Note to aspiring writers

[mrissa]

The fundamental constants of the universe apply to human beings. AAAAAARGH. If the premise of your book involves a change in the electroweak force, human beings will be affected. If they are not, you are dealing with something supernatural or at least extranatural on an extremely large and invasive level, and some sign that you, the author, recognize that might be a good freakin' idea.

We have understood bits of science in chunks that are much more separate than the science itself is. The things that make our brains work and the things that make our motors and generators and gunpowder work are not separable things.

I don't care how Karelian your main character is if you don't understand that "science" cannot be turned off in convenient chunks. My Finnophile self is so very trumped by Marissa Lingen, Girl Physicist, who does not live very far under the surface and has been around much, much longer. ML,GP: coming up on 18 years now. Finnophile: 4 years. You cannot bribe me to look away from your total idiocy with a nice, shiny puukko.

You have been in this field too long not to know the phrases "strong anthropic principle" and "weak anthropic principle" and how they might work in reverse.

I'M TALKING TO YOU, S.M. STIRLING.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Um...you're welcome. For what?

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yes. I'm all for willing suspension of disbelief but things have to have an overall ring of truth or they really piss me off. And nothing ticks me off more than an author breaking the rules of their universe when they set them up in the first place.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I do recognize that one person's suspension of disbelief is another's hanging by the neck until dead. Still. Oh, still.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yep. This is that thing where I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but not hang it by the neck until dead.

I can understand people starting to make this mistake for, oh, several seconds at a time, before they catch themselves and say "Oh, wait, these human bodies will be affected by this, won't they?"

Even a full-blown dualist, who thinks there's some kind of ghost out there that's the "me", even if it's somehow implemented "beyond physics" -- it still ties into the body, and if the body is different it will change the story.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Dies the Fire?

cadithial left that here. I still haven't cracked it. He explained the premise to me, using the old standard for this sort of thing, "gunpowder doesn't work." I responded wth, "So there's no more fire?" He grew annoyed. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's the one, yep.

I saw cadithial at Panera Bread, but I didn't know to tweak him about Dies the Fire, so instead I hugged him. Opportunities missed.

[cadithial.livejournal.com]

I evidently have a more liberal spreading of suspension of disbelief than others. I won't hold that against you :P

Sung to the tune of "As Time Goes By"

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Remember this of course,
You can't change the weak force,
Without making us all die...
The fundamental laws apply,
When you write sci-fi...

Re: Sung to the tune of "As Time Goes By"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

*groan*.

But not in a bad way....

Re: Sung to the tune of "As Time Goes By"

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Ooo, more! I know people who will sing this!

Re: Sung to the tune of "As Time Goes By"

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

...someone is encouraging me to sing silly songs?

Dear me...now I must write more of this!

Yup

[joatsimeon.livejournal.com]

One of the characters in DIES THE FIRE notes that a _random_ change in the laws of nature would probably just collapse everything into quark soup.

Instead the Change is neatly, and narrowly, tailored to allow most processes to go on as usual, including biological ones, while killing high-energy-density technologies.

That's why he's morally certain that it was a deliberate action by Somebody. He christens them the Alien Space Bats.

How did they do it?

In the second book -- THE PROTECTOR'S WAR, out in September --(where he's had the time and lab facilities to do some testing) he points out that anyone able to do this would be so Arbitrarily Advanced, so may paradigim shifts beyond our understanding of the natural world, that it's futile to ask how.

We not only don't understand the answer, we don't have the vocabulary necessary to ask the question properly.

We're like Imhotep the Pyramid Builder trying to understand a plasma-screen TV by sheer deduction. How did the wizard manage to get the tiny people into the funny-looking box? Or possibly we're like dogs trying to figure out electric lights.

Clarke's Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") applies.

Re: Yup

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for taking the time to respond civilly to my snit fit.

I don't think I'll ever be interested in reading several books that feature the futility of science and reasoning as a major theme, but I appreciate that other people will be.

Re: Yup

[joatsimeon.livejournal.com]

>Thank you for taking the time to respond civilly to my snit fit.

-- yer welcome... 8-).

>I don't think I'll ever be interested in reading several books that feature the futility of science and reasoning as a major theme, but I appreciate that other people will be.

-- The theme of the books is how people deal with the Change. They use science and reasoning to do that, among other things.

If this book had been written 50 years ago for Campbell at "Astounding", it would have featured a Brilliant Scientist, his Handsome Assistant, and the Spunky Daughter in a secret lab figuring out how to de-zabrilligate the snargulfux field with a jeezlookitthat generator, frustrating the dastardly plot of the wicked aliens.

That might have been a perfectly good book, but it's not the book I'm writing.