March, 2019 - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Fixing Science Fiction

In a Slate Magazine article, Lee Konstantinou argued that “Something is Broken in Our Science Fiction.” Is that true? If so, what can SciFi writers do about it?

Konstantinou’s thought-provoking piece declares that SciFi remains stuck in the cyberpunk era of the 1980s, seemingly unable to break free. He contends that cyberpunk and its many offshoot ‘-punks’ were products of the Reagan-Thatcher era.

To Kontantinou, the various punks share common attributes, such as (1) a setting not too different from our own, (2) an individual struggling alone against a flaw-ridden society, and (3) an absence of collective action by a group or groups. Even recent trends like dystopian SciFi and its positive counterpart (hope-punk?) typified by Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future are just cyberpunk derivatives.

Is he right? Is Science Fiction broken? Are the punks to blame?

As a writer of steampunk and clockpunk, I experienced an initially sour reaction to Konstantinou’s article before I thought more deeply about it. I agree with him that something seems wrong.

Whatever you say about the punks, give them due credit; they’ve had a good, long run. Konstantinou’s common attributes of punks are general enough to cover a lot of territory and appeal to a broad range of tastes. Moreover, the various ‘time period’ punks such as steampunk, dieselpunk, atompunk, etc. cater to readers’ nostalgic longings.

Still, I get a sense that SciFi is in a transition period, waiting for the next movement to explode on the scene. Likely the seeds of that next era are already here in some form, just starting to sprout into public awareness.

Maybe the next big thing in SciFi will spring from one or a combination of the current observable trends:

LBGTQ main characters, and explorations of alternate sexualities
Climate change extrapolations; humanity as a spoiler of environments
Artificial intelligence, the entire spectrum from the weak (narrow) kind, through the strong kind, to the super-intelligent kind
3D Printing and nanotechnology implications
Cross-genre mashups
Biological and genetic science
Extended human lifespans, Trans-human possibilities, cyborgs
Mundane SciFi

More likely, the next SciFi movement will grow from something I haven’t anticipated or noted yet.

To paraphrase P!nk in her song “Just Give Me a Reason,” Science Fiction is not broken, just bent, and SciFi writers can learn to entertain readers again. One author who will make the effort is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 31, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink

A Long Weekend in Arizona, and Beyond

On occasion, I’ve included posts about my travels in this blog. However, since I’m a fiction writer, not every word of these posts is true. Last weekend, I traveled to Phoenix to attend a wedding.

While in town, my wife and I went sightseeing. On Friday morning, we drove to Camelback Mountain, named for its resemblance to an animal that has never set foot in the Sonoran Desert. It’s a mountain for serious hikers, and I’d like to say we hiked up and down in record time, but I can’t. We snapped a few pictures and left.

That afternoon, we took a delightful cruise on windy Saguaro Lake aboard the boat Desert Belle. Narrated by Captain Gino, the cruise took about ninety minutes and we enjoyed seeing the desert mountain scenery and hearing facts and stories about the area.

On Saturday morning, we drove to South Mountain Park. Though you can hike up the mountain, we found it much easier to drive to the summit. If you do likewise, take it easy on the roads; they’re full of hairpin turns and blind bends.

The wedding took place Saturday afternoon, with perfect weather, and I’ll simply say the bride looked beautiful and the couple is now well and truly joined in matrimony.

On Sunday, we met a college friend of mine and ate lunch at the quirky Buffalo Chip Saloon in Cave Creek. I couldn’t resist ordering the Buffalo Stew and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The author, blocking a view of the Grand Canyon

My wife and I got up early Monday morning and drove to the Grand Canyon. Although I took pictures, I’m now convinced you can’t appreciate that place through other people’s photos or videos. You must go there.

Two people had recommended we see the red cliffs in the town of Sedona, situated between the Canyon and Phoenix, so we drove back that way. Driving along State Road 89A, which winds its way down Oak Creek Canyon, we took in the majestic mountain terrain on a road the mostly followed the serpentine path carved by the creek.

Red Cliffs of Sedona. Beware of vortexes.

I’d grown tired of driving, so my wife and I switched places. She drove along the touristy main road of Sedona with its slow speed limits and frequent lights. We stopped twice to take pictures of the towering, rust-colored rock formations. You really get a sense of geological time and the slow power of water in such a place.

