{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6326", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6326, "subject": "Hard SF", "messages": 47, "voices": 13, "first": "2012-11-28T15:51:47+00:00", "last": "2012-12-02T23:50:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T15:51:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a \nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without explanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible bones \nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy evidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be constructed so as to \nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of the notion that \nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in size always mean \nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall, proportioned like \nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that? Take a look at \nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs and pelvis made \nmore massive, and so on \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Antonin Scriabin", "address": "kierkegaurdian at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T15:57:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during conjunction?\nI seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of a spec than a moon, but\nperhaps they are close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,\nsuch that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and allow the Inhumi\nto fly from one to another. If they are this close though, they would most\ndefinitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational field, which\ndoesn't seem to be the case." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible\nbones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs\nand pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T16:03:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd tend to agree with Lee here. -DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible\nbones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs\nand pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T16:04:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both generally\nand in the text?)\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin\nwrote:\nDo we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during conjunction?\nI seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of a spec than a moon, but\nperhaps they are close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,\nsuch that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and allow the Inhumi\nto fly from one to another. If they are this close though, they would most\ndefinitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational field, which\ndoesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and\nflexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs\nand pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T16:21:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface gravity, so\ngetting close enough that their atmospheres meaningfully touched would\ninvolve massive tidal effects up to and including immense tsunami and\ndisastrous earthquakes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen <\ndanielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:\nThat's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both generally\nand in the text?)\n\n-DOJP\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin <\nkierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\nconjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of a spec\nthan a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have unusually expansive\natmospheres, such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and allow\nthe Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are this close though, they\nwould most definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\nfield, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and\nflexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs\nand pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Antonin Scriabin", "address": "kierkegaurdian at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T16:28:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, the gravitational shenanigans were what made me think this likely\nisn't the case. However, introducing one big problem that would get rid of\nseveral others (the previously posted lists of reasons biological entities\ncan't really travel through space unprotected) is certainly attractive!\nPerhaps the Inhumi travel in \"bubbles\" of protective atmosphere, similar to\nthe way some spiders create\naqualungsfor\nthemselves to travel underwater?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nNot really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface gravity, so\ngetting close enough that their atmospheres meaningfully touched would\ninvolve massive tidal effects up to and including immense tsunami and\ndisastrous earthquakes.\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen <\ndanielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both generally\nand in the text?)\n\n-DOJP\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin <\nkierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\nconjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of a spec\nthan a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have unusually expansive\natmospheres, such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and allow\nthe Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are this close though, they\nwould most definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\nfield, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes\na\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and\nflexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of\nthat? Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the\nlegs and pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1354122262.68401.YahooMailNeo@web84513.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-28T17:04:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree with him too. But Urth is still not \"hard SF.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Daniel Petersen \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:03 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Hard SF\n\n\nI'd tend to agree with Lee here. -DOJP\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without explanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy evidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be constructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of the notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in size always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall, proportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that? Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs and pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B64877.1000706@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-11-28T17:23:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "About Blue and Green, I often asked myself what kind of orbit they have. \nIs it just like Earth and Moon, but\nwith much greater eccentricity? And what are the relative sizes? It \nseems that gravity on Green is less.