2006_10_01_archive

Are hard science fiction readers squeamish?

Science fiction author Chris Moriarty (most recent book: Spin Control)

has an essay on his web site about "hard" science fiction. He points

out that until recently some considered the biological sciences were

considered to be too "fantastic" to be science fiction. He speculates,

though, that perhaps part of the problem that the biosciences have had

in being accepted into the "hard science fiction" realm is that

descriptions of biology (particularly human biology) make some readers

uncomfortable.

Hard sf may be a broad field and getting broader daily -- I

remember when people said C. J. Cherry's Cyteen wasn't hard sf

because cloning was 'fantasy science' (5) -- but it will always be

a genre written by and for people who are passionate (albeit at

times foolishly passionate) about science and technology.

(5) Actually, I think there may be another, non-political factor

behind the longstanding reluctance to include stories based on

biology in the hard SF cannon. Part of it is a straightforward and

perfectly understandable aesthetic impulse; until the advent of

genetic engineering and mathematical biology, there was a truly

deplorable absence of equations in most biology texts, which made

biology-based sf stories a hard sell for the numerophilic hard-cord

hard SF fan. However, I can't quite buck the suspicion that part of

hard SF's historic biology phobia was mere squeamishness. The kind

of squeamishness so entertainingly encapsulated in the old Star

Trek episode, Amok Time, where Spock precedes a highly euphemistic

discussion of salmon spawning procedures with the shamefaced

admission that his illness "has to do with biology . . . Vulcan

biology."

Is that true? It certainly sounds plausible to me. I've certainly met

"engineering types" that are much happier in a simple universe made up

of numbers and circuits and metal than the fluids and squishiness of

the biological world.

Oh, and the dialog from Amok Time"? Here is a sample of the dialog

where Spock dances around the basics of Vulcan biology:

"There are precedents in nature, Captain... the giant eel-birds of

Regulus Five. Once each eleven years, they must return to the

caverns where they hatched. On your Earth, the salmon. They must

return to that one stream where they were born, to spawn - or die

in trying."

"But you're not a fish, Mr. Spock-"

"No - nor am I a man... I'm a Vulcan. I had hoped I would be spared

this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch

up with us... and we are driven by forces we cannot control - to

return home, and take a wife... or die."

(pause) "I haven't heard a word you said - and I'll get you to

Vulcan, somehow."

- Spock and Kirk

It's silly dialog, but I suspect it was written as much to get around

television censorship of anything having to do with s-e-x as

squeamishness on the part of the writers and fans. I could be wrong,

of course, since Star Trek has a long history of really crappy

biology. (But happily for me, lots of blog fodder).