Sci-fi actually needs science

[David M. Kelly]

If it were something that completely breaks known science it would probably kill it for me as a reader, though it depends on the setting too (near/far future). As a writer if I asked for feedback I'd be happy to get any that came my way, if it wasn't the feedback (droids) I was looking for, I'd just thank the person anyway and not worry about it too much.

 

[russ2]

I think leave the poor guy or guyette alone. If the books are rubbish they won't sell. And if they do sell it means they have something some readers like and its none of our business if we disagree. Lots of Sf are based all all kinds of dodgy notions and no one cares. EG: there's no such thing as Faster Than Light spaceships. Einstein said it was impossible and he hasn't yet been proved wrong. Even if he is, no one in the world has a plan for a engine that can do 'warp factor 10' etc. But Star Trek and Star wars couldn't exist without this fantasy idea and look how popular they are.
If the guy's got good writing some readers will like it and thats that. don't waste your time on him , plenty of good writers out there who would love you to read their stuff

 

[Chinspinner]

In answer to the OP, it depends. Star Wars is fantasy set in space, it has space wizards, a hero's journey, a chosen one (at least in the early drafts), and magic. It does not even nod towards science; but I would never criticise it for that, it is what it is.

However, if it were trying sell itself as hard sci-fi I'd be a little peeved.

 

[psikeyhackr]

EG: there's no such thing as Faster Than Light spaceships. Einstein said it was impossible and he hasn't yet been proved wrong. Even if he is, no one in the world has a plan for a engine that can do 'warp factor 10' etc. But Star Trek and Star wars couldn't exist without this fantasy idea and look how popular they are.

Mary Shelly used the word 'electricity' twice in Frankenstein. At the time there were no nuclear power stations.

It has been discovered that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. We don't know why. That means there is UNKNOWN physics still loose in the wild. We do not know what cannot be done. Physicists mostly did not like the idea of Black Holes before 1970. Reality does not care what physicists do not like. FTL may be impossible. We have thousands of years to figure out more things. Some of Einstein's teachers did not like Einstein. LOL

psik

 

[Vertigo]

I think there has to be a distinction made between a piece of speculative science and breaking known physics.

For example FTL travel can be described as speculative. Okay some might claim it will never be possible and maybe (almost certainly) it won't but it can't actually be proved impossible. That old 'can't prove a negative' again. On the other hand I recently came a cross a book in which the author described a planet with an extreme tilt, and due to this tilt claimed that one hemisphere had hot summers and warm winters whilst the other hemisphere had cold summers and colder winters. This is simply incorrect science and, for me at least, that is unacceptable in SF.

 

[Chinspinner]

I think there has to be a distinction made between a piece of speculative science and breaking known physics.

For example FTL travel can be described as speculative. Okay some might claim it will never be possible and maybe (almost certainly) it won't but it can't actually be proved impossible. That old 'can't prove a negative' again. On the other hand I recently came a cross a book in which the author described a planet with an extreme tilt, and due to this tilt claimed that one hemisphere had hot summers and warm winters whilst the other hemisphere had cold summers and colder winters. This is simply incorrect science and, for me at least, that is unacceptable in SF.

And easily solved by something like tidal locking (if you want two very different sides to the same planet). That sort of thing grates with me as well.

FTL is a suspension of disbelief I can manage in space opera- it is a necessity of the genre- but it is better for an author to hand wave it to some degree (jump, hyperspace, whatever) than get bogged down in pseudo-science.

 

[Vertigo]

And easily solved by something like tidal locking (if you want two very different sides to the same planet). That sort of thing grates with me as well.

FTL is a suspension of disbelief I can manage in space opera- it is a necessity of the genre- but it is better for an author to hand wave it to some degree (jump, hyperspace, whatever) than get bogged down in pseudo-science.

Exactly!

 

[Ray Pullar]

Mary Shelly used the word 'electricity' twice in Frankenstein. At the time there were no nuclear power stations.

It has been discovered that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. We don't know why. That means there is UNKNOWN physics still loose in the wild. We do not know what cannot be done. Physicists mostly did not like the idea of Black Holes before 1970. Reality does not care what physicists do not like. FTL may be impossible. We have thousands of years to figure out more things. Some of Einstein's teachers did not like Einstein. LOL

psik

Franklin had mucked about with kites though. Galvani had made frogs' legs twitch. Electricity was observed and not understood. No one observes FTL.

 

[Biskit]

I think it also depends on whether the rest of the book works. One of my favourites are Peter Hamilton's orbital habitats with their cables trailing through the planetary magnetic field to generate electricity. My physicist's head had a grumble. Basic electro-magnetism says that the cables will in turn exert a force on the habitat and slow it, causing the orbit to decay. It's total rubbish, but once I got over my little WTF tantrum, the rest of the story is engrossing.

 

[Parson]

No one observes FTL.

I think my mother observed at that speed.

 

[Jesspica]

I think an idea of futurology helps, but not necessarily proper science. Warp drives - science? Not yet.

 

[DZara]

I think there has to be a distinction made between a piece of speculative science and breaking known physics.

To me, the cardinal sin is when I see something so egregious out-of-touch with basic scientific knowledge, without any kind of imaginative, semi-plausible explanation about why it happened. Not because it's bad science, but because it throws me right out of the story.

