The escape into reality

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The escape into reality
February 26, 2011
Alex Ross
The Varsity

Hard science fiction is a genre that attempts to construct a plausible vision of the near or far future. It works out the social, economic, political, scientific, and even philosophical implications of advances in technology and scientific understanding. Hard SF can be distinguished from “space opera” (think Star Wars) in that the physical laws of the universe are respected. Even when they are stretched — in the case of faster-than-light travel, or devices that replicate matter — the author makes an effort to provide a plausible explanation.

For the longest time, sci-fi only came in two modes. Space opera, which was popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E. “Doc” Smith, described epic space adventures where the light years and alien races were knocked back with wild abandon. On the other side, the dreadful “scientifiction” was promoted by Hugo Gernsback, editor of the first sci-fi pulp magazine, Amazing Stories.

That all changed in 1938, when John W. Campbell Jr. became the editor of Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell insisted that those who sold stories to the magazine should respect actual science, and should also work out the implications of any speculative technologies or concepts they developed. Through his insistence on both scientific plausibility and literary quality, Campbell matured the genre of science fiction, setting the standard far above stories that read like juvenile fantasies or engineering blueprints. He nurtured and promoted such talents as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Lester del Rey, and Theodore Sturgeon. One of those talents was U of T Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Chandler Davis, who wrote half a dozen stories for Astounding Science Fiction between 1946 and 1953.

alt text “I think one thing that distinguishes real science fiction — what you call “hard” science fiction — from the irresponsible stuff is the attempt to show a society that is credible, a society that works, that has structure and people living in it” says Davis.

Many of the stories made a concerted effort to be both entertaining and realistic. This was possible since many of the writers like Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke, had training in physics and engineering. Atomic power, rocket travel, robotics, genetic engineering, and bioethics were primary concerns of Astounding’s writers before they were concerns of the general public.

Like many science fiction writers, Davis started as a fan and then quickly became a contributor.

“A lot of us had this passion for science fiction and we didn’t get enough. Reading wasn’t enough. [...] What we did is form a fan club and we made the acquaintance of some of the professionals [...] and tried out story ideas on each other,” Davis explains. “And this led some of us to submit stories to Astounding Science Fiction.”

Through his writing and the fan club, Davis became good friends of Asimov, Sturgeon, Judith Merril (who lends her name to the Merril Collection at the Lillian H. Smith Library) and Phil Klass, who wrote under the name William Tenn.

Davis’s first accepted story, “The Nightmare,” got the cover for the May 1946 issue. The cover featured the Statue of Liberty being obliterated by an atomic bomb.

“My story was not the first in science fiction to warn about the danger of nuclear war. [...] ‘Nightmare’ was the first to deal with the question of nuclear terrorism. That’s of course still a live subject today,” Davis explains.

In the story, scientist Robert Ciccone has to prevent the construction of an atomic bomb intended to terrorize New York. Ciccone uncovers the bomb’s location when he discovers that the plutonium used to create it is being hidden in shipments of radium watches.

“The Nightmare” is a good example of hard SF since the protagonist overcomes his challenges not by having the biggest muscles or the most powerful weapons but through his ability to reason out complex problems. Many hard SF stories reflect the famous maxim of Asimov’s Foundation series: “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

One of Davis’s most popular stories during his Astounding period was “Letter to Ellen,” a short story about the philosophical and moral implications of genetic engineering.

“I’m very interested in bioethics,” says Davis. “I don’t think that story does more than formulate a question. And it’s a question about the relation between genetic inheritance and life. Obviously you can have a science fiction story that doesn’t show the whole picture, it just raises a question.”

Davis loves hard science fiction’s “grounding in human experience […] All I can say is that I am sorry I haven’t contributed more to this field,” he adds, “which is an important intellectual movement and an important intellectual technique of analysis. I hope young people will.” However, Davis says he might write science fiction again in the near future.

In 1960, Campbell changed the name of Astounding to Analog, to better reflect the magazine’s editorial philosophy. Analog still publishes today and, after 81 years, is the longest continuously publishing science fiction magazine ever.

Canada has its own internationally renowned hard SF author, Robert J. Sawyer, who has written such famous books as FlashForward, Rollback, and his current WWW series, which is about the Internet obtaining consciousness.

So if you’re tired of all the phasers and lightsabers, why not give hard SF a try? It’s some of the best fiction in this universe — or any other universe for that matter.