\n\nAnother very exotic possibility is that they both orbit the Short Sun \nbut come periodically very close.\nThe conjunction has the period of several years! This seems not very \ncompatible with the\nfirst variant, and may be an argument for the second.\nIt is very exotic because such orbits would be normally not stable, but \none can find some very\nexceptional particular \"resonance\" solutions when it remains stable for \na relatively long time.\n\nDoes the Whorl orbit the Short Sun or the Blue-Green system?\n\nMaybe this was already discussed?\n\nSergei" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Daniel Petersen wrote:\nThat's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both \ngenerally and in the text?)\n\n-DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin \n> wrote:\n\n Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\n conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of\n a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have\n unusually expansive atmospheres, such that during conjunction\n their atmospheres merge and allow the Inhumi to fly from one to\n another. If they are this close though, they would most\n definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\n field, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n > wrote:\n\n\n >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe\n isn't diamond-hard\n but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think\n he makes a\n sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below\n illustrates.\n\n Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers\n without explanation,\n Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel\n and flexible bones\n and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the\n skimpy evidence we\n are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling\n be constructed so as to\n >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n giantesses] cannot?\n\n >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First,\n get rid of the notion that\n >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human being.\n Changes in size always mean\n >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty\n feet tall, proportioned like\n >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you\n thought of that? Take a look at\n >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased,\n and the legs and pelvis made\n >more massive, and so on\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1354123708.80051.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T17:28:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B64877.1000706@irit.fr>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I figure they are more like Earth and Mars. Actually, the size of Blue is implied somewhere (ten times the size of the whorl in diameter?) I don't remember exactly where. I always wanted to go back and see how big it was, but I am sloppy about numbers in that way. \n\n--- On Wed, 11/28/12, Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Sergei SOLOVIEV \nSubject: Re: (urth) Hard SF\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 9:23 AM\n\n\nAbout Blue and Green, I often asked myself what kind of orbit they have. \nIs it just like Earth and Moon, but\nwith much greater eccentricity? And what are the relative sizes? It \nseems that gravity on Green is less.\n\nAnother very exotic possibility is that they both orbit the Short Sun \nbut come periodically very close.\nThe conjunction has the period of several years! This seems not very \ncompatible with the\nfirst variant, and may be an argument for the second.\nIt is very exotic because such orbits would be normally not stable, but \none can find some very\nexceptional particular \"resonance\" solutions when it remains stable for \na relatively long time.\n\nDoes the Whorl orbit the Short Sun or the Blue-Green system?\n\nMaybe this was already discussed?\n\nSergei" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Daniel Petersen wrote:\nThat's a wonderful thought, Antonin!? Is this feasible? (Both \ngenerally and in the text?)\n\n-DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin \n> wrote:\n\n? ???Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\n? ???conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of\n? ???a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have\n? ???unusually expansive atmospheres, such that during conjunction\n? ???their atmospheres merge and allow the Inhumi to fly from one to\n? ???another. If they are this close though, they would most\n? ???definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\n? ???field, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\n? ???On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n? ???> wrote:\n\n\n? ? ? ???>David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n? ? ? ???Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe\n? ? ? ???isn't diamond-hard\n? ? ? ???but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think\n? ? ? ???he makes a\n? ? ? ???sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below\n? ? ? ???illustrates.\n\n? ? ? ???Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers\n? ? ? ???without explanation,\n? ? ? ???Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel\n? ? ? ???and flexible bones\n? ? ? ???and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n? ? ? ???If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the\n? ? ? ???skimpy evidence we\n? ? ? ???are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n? ? ? ???>Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling\n? ? ? ???be constructed so as to\n? ? ? ???>walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n? ? ? ???giantesses] cannot?\n\n? ? ? ???>Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First,\n? ? ? ???get rid of the notion that\n? ? ? ???>the godling is going to be proportioned like a human being.\n? ? ? ???Changes in size always mean\n? ? ? ???>changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty\n? ? ? ???feet tall, proportioned like\n? ? ? ???>you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you\n? ? ? ???thought of that? Take a look at\n? ? ? ???>the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased,\n? ? ? ???and the legs and pelvis made\n? ? ? ???>more massive, and so on\n? ? ? ???_______________________________________________\n? ? ? ???Urth Mailing List\n? ? ? ???To post, write urth at urth.net \n? ? ? ???Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net\n\n\n\n? ???_______________________________________________\n? ???Urth Mailing List\n? ???To post, write urth at urth.net \n? ???Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net\n\n\n\n\n-- \nDaniel Otto Jack Petersen\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth.net\nSubscription/information: http://www.urth.