Then a strange thing happened.

Just past Airport Road, I felt something odd while sitting in the passenger seat. While still belted in, I experienced an upward whirling sensation, as if being twirled in a spiral manner. I saw the car spinning below me, then the town, then the entire desert.

Panicking, I tried to see what was lifting my body, only to discover I had no body. My senses had somehow separated from it, and I could see the turning sphere of our Earth below me without having to breathe or suffer any discomfort.

Of my galactic voyage through our own and many alternate universes—some where the void is light and the stars dark, others where magic outweighs science, and still others where living stars and planets converse and philosophize—I can’t say much. Mainly this is because our Earthly vocabulary is too limited, too constrained by our provincial understandings.

After a wondrous, crystalline eternity spent wandering various dimensions and astral planes, I felt myself drawn back to our tiny orb. Down I spiraled, toward North America, toward Arizona, toward Sedona, but this time not to the mesa near the local airfield, but rather toward a reddish rock formation southwest of there.

Without warning, I was back in the car, awash in a sensation of spiritual renewal and psychic vitality. “Did you feel that?” I asked my wife. She looked puzzled. “Feel what?”

Only later did I learn Airport Mesa is a so-called “masculine vortex” of outward energy, and nearby Cathedral Rock is a “feminine vortex” of inward energy.

Someone should have forewarned—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 23, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Technoethics and the Curious Ape

In the movie Jurassic Park, the character Ian Malcolm says, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Today, I’m focusing on another technology topic, namely ethics in technology, or Technoethics.

Our species is innately curious and inventive. We possess large brains and opposable thumbs, but lack claws, shells, great speed, camouflaged skin and other attributes employed by animals to attack prey or to avoid becoming prey. These circumstances make us natural toolmakers.

From the beginning, we found we could use our tools for good or evil. The same stick, spear, bow and arrow, or rifle we used to kill a rabbit for dinner could also kill a fellow human. The different outcome is not inherent in the tool, but in the heart of the person employing it.

For each new technology in our history, there was at least one inventor. This person took an idea, created a design, and often used available materials to assemble the new item. Were these inventors responsible for, in Malcolm’s words, stopping to think if they should?

With some technologies, like the plow, the printing press, the light bulb, and the automobile, it’s certain their creators intended only positive, beneficial outcomes. The inventor of the automobile could not have foreseen people using cars as weapons, or that one day there’d be so many cars they’d pollute the atmosphere.

With other technologies such as the spear, the warship, the canon, and the nuclear bomb, the inventor’s intent was to kill other people. Why? The usual rationale is twofold: (1) My side needs this technology so our wartime enemy does not kill us, or (2) If I do not invent this technology first, my enemy will, and will use it against my side. Given such reasoning, an inventor of a weapon can claim it would be immoral not to develop the technology.

I’m sure there are unsung examples of would-be inventors refusing, on ethical grounds, to develop a new technology because they feared the consequences. The only example I can think of, though, is Leonardo da Vinci. Although he had no qualms about designing giant crossbows and battle tanks, he drew the line at submarines. Though at first excited about giving a submarine design to the Venetians for use against the Turks, da Vinci reconsidered and destroyed his own plans, after imagining how horrible war could become.

That example aside, the history of humanity gives me no reason to suspect future inventors will hesitate to develop even the most potent and powerful technologies. It’s our curious ape nature; if we can, we will. Only afterward will we ask if we should have.

As a writer of technological fiction, I’ve explored technoethics in many of my stories:

In “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” a Chinese submarine inventor intends his craft as a tool of exploration, but an army officer envisions military uses.

In “The Steam Elephant,” a British inventor sees his creation as a mobile home for safari hunters, but then imagines the British Army employing it on the battlefield. Only the narrator character fears what war will become when both sides have such weapons.

In “Leonardo’s Lion,” da Vinci actually builds his inventions, but hides them away and gives clues to the King of France about where to find them. The King never sees the clues, but decades later a ten-year-old boy does, and must decide whether the world is ready for these amazing devices.

