McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Science Fantasy worlds
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: blgarver on May 01, 2007, 07:57:17 PM ---Okay that makes sense. I've always called his stuff "science not-so-fiction" just because it's not entirely outside the realms of reality.
--- End quote ---
Also, there's a non-trivial amount of day-after-tomorrow SF in the world that's pretty close to the realms of reality but not with the obnoxious anti-science attitude. Though by definition day-after-tomorrow settings age rapidly, and there's less of it this past five years or so than there used to be because it's a harder world to be short-term optimistic in than it was five-years-plus-time-to-write-a-novel ago.
recentcoin:
Actually, I think Crighton's stuff is more of a morality tale. It doesn't seem to be about knowledge itself but about the misuse and abuse of it. It's more about the old saying we have in IT, "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".
Eaters of the Dead - made into the movie the 13th Warrior - a retelling of the Beowulf saga but also about a collision of cultures. The technologically superior vikings wiping out the older tribal inhabitants. Moral of the story - Just because you can pitch your tent somewhere doesn't mean you should.
Congo - humans are punished for attempting to exploit both nature and an ape. Moral of the story - Just because you have a sat phone, you are not invincible.
Sphere - human techology from the future causes one of the men who discovers it to go insane and start killing his crewmates Moral of the story - Just because you can peek behind door #3 doesn't mean you really want to know what's in there.
Jurassic Park - overweening scientists re-create dinosaurs and they drive the humans off the island Moral of the story - Just because you can clone dinosaurs doesn't mean you should.
Airframe - all about trying to cover up the actual facts of a mid air incident that involves several fatalties. Moral of the story - Just because you think you can cover it up doesn't mean you can or should.
They're all like that. You folks need to learn to write a critical analysis of a piece.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: recentcoin on May 12, 2007, 10:05:06 PM ---Actually, I think Crighton's stuff is more of a morality tale. It doesn't seem to be about knowledge itself but about the misuse and abuse of it. It's more about the old saying we have in IT, "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".
--- End quote ---
There's only so many different variations you can read on "exploring new and interesting knowledge always has terrible consequences" before it starts to convince you it's a theme; point me at any Crichton story where something new is a force for good, otr any sympathetic character who believes in exploring the new, if you want to convince me he's not either a Luddite himself, or someone who consciously chooses to write from a Luddite perspective.
recentcoin:
Not all of his stuff is about technology - so I can't call him a Luddite. I will agree with you that a *lot* of it revolves around technology, but not all. I will say this, the more I learn about some of the things that we're doing now, the more of a Luddite I find myself becoming. We insist on tinkering with things we do not fully understand and it's only a matter of time until the consequences catch up to us.
2 cents....
RecentCoin
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: recentcoin on May 16, 2007, 08:27:19 PM ---We insist on tinkering with things we do not fully understand and it's only a matter of time until the consequences catch up to us.
--- End quote ---
Being responsibly aware of consequences is one thing, but we won't get the ability to handle consequences well without understanding things well in the first place; at this point in the history of a technological civilisation, there's not really any way we can go back to living in caves and hope the problems will go away, whereas there are real possibilities for bringing the consequences of our industrialisation, for example, under control by working smarter.
If we don't tinker with anything until we fully understand it, how are we supposed to learn ?
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