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B64FA7.2020309@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-11-28T17:53:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And could it be that their \"real\" method of travel has something to do \nwith strange capacity that\nthe narrator acquires to travel in tandem with them (at least in \nspirit)? Something like this\nwas considered also in \"Silhouette\" -\n\nSergei" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonin Scriabin wrote:\nYeah, the gravitational shenanigans were what made me think this \nlikely isn't the case. However, introducing one big problem that \nwould get rid of several others (the previously posted lists of \nreasons biological entities can't really travel through space \nunprotected) is certainly attractive! Perhaps the Inhumi travel in \n\"bubbles\" of protective atmosphere, similar to the way some spiders \ncreate aqualungs \n for \nthemselves to travel underwater?\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes > wrote:\n\n Not really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface\n gravity, so getting close enough that their atmospheres\n meaningfully touched would involve massive tidal effects up to and\n including immense tsunami and disastrous earthquakes.\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen\n > wrote:\n\n That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both\n generally and in the text?)\n\n -DOJP\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin\n >\n wrote:\n\n Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get\n during conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue,\n Green is more of a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are\n close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,\n such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and\n allow the Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are\n this close though, they would most definitely fall under\n the sway of one another's gravitational field, which\n doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n > wrote:\n\n\n >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree.\n Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\n but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale.\n I think he makes a\n sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote\n below illustrates.\n\n Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape\n changers without explanation,\n Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for\n Tzadkiel and flexible bones\n and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more\n than the skimpy evidence we\n are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the\n godling be constructed so as to\n >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n giantesses] cannot?\n\n >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go.\n First, get rid of the notion that\n >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human\n being. Changes in size always mean\n >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man\n fifty feet tall, proportioned like\n >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had\n you thought of that? Take a look at\n >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be\n increased, and the legs and pelvis made\n >more massive, and so on\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B650FB.4030904@irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "Sergei SOLOVIEV", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2012-11-28T17:59:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<1354123708.80051.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I had the same impression about sizes. If you find where it was said \nthat the Whorl is ten times\nsmaller than Blue I would be glad to know.\n\nSergei" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nI figure they are more like Earth and Mars. Actually, the size of \nBlue is implied somewhere (ten times the size of the whorl in \ndiameter?) I don't remember exactly where. I always wanted to go back \nand see how big it was, but I am sloppy about numbers in that way. \n\n--- On *Wed, 11/28/12, Sergei SOLOVIEV //* wrote:\n\n\n From: Sergei SOLOVIEV \n Subject: Re: (urth) Hard SF\n To: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \n Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 9:23 AM\n\n About Blue and Green, I often asked myself what kind of orbit they\n have.\n Is it just like Earth and Moon, but\n with much greater eccentricity? And what are the relative sizes? It\n seems that gravity on Green is less.\n\n Another very exotic possibility is that they both orbit the Short Sun\n but come periodically very close.\n The conjunction has the period of several years! This seems not very\n compatible with the\n first variant, and may be an argument for the second.\n It is very exotic because such orbits would be normally not\n stable, but\n one can find some very\n exceptional particular \"resonance\" solutions when it remains\n stable for\n a relatively long time.\n\n Does the Whorl orbit the Short Sun or the Blue-Green system?\n\n Maybe this was already discussed?\n\n Sergei\n\n Daniel Petersen wrote:\n > That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both\n > generally and in the text?)\n >\n > -DOJP\n >\n > On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin\n > \n >>\n wrote:\n >\n > Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\n > conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is\n more of\n > a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have\n > unusually expansive atmospheres, such that during conjunction\n > their atmospheres merge and allow the Inhumi to fly from one to\n > another. If they are this close though, they would most\n > definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\n > field, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n >\n >\n >\n > On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n > \n >>\n wrote:\n >\n >\n > >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n >\n > Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps\n Wolfe\n > isn't diamond-hard\n > but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I\n think\n > he makes a\n > sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below\n > illustrates.\n >\n > Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers\n > without explanation,\n > Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for\n Tzadkiel\n > and flexible bones\n > and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n >\n > If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more\n than the\n > skimpy evidence we\n > are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n >\n > >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling\n > be constructed so as to\n > >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n > giantesses] cannot?\n >\n > >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First,\n > get rid of the notion that\n > >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human being.