If I were the one writing the story, I would want the reader to tell me (politely) where that happened and why.

A statement like 'you need a refresher in all science everywhere' does no one any good - and would feel very frustrating to me. So specific feedback from other readers and writers is golden - a general 'you suck' is not.

My sister-in-law is a successful historical fiction writer, and unfortunately she gets the general 'you suck as a writer' a lot - and then blogs out her pain. Taught me to provide very specific feedback whenever possible. If I can't, I usually just let it go as a personal preference clash.

 

[DrMclony]

A statement like 'you need a refresher in all science everywhere' does no one any good - and would feel very frustrating to me. So specific feedback from other readers and writers is golden - a general 'you suck' is not.

From what I have heard in various discussions with people writing SF, sometimes the person who complains about something not being scientifically accurate is unaware of the science they are disputing. Yes, some writers get it wrong. But if somebody complains about your use of something and you can go to multiple experts in the exact field in question, and they tell you the critic is wrong, then you are in safe stead to ignore them. The safest bet though, is to seek out such experts BEFORE publishing, and then you know you have a leg to stand on as a writer of speculative science from the outset.

I had a book with a *EDIT: Unusually tilted* tilted planet, and I had lengthy discussion of the impacts of the particular planet's unusual arrangement with multiple geographers and astro physicists, to ensure that things went down in a scientifically plausible way. Of course, the tilt was only a single factor, and there was much more besides that had to be considered. To date nobody has complained to me about it, so hopefully it worked out for the best. Particularly since the story is more about people than places.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Franklin had mucked about with kites though. Galvani had made frogs' legs twitch. Electricity was observed and not understood. No one observes FTL.

Shelley also used the word 'Galvanism". Her story is an extrapolation of that. There was a time when no one observed the effects of Black Holes.

The distances between the stars necesitate some form of FTL if some stories are to be made. If you do not want to read any of those stories that is OK. Maybe FTL is impossible. I DO NOT KNOW! But I don't think anyone else does either. That is the primary objective of SCIENCE. FIGURING OUT WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW.

But that involves the factor of IMAGINATION. I suspect a lot of people with science degrees do not have much imagination. Sometimes I even think our schools are designed to kill it.

psik

 

[psikeyhackr]

Franklin had mucked about with kites though.

Franklin got the polarities backwards.

Conventional Current vs Electron Flow

psik

 

[Serendipity]

No one observes FTL.

I'm afraid I'm going to... ahem... be a pedant... cough...

Cerenkov radiation is in effect travelling faster than the local speed of light through a medium. It is that strange 'blue light' you can see in nuclear reactors for instance. Wisdom has it that the limit is the speed of light in a vacuum.

I'm sure you all knew this in reality...

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

Franklin had mucked about with kites though. Galvani had made frogs' legs twitch. Electricity was observed and not understood. No one observes FTL.

I like to use Newtonian mechanics as an example. Newton successfully codified the effects of gravity, and was able to compute the orbits of the planets, and explain ellipticity and so forth, all without using epicycles. And all was wonderful. Except there was that annoying unexplained problem with Mercury's orbit. People posited Vulcan as an explanation. Then along came Einstein, and Newtonian Mechanics turned out to be just a special case of a more general set of laws.

Now we have General and Special Relativity, and they explain observations in more extreme cases, such as close to the speed of light, and near a black hole. But there's that annoying unexplained problem with Quantum Mechanics. And that annoying thing with entanglement.

Point being there's room for FTL and a whole lot of other science-fictiony stuff. And those who say it's impossible should pay attention to all the other people who thought we knew all there was to know. All you can really say is that our current understanding of the universe doesn't provide a mechanism for that.

And that's ok.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

I had a book with a *EDIT: Unusually tilted* tilted planet, and I had lengthy discussion of the impacts of the particular planet's unusual arrangement with multiple geographers and astro physicists, to ensure that things went down in a scientifically plausible way. Of course, the tilt was only a single factor, and there was much more besides that had to be considered. To date nobody has complained to me about it, so hopefully it worked out for the best. Particularly since the story is more about people than places.

In the second book of my bobiverse trilogy, I was going to have a planet that didn't quite rotate all the way around-- it swung back and forth like a pendulum. Sort of 3/4 rotation, stop, 3/4 rotation back, stop, etc. The idea was based on my misunderstanding of the reasons for tidal locking. After a couple of discussions on physicsforums.com (an excellent place to go for this type of question, BTW), I realized that what I wanted wouldn't work. I had to rejigger the oddball planet.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Some readers imply that the word 'fiction' means that anything goes. But suppose we make a comparison to historical fiction.

The movie 'Cleopatra' with Elizabeth Tayolr might be called historical fiction, but the movie has Cleopatra making a spectacular arrival in Rome, though historical facts say Cleopatra never went to Rome. The trouble with the comparison with historical fiction is that it is only about the past and so much history is known whereas SF is usually a projection of 'possible' futures and we don't know the limits of science. Some reviewers do not like other people's speculations. LOL

psik

 

[Cathbad]

A few years ago I read a book called Cleopatra, which purported to be a true history. It had her going to Rome, and at first being well accepted (until the Senate started besmirching her).

So....