by Tony Ballantyne
Tony Ballantyne ruminates on the differences between science fiction and fiction of science in his new story, “A Stream of Leaves”, available in our [September/October issue, on sale now!]
I recently read Trustee from the Toolroom by Neville Shute. There is something endearing about the reverence the book affords both engineers and engineering.
The hero is a model engineer held in high regard by his peers. He travels across the world to retrieve his recently orphaned niece’s lost inheritance. He does this for selfless reasons: the money is to be spent on his niece’s education. There are no villains, just a number of generally decent people helping each other out.
Shute was an engineer, he describes the world with an engineer’s eye. We see this early on when some time is spent describing how the hero manufactures five metal duck eggs for his daughter by turning a three-inch end of inch-diameter steel rod on a lathe.
“I can make you all sorts of eggs,” he said, “but none of them would be quite the right colour. A duck’s egg ought to be a sort of bluey-green.” He thought rapidly. ‘We could do a silvery egg in steel, or a yellow egg if we heated a steel egg a bit, or a blue egg if we heated a steel egg quite a lot, or a grey egg if we case-hardened it. Or we could make a coppery-coloured egg if we made it out of copper. But I can’t just see how we could make a proper-coloured duck’s egg, unless we painted it.”
The book was published in 1960 and will seem very old fashioned to a modern reader. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it immensely.
The book isn’t SF. It doesn’t pass Frederik Pohl’s test of a good science fiction story which “should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”
Instead, the book demonstrates another way of writing a fiction of science, dwelling on process rather than extrapolation. It’s a reminder that SF writers don’t have a monopoly on writing fiction about science.
There is a part of me that enjoys reading schematics and user manuals. There is a great deal of pleasure to be derived from reading books by people who love their subject and can communicate that love in clear terms. This is evident in two of my favourite books from the field of Computer Science: On Lisp by Paul Graham and How Linux Works by Brian Ward. Both books explain complex ideas in concise language. The quality of the prose is a model to writers.
Instead, the book demonstrates another way of writing a fiction of science, dwelling on process rather than extrapolation. It’s a reminder that SF writers don’t have a monopoly on writing fiction about science.
In the field of music, I enjoy Richard Taruskin’s writing on Classical Music and Mark Levine’s on Jazz. This is different sort of approach, dealing as it does not just with pure theory, but the emotion produced by that theory. When speaking on playing jazz, Mark Levine often cautions that the theory should follow the music not the other way round.
Why mention this?
In my story “A Stream of Leaves,” Rachel explains why she turned her back on a life of pure reason.
“The Foundation wanted me too you know, but it didn’t appeal. Science is important, but I’ve seen a life’s work summarised in a few lines of poetry.”
Rachel lives in the Recursion universe (https://tonyballantyne.com/fiction/the-recursion-series/), a place where human science cannot explain how alien technology works. She isn’t rejecting science. She is recognising emotion. She recognises that without emotions human beings would just be reduced to the user manual. Unlike Tertius, the other main character, she is also smart enough to realise that relying on emotion alone is a mistake.
I’ve frequently heard it said that Science is a lot stranger than SF. That’s exactly right. Sol Stein said that a novel was all about communicating emotion. That’s also exactly right.
The sort of SF I love recognises all the above. But there is nothing wrong with other fictions of science.
One final thought. Jules Verne said “There will not always be scientific men, perhaps, but there always will be poets.”
I find that sentiment rather depressing. You need both.
The Astounding Analog Companion 