\n > Changes in size always mean\n > >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty\n > feet tall, proportioned like\n > >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you\n > thought of that? Take a look at\n > >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased,\n > and the legs and pelvis made\n > >more massive, and so on\n > _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T22:48:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yep, that's what I was worried about, but I have no scientific training so\nI didn't know if there were some exquisitely rare scenarios where this\nmight be just barely plausible. (It's such a breathtakingly awe-inspiring\nthought: worthy of a fantasy at least - if no one has written such a\nthing, someone needs to!) But come to think of it: doesn't the passage\nsay rather explicitly that they fly through *space*? (Does anyone have a\npage number reference for this?)\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nNot really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface gravity, so\ngetting close enough that their atmospheres meaningfully touched would\ninvolve massive tidal effects up to and including immense tsunami and\ndisastrous earthquakes.\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen <\ndanielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both generally\nand in the text?)\n\n-DOJP\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin <\nkierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get during\nconjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue, Green is more of a spec\nthan a moon, but perhaps they are close enough, or have unusually expansive\natmospheres, such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and allow\nthe Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are this close though, they\nwould most definitely fall under the sway of one another's gravitational\nfield, which doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes\na\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and\nflexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of\nthat? Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the\nlegs and pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B69565.7030908@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-28T22:51:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the cited Jahlee reference has them burning up on reentry if they \nare dead. So the commingled atmosphere theory is not part of the story." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 5:48 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:\nYep, that's what I was worried about, but I have no scientific \ntraining so I didn't know if there were some exquisitely rare \nscenarios where this might be just barely plausible. (It's such a \nbreathtakingly awe-inspiring thought: worthy of a fantasy at least - \nif no one has written such a thing, someone needs to!) But come to \nthink of it: doesn't the passage say rather explicitly that they fly \nthrough /space/? (Does anyone have a page number reference for this?)\n\n-DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes > wrote:\n\n Not really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface\n gravity, so getting close enough that their atmospheres\n meaningfully touched would involve massive tidal effects up to and\n including immense tsunami and disastrous earthquakes.\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen\n > wrote:\n\n That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both\n generally and in the text?)\n\n -DOJP\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin\n >\n wrote:\n\n Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get\n during conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue,\n Green is more of a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are\n close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,\n such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and\n allow the Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are\n this close though, they would most definitely fall under\n the sway of one another's gravitational field, which\n doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n > wrote:\n\n\n >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree.\n Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\n but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale.\n I think he makes a\n sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote\n below illustrates.\n\n Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape\n changers without explanation,\n Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for\n Tzadkiel and flexible bones\n and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more\n than the skimpy evidence we\n are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the\n godling be constructed so as to\n >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n giantesses] cannot?\n\n >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go.\n First, get rid of the notion that\n >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human\n being. Changes in size always mean\n >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man\n fifty feet tall, proportioned like\n >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had\n you thought of that? Take a look at\n >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be\n increased, and the legs and pelvis made\n >more massive, and so on\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B69648.5090405@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-28T22:55:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<1354122262.68401.YahooMailNeo@web84513.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is, the \"medium\" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, \nwhich is the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile myth \nwith physical plausibility to make a story \"work.\" You can see the \ntension between them, but he never abandons one for the other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 12:04 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nI agree with him too. But Urth is still not \"hard SF.\"\n\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n *From:* Daniel Petersen \n *To:* The Urth Mailing List \n *Sent:* Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:03 AM\n *Subject:* Re: (urth) Hard SF\n\n I'd tend to agree with Lee here. -DOJP\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Lee Berman\n > wrote:\n\n\n >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe\n isn't diamond-hard\n but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think\n he makes a\n sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below\n illustrates.\n\n Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers\n without explanation,\n Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel\n and flexible bones\n and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the\n skimpy evidence we\n are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling\n be constructed so as to\n >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n giantesses] cannot?\n\n >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First,\n get rid of the notion that\n >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human being.