The Old Solar System

[Zendexor]

Just two days ago I read a novelette by Algis Budrys, Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night. Mars with ancient cities and living Martians. Published in Galaxy, 1961, when almost nothing was known about the surface of Mars - Mariner 4 wouldn't make its flyby of the Red Planet until 1965. Still, there must have already been strong doubts, in 1961, that Mars was inhabited by any life form higher than fungus. So Budry's story had at least one foot firmly planted in Science Fantasy. This didn't keep it from being recognized as a great story - it was included in The Tenth Galaxy Reader (1967, two years after Mariner 4), Door to Anywhere (1970), Alpha 2 (1971), Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction (1980), The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), Great Science Fiction of the 20th Century (1987), and The Great SF Stories #23 (1991). I'm sure if we read through the list of Hugo and Nebula winners and nominees, we'd find many more examples of Science Fantasy that were highly thought of - especially among the novellas, novelettes, and short stories.

Must get hold of that Budrys story. I've made a note: Tenth Galaxy Reader. (Just missed it: I have the Ninth.)

 

[Zendexor]

If we tried to define Science Fantasy, Clarke's suggestion might be a good place to start. If a work of Science Fiction shouldn't have more than one unlikely thing in it, then a work of Science Fantasy doesn't need more than one likely thing in it - to anchor it in the science side of things, i.e., to keep it from being pure fantasy. This one likely thing would, of course, be some sort of scientific limitation on the story. And using this measure, if we were to read every Science Fiction story ever written, we'd find that most of them are actually Science Fantasy. Something the proponents of Hard SF have argued all along! But I may be straying too far from Zendexor's original post, which wasn't about Science Fantasy so much as it was about anachronistic Science Fantasy.

No I don't think you're straying from the point because, suppose the revolution happens and writers return en masse to portraying the OSS, then the more theoretical justification the better (must keep nervous critics happy). It will no longer be a case of excusing the anachronistic but of justifying an alternate reality. The right amount of scientific patter (the science in science fantasy) need only be small but it is crucial - an essential trace element, if you like. A sort of incantation to summon up the desired atmosphere.
Of course, OSS apart, many great SF writers have not given a damn about the hard science in many of their stories. Eric Frank Russell in Next of Kin had his character zooming through interstellar space in a rocket, as though the stars were millions of miles off instead of trillions. Since psychology not physics was what interested him, and since his style is irresistible, he gets away with it.

 

[Zendexor]

I'm repeating what you'll find at NASA and other sites about the Mariner 4 mission, i.e., that very little was known about the surface of Mars before 1965. Perhaps I should have emphasized "surface." Certainly, by 1961, there was spectroscopic evidence that Mars probably lacked surface water and vegetation. But these were still considered somewhat possible until Mariner 4, when it became clear as a bell that Mars was a dead world. (I'll leave it right there so this thread doesn't go off the rails.)

But there are interesting paranoid possibilities - e.g. the Martians, sensing that Mariner 4 and its successors are on the way, quickly go into cover-up mode, smoothing over the canals or even surrounding their entire planet with a Boringification Field to conceal its attractions...

 

[Tom Hering]

Alternative realities as a justification for science fantasy ...

In the case of Lewis' Space Trilogy, we aren't presented with an alternative reality, but rather, in the author's view, a truer picture of this reality. One that rejects the materialist concept of Outer Space and asserts instead the Deep Heavens. Lewis had a lifelong interest in medieval cosmology, and drew upon it in creating his picture of our solar system, the Field of Arbol. This makes the Space Trilogy the most anachronistic of all "old solar system" tales. It was highly anachronistic even when the three novels were first published in the 1930s and '40s. (Note that its anachronistic nature hasn't hurt the Trilogy's reputation or popularity one bit. Perhaps because its publishers have never promoted it as genre SF?)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

the Martians, sensing

Sure didn't they clean one of the Rover panels, but NASA didn't renew subscription, so they didn't fix the wheel.

 

[Tom Hering]

But there are interesting paranoid possibilities ...

Or perhaps Mars is in some way an example of the Observer Effect. Where observation doesn't change the planet's behavior (e.g., its orbit) but rather its appearance. Mars as a big, weird particle.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Phobos and Deimos are interesting.
Phobos is especially odd, being so close to Mars and Phobos's density is too low to be solid rock, and it is known to have significant porosity. Secret radar base or death star?

The origin of both is hard to explain.

 

[Tom Hering]

Phobos and Deimos are interesting.

Have you read Jerome Bixby's short story, The Holes Around Mars (1954), about one of the moons of Mars? I won't give anything away by telling you about the moon's nature. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32360

 

[Ray McCarthy]

No, but it's now on my server, ready to be transferred via Laptop USB to my Kindle DXG (great for proof reading & notes on my own writing, via Mobi Pocket Creator)

 

[Extollager]

"That Hideous Strength" is the 3rd, and far the best and is entirely on Earth.

That Hideous Strength is certainly great - in my opinion perhaps the greatest sf novel in one sense, that of combining flawless writing, characterisation, and the impinging-of-wider-things-on-an-ordinary-community (don't know a short way of saying this).
Alternative realities as a justification for science fantasy: yes, with the proviso that some of the alternatives are a darn sight better and (if I could only hope) more valid and real than this one. I think I'd prefer Dan Dare's solar system to ours, for example, even if we did have to put up with the Mekon...

I love the Lewis space trilogy -- suffused with sense of wonder and poetic feeling; I've returned to them for over 40 years.

And I like this Old Solar System thread well. I was initiated into the genre as a boy by books such as Donald Wollheim's planetary-tour thriller for youngsters, The Secret of the Ninth Planet, an entry in the Winston sf juveniles series.