In “The Six Hundred Dollar Man,” a doctor imagines how steam-powered prosthetic limbs would have saved crippled Civil War soldiers, but fails to foresee how super-strength and super-speed could turn a good person bad.

In “Ripper’s Ring,” a troubled Londoner in 1888 comes across the Ring of Gyges that Plato wrote about, an invisibility ring. Possession of that ring changes him into history’s most famous mass murderer.

In “After the Martians,” the survivors of an alien attack in 1901 take the Martian technology (tripods, heat rays, flying machines) and fight World War I.

As we smart apes start playing with bigger and more deadly sticks, maybe one day we will stop and think if we should before we think about whether we can. Hoping that day comes soon, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 10, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Plagiarisms, Algorithms, and Ostracisms

The latest outrage jolting the fiction-writing world is the Cristiane Serruya Plagiarism Scandal, or #CopyPasteCris in the Twitter world. I’ll leave it for others to gnash teeth and rend garments over the specifics of this case. As a former engineer and natural problem-solver, I prefer to look at what we might do to prevent future recurrences.

First, let me summarize. Alert and avid readers of romance books noticed matching phrases and paragraphs in two books: The Duchess War (2012) by Courtney Milan and Royal Love (2018) by Cristiane Serruya. These readers notified Ms. Milan, who reacted strongly. More investigations by readers of Ms. Serruya’s 30-odd books found uncredited passages and excerpts from 51 other books by 34 authors, 3 articles, 3 websites, and 2 recipes. In addition to Ms. Milan, the original authors included Nora Roberts, who likewise doesn’t tolerate imitation, no matter how sincere the flattery.

While lawyers gather for the coming feast, let us back away from the immediate affair, make some assumptions about the problem, and consider possible solutions. First, we’ll assume Ms. Serruya actually did what readers allege, that she (or her hired ghostwriters) copied other works and passed them off as her own. Second, let’s assume she is at least somewhat sane and had semi-logical reasons for doing so. Third, we’ll assume Ms. Serruya is not alone, that there are others out there doing the same thing.

What might her motivations have been? Why would anyone do this? In her post, Ms. Roberts asserts the existence of “black hat teams” working to thwart Amazon’s software algorithms to maximize profit. For more on this practice, read Sarah Jeong’s post from last summer, based on the Cockygate scandal.

It’s possible we’ve reached a point where (1) the ease of copying books, (2) the money to be made by turning out large numbers of romance books, and (3) the lack of anti-plagiarism gatekeepers at Amazon, have combined to produce all the incentive needed for unscrupulous “authors” (even a cottage industry of them) to copy the work of others.

Setting aside the current scandals, which must be resolved in light of existing laws and publishing practices, what can we do to prevent this in the future? How would we arrange things to dissuade future imitators of Ms. Serruya? What follows are four potential solutions, listed in order from least desirable to my favorite.

Make Copyrights like Patents. Consider how copyrights differ from patents: they’re free; they’re automatic; they require no effort by the government. For a patent, though, you must pay the government to determine if your invention is distinctly different from previous patented devices. If the government grants your patent, you then have full government support and sanction for your device, and a solid legal foundation to go after those who dare to infringe. We could do the same with copyrighting books. Boy, would that ever slow down the publishing world!
Make Amazon a Better Gatekeeper. Amazon and other distributors could set up anti-plagiarism software that detected if a proposed new book contained too many copied phrases from other books. Then they’d simply refuse to publish books that didn’t pass that algorithm. Although pressure from customers might force Amazon to do that, it’s not likely to happen, as explained by Jonathan Bailey in this post.
Make Use of Private Plagiarism-Checking Services. Imagine if a private company offered (for a fee) to check your manuscript to see if you’d plagiarized. Assuming your manuscript passed, you would cite that acceptance when you published it, similar to the Underwriters Laboratory model for electrical systems. Readers might tend to select plagiarism-checked books over those not certified. This would put a financial burden on authors.
Trust Readers. We could rely on astute readers to detect plagiarism, to notify the affected author, and to use social media to shame the plagiarizer publicly. This is, of course, where we are today. It requires no new laws, no fees, and no algorithms. It’s not perfect, but so far, it is proving workable.

If you think of other, better solutions, please leave a comment. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I wrote every word of my stories. Just ask my alter ego—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 3, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink