe there should be a resurgence of such tales. Immediately. Please.

Lucas himself (the writer, so we should listen to him about his own work) calls it space opera and describes it as a half and half mixture of SF and Fantasy. And there ain't anything wrong at all with this definition nor the legion of books that happily exist within this definition

I too want a resurgence of such tales (inc. my WiP )

 

[Grimbear]

I think you just have to be imaginative - and yes I agree - use fantasy elements and forget today's technology. Use your imagination to create devices and means for characters to do all the things you want them to do with regard to the plot and refer only obliquely to machines/computers/gadgets that do not impinge directly on the plot or the characters lives.

When I was around 10, I read three books that kind of shaped my understanding of scifi as a kid. These were A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Nicholas Fisk, A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones and another by Nicholas Fisk which I can't remember the name of but which involved four kids building their own shapeship out of junk and then travelling in it to try to get to a mining station on another planet where their parents had gone to work. The two Nicholas Fisk ones were old even then, the Diana Wynne Jones one less so, but I recently re-read the DWJ one as her death made me think of it, and remember how much I'd enjoyed it.

The techonology she invented for the TOTC was excellent imo. There was a device they all wore on their belts which functioned as a communicator/wallet/computer and had a low gravity function also which gave a person the ability to take massive lunar-style jumps. There was a pen-funtion where you pressed a button and wrote with a light which appeared in your hand - like a laser pen which left a mark.

In A Rag and Bone and a Hank of Hair, the technology still hasn't appeared that has enabled us to routinely go along to leisure centres where we can play low-gravity games and fly around Harry Potter style, except without the broomsticks.

Just be imaginative - what would you want? what do you want your characters to do?

Admittedly, none of these were set in a near future, but anything set ten years from now will become dated realtively quickly if only becasue we'll all be there pretty soon, and the world won't be like that when we get there.

Think of near future as 100 years from now instead. If people are still reading your book then it will be a classic.

 

[Ursa major]

I have a similar worry about my own story, set at the end of this century. I also started off with a lot of voice controls, as it seemed to be the way of the future, but I've cut back now. Sometimes it's easier to push a button or scroll through a menu on a screen than giving a device voice instructions.

Voice controls are absent from my WiPs; though this isn't due to ease-of-use issues, there is a very valid reason (one that's mentioned in passing about half-way through WiP1).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

No.

And as Sapheron says, why worry?

I don't put a book down because I run across something that didn't pan out the way the author intended it to 50 years ago, or 20 or 10. It's fun to see what was considered "high tech" when the book was written, and to remember how far we've come. I get a real kick out of a particular espionage book I have, where they are stealing the disks from the MRI machine at Bethesda Naval Hospital and mention that the disks each hold 100 megabytes of data, or whatever it is, and the hard drive is something like 2k. Sure it's dated -- but the story took place at that particular time, and it's true.

Even if a book is speculating on future tech and gets it wrong, it's fiction anyway.

 

[EricWard]

For me, good sci fi is never about the future anyway. It's always a comment on the present.

I would say to research your particular piece of technology and see what it can't do now. Then make it do that.

 

[Steve Jordan]

I ran into a similar problem once with a story I'd written: Every time I revisited it, I had to edit-up the computer tech to keep it ahead of present-day. Eventually, I just stopped... it was a never-ending cycle.

Mentioning GitS is a good example of what to do: Set your tech into the
"next level" of tech. Cybernetics, brain implants and cyber-consciousness are far enough ahead of present technology, without being a clear and visible point on tech's existing pathway, that you don't have to sweat the details. Eventually, tech might catch up, but enough time will have passed to render it a moot point by then.

When it comes to computers, their pathway is so well-established that your only hope may be to "invent" a new computer paradigm that sort of resets the pathway... something like what "duotronics" accomplished for Star Trek.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Besides the obvious ways of just really knowing your stuff, is there any way to avoid being dated by the really rapid advance of computers in SF? I was recently reading a book written in the 90's and supposedly set in the "near future" and while it had many story points which were based on everybody being very much connected to the Internet they all communicated with LAPTOPS, not I Phones, and Social Media of any kind wasn't mentioned at all.

No, I don't think there's anyway to "future proof" your SF as a writer. The best you can hope for is getting the non-technical stuff right, like human emotions and good storytelling. Anyone who could have predicted something like the iPhone outside of a 5-10 year window before the thing actually launched would be working for Apple rather than writing SF.

Since the points weren't that important and the subject matter meant these people would have NEVER used Social Media anyway they didn't really matter, but here was a book scarcely a decade old and already showing dating problems.

The problem is specificity. It's a double-edged sword for SF writers. You want to show off all that research you've done, but the more you know, the more you know you don't know. If you're specific you'll appear dated faster, if you're not specific at all you risk looking like you're not even trying.

This can get really bad when you go back to the 70's and 80's. I remember one of Harry Harrison's Deathworld books. (Deathword III, I think) in which Jason dinAlt's possession of a PC was a major plot point. The problem was the PC was the size of a large old style TV, had cost a quarter million credits and this was supposedly some millenia, or at least centuries, in the future.

No offense meant to the recently deceased, but Harry Harrison is not the first author I would turn to if I wanted something approaching an accurate prediction of the future world.

OTOH other stories, like Ghost In the Shell, seem to use futuristic technology quite extensively, and it enhances the story quite well, somehow staying at the cutting edge of computer development a decade later without any trouble at all.

Exactly. And why is that? Because Ghost in the Shell isn't ever really explicit or specific about the tech used. It's planted there in a used world, not "Gee-Whiz'ed" by the characters (as was the PC in the Harrison you mentioned, which is likely why it's so glaring of a problem now), but rather it's simply used. Not commented on unless it's new to them. It just is. No mention of the costs as I recall, and the story doesn't center around whether these things work, or how exactly they work, but rather how people interact with them working.

The old-time SF writers could predict the actual technology of their future far better than we can, if for no other reason than their world changed much less rapidly. But the tech is secondary to the characters populating the best SF stories.

Is there any rule on how to use computers in hard SF stories, so we don't end up making ourselves look outdated or silly ten years down the road?

Yes, don't give specifics. Alternately, look at the estimates of the increase in computing power over the long-term, aka Moore's Law. It's something like double the power every 18 months. This is a projection that was made in the '65 which has basically held true up to today. And in 2015 or so the doubling will taper off to once every 3 years or so.

 

[Colbey Frost]

You could create something so original that it can't be dated... would a developed society in the future even need computers or robots?