 

[Extollager]

Just two days ago I read a novelette by Algis Budrys, Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night. Mars with ancient cities and living Martians...... - it was included in The Tenth Galaxy Reader.

As an admirer of Rogue Moon and Who?, I thank you for pointing out this story to me.

 

[Tom Hering]

As an admirer of Rogue Moon and Who?, I thank you for pointing out this story to me.

You're welcome. I read Who? back in the 1970s, but admit I don't remember much about it. Never got around to Rogue Moon or The Falling Torch, but I may correct that oversight when I get back to reading novels in 2016. (I've dedicated 2015 to catching up on SF short fiction from the period 1940-75. I expect to encounter Budrys again with this reading project.)

 

[Bick]

While I appreciate it's not really what you are driving at, there are a number of good solar system exploration and settlement books being written, and I think some of these manage to carry on the charm and wonder that the OSS books perhaps had (at least partially). I'm thinking particularly of Ben Bova's Grand Tour novels. Have you read any of these and how do they stack up in comparison with the Bracket/Burroughs style of OSS exploration? My feeling is that, in examples like Jupiter, there may be similarities, given Bova basically made stuff up about life in the thick gases on the planet, and made it an entertaining, if not entirely plausible ride.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I thought that Ben Bova series was entertaining.

 

[Zendexor]

In the case of Lewis' Space Trilogy, we aren't presented with an alternative reality, but rather, in the author's view, a truer picture of this reality. One that rejects the materialist concept of Outer Space and asserts instead the Deep Heavens. Lewis had a lifelong interest in medieval cosmology, and drew upon it in creating his picture of our solar system, the Field of Arbol. This makes the Space Trilogy the most anachronistic of all "old solar system" tales. It was highly anachronistic even when the three novels were first published in the 1930s and '40s. (Note that its anachronistic nature hasn't hurt the Trilogy's reputation or popularity one bit. Perhaps because its publishers have never promoted it as genre SF?)

One point of similarity between Lewis' Mars and the version in Heinlein's Red Planet: both depict Martians who turn their backs on space travel or the chance of space travel (in Lewis' case, their ruler the Oyarsa rejects it on their behalf) in ancient times, and prefer to live just on their own world. Just one little example of the build-up of resonances, parallelisms, in the literature of the OSS. Come to think of it , the Martians in Rex Gordon's No Man Friday are likewise philosophically self-sufficient in contrast with the restless, go-getting human race. It's as if the three books mentioned here were vastly different refractions of some common inner light.

 

[Zendexor]

Or perhaps Mars is in some way an example of the Observer Effect. Where observation doesn't change the planet's behavior (e.g., its orbit) but rather its appearance. Mars as a big, weird particle.

That's a thought. Anything with personality or character is in a sense an atom - in the etymological sense of an indivisible thing - because the real it is lost when split. So yes, Mars as a big particle, which eludes all attempts to pin it down, and is affected by observation. And from there the thought proceeds: what about Earth? a.k.a. Jasoom, Thulcandra...

 

[Zendexor]

Have you read Jerome Bixby's short story, The Holes Around Mars (1954), about one of the moons of Mars? I won't give anything away by telling you about the moon's nature. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32360

Yes, I have read it; I think it was in a collection edited by Asimov, who pointed out the impossibility of the idea!

 

[Zendexor]

While I appreciate it's not really what you are driving at, there are a number of good solar system exploration and settlement books being written, and I think some of these manage to carry on the charm and wonder that the OSS books perhaps had (at least partially). I'm thinking particularly of Ben Bova's Grand Tour novels. Have you read any of these and how do they stack up in comparison with the Bracket/Burroughs style of OSS exploration? My feeling is that, in examples like Jupiter, there may be similarities, given Bova basically made stuff up about life in the thick gases on the planet, and made it an entertaining, if not entirely plausible ride.

The Bova book, from what you say, sounds worth a read, but what would be really good in my view would be a book set on a Jupiter with a solid surface - like the Poul Anderson book whose name escapes me, or his short "Call Me Joe", or Simak's "Desertion", or Doc Smith's Spacehounds of IPC. One could invent some pseudo-scientific excuse for the solid surface.
Getting back to your comment - and re gas giants treated scientifically - there is also Saturn Rukh by R L Forward. I wanted to like it but I wished it were not written in such leaden fashion (unlike his fascinating Dragon's Egg, about life on a neutron star).

 

[Tom Hering]

Anything with personality or character is in a sense an atom ...

As long as we're dealing in scientifically outdated concepts, what about reviving the subatomic world? Ray Cummings' The Girl in the Golden Atom (1923) is the most famous work of this type. Does anyone know of others?

 

[Zendexor]

As long as we're dealing in scientifically outdated concepts, what about reviving the subatomic world? Ray Cummings' The Girl in the Golden Atom (1923) is the most famous work of this type. Does anyone know of others?

Submicroscopic in one of the Before the Golden Age collections edited by Asimov. Unfortunately I can't remember the author. (Can't look it up just now. My sf collection is too big to fit in my house so I house it at my brother's...) Also, the list of cute outdated concepts includes, of course, hollow-Earth stories (and for that matter, hollow-Moon and hollow-Mars, etc, stories. Burroughs' The Moon Maid is a hollow-Moon tale. One of Lin Carter's Mars books is a hollow-Mars tale). Another concept: reviving the disproved existence of the infra-Mercurian planet, Vulcan. (Brackett I think did so in her Child of the Sun - a tale I haven't been able to get hold of.) Finally as an extreme case one could try to revive William Herschel's idea of the habitability of the Sun. Nothing to do with any notion of neutronium or flame-like beings; he really thought the Sun might not be too hot on its surface - the heat coming from its atmosphere instead. Lots of real estate there. Of course the gravity (26 times Earth's) meant that you'd have to make sure your gravity-normaliser was properly charged at all times.