\n Changes in size always mean\n >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty\n feet tall, proportioned like\n >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you\n thought of that? Take a look at\n >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased,\n and the legs and pelvis made\n >more massive, and so on\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T22:59:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B69565.7030908@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah, helpful. That's part of what I was wondering too - whether the story\nitself suggested or allowed for the 'commingled atmosphere theory'. Sounds\nlike we need to discard it (imaginatively beautiful though it is).\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nWell, the cited Jahlee reference has them burning up on reentry if they\nare dead. So the commingled atmosphere theory is not part of the story.\n\n\nOn 11/28/2012 5:48 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yep, that's what I was worried about, but I have no scientific training\nso I didn't know if there were some exquisitely rare scenarios where this\nmight be just barely plausible. (It's such a breathtakingly awe-inspiring\nthought: worthy of a fantasy at least - if no one has written such a\nthing, someone needs to!) But come to think of it: doesn't the passage\nsay rather explicitly that they fly through /space/? (Does anyone have a\npage number reference for this?)\n\n-DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes > wrote:\n\n Not really -- they both seem to have about one G of surface\n gravity, so getting close enough that their atmospheres\n meaningfully touched would involve massive tidal effects up to and\n including immense tsunami and disastrous earthquakes.\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Daniel Petersen\n \n >>\nwrote:\n\n That's a wonderful thought, Antonin! Is this feasible? (Both\n generally and in the text?)\n\n -DOJP\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Antonin Scriabin\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " wrote:\n\n Do we have any idea just how close Blue and Green get\n during conjunction? I seem to remember that from Blue,\n Green is more of a spec than a moon, but perhaps they are\n close enough, or have unusually expansive atmospheres,\n such that during conjunction their atmospheres merge and\n allow the Inhumi to fly from one to another. If they are\n this close though, they would most definitely fall under\n the sway of one another's gravitational field, which\n doesn't seem to be the case.\n\n\n\n On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman\n >>\nwrote:\n\n\n >David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here.\n\n Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree.\n Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\n but I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale.\n I think he makes a\n sincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote\n below illustrates.\n\n Where fantasy writers are content to give us shape\n changers without explanation,\n Wolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for\n Tzadkiel and flexible bones\n and muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\n If the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more\n than the skimpy evidence we\n are provided (and less evidence for their lying nature).\n\n >Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the\n godling be constructed so as to\n >walk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine\n giantesses] cannot?\n\n >Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go.\n First, get rid of the notion that\n >the godling is going to be proportioned like a human\n being. Changes in size always mean\n >changes in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man\n fifty feet tall, proportioned like\n >you or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had\n you thought of that? Take a look at\n >the really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be\n increased, and the legs and pelvis made\n >more massive, and so on\n ______________________________**_________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-28T23:06:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B69648.5090405@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "So you take hard s.f. to be a philosophical position (committed to some\nform of naturalism, if not physicalism)? I've heard Michael Flynn is a\ntheistic hard s.f.er, but I don't know if his worldview affects the writing\nof his fiction at a sort of methodological level. I've not read any. At\nany rate, I don't think Wolfe's fiction reaches full 'hard' status for\nvarious reasons - regardless of whether we say hard s.f. by definition must\nremain mechanically non-theistic or non-magical or whatever. But you\ndescribe well the tensions Wolfe manfully holds together. It's part of\nwhat makes his work have a widespread, diverse audience.\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:55 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n That is, the \"medium\" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, which\nis the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile myth with\nphysical plausibility to make a story \"work.\" You can see the tension\nbetween them, but he never abandons one for the other.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 12:04 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n I agree with him too. But Urth is still not \"hard SF.\"\n\n ------------------------------\n*From:* Daniel Petersen \n*To:* The Urth Mailing List \n*Sent:* Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:03 AM\n*Subject:* Re: (urth) Hard SF\n\nI'd tend to agree with Lee here. -DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't\ndiamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without\nexplanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible\nbones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy\nevidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be\nconstructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of\nthe notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in\nsize always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall,\nproportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs\nand pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B6A615.8060600@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T00:02:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure if it's philosophical exactly, though the examples that \ncome to mind are /Flatland/, which exists to make a didactic point, and \nthe Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), which \napparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly boring---I \nmean, that we can terraform Mars. Those examples certainly seem to \nreject magic and theism entirely.\n\nPlausibility has a lot to do with style. We want to hear about monsters, \nbut they go down better when the narrator is /real/: a grubby criminal, \nmaybe, or a hard-boiled detective character we've been trained to accept \njust for the pleasure of it. (Once, we would have accepted a \nstraