not falling down

Man, I wish somebody had told me.

Says Mister Crummy, regarding this last entry:

“The obvious thing that comes to my mind is ‘3001′ by Arthur C. Clarke, which is an awful book but which features, among other things, tame, semi-intelligent velociraptors who do menial tasks like gardening. This is just an incidental detail which is not important to the story, but it’s portrayed as a good deal for everyone including the no-longer-extinct dinosaurs…

Another one is David Brin’s Uplift series, in which one type of genetic engineering (making semi-intelligent species fully intelligent) is seen as a social good and a duty. Some of the characters in the books are genetically engineered chimps and dolphins.

If a piece of technology is central to a science fiction story then usually something has to go wrong or the technology has to be abused in some way, or there’s no story. I like Brin because he’s good at coming up with different drivers for conflict.”

He’s right, and that’s a common weakness of science fiction: Neat Idea Syndrome. My Creative Writing visiting professor, Nancy Zafris, told me when asked that yes, SF did have a pretty low standing within her literary circles.

“Why?” I asked. “There’s so much vibrant, progressive fiction out there.”

“I don’t know,” she said, distastefully. “It just always seems like there’s a problem, so they have to… do something with the computer, and that’s the end.”

Which you know is ridiculous, if you’ve ever read SF, but it does make a point: Neat Idea SF exists, and it’s perceived by the casual reader as a) all the same and b) boring. The casual reader is pretty much right, when the story doesn’t involve you with a character. When it gets down to it, a Neat Idea may catch your fancy, but eventually humans are only interested in reading about themselves.

So yeah, now I want to read David Brin, because what Leonard says makes him sound like exactly the right kind of character-focused writer. Unfortunately, my current bedside reading pile is staggering. I went to the library again tonight, with my newly repaired bike tires, and picked up yet more of my reserved books (Frank Miller, Diana Wynne Jones, Rob Thomas). I’m going to have to get a new box when I move on Friday just to keep my library stuff in. Is there a twelve-step program for this kind of thing?

It occurs to me that the one thing most of my favorite science fiction authors share is an intense dislike of science. Maybe it was different back in the hard-SF technotopia days, I don’t know, but I can’t actually remember reading a book involving a future where science makes things better. Seriously, can you think of two sci-fi stories in which genetic engineering, for example, is portrayed as anything but horrible?

I’m contemplating the purchase of a 27-inch television. Why? It’s not like I ever watch TV. I’ve watched maybe three hours of actual TV all summer, plus I had it on one of those music channels for an hour once. I have a small-but-select movie collection, but I don’t watch those much either.

Yet I’m probably going to get this thing. My budget is $200, and with the Wal-Mart gift certificate I got from one of my uncles at graduation, that one comes in just under the line. Plus it’s flat-screen, which I also generally don’t care about. Again, why am I doing this?

Because a big, flat screen allows you to more effectively engage in four-player Halo. That’s really the only reason.

Man, I hope Mom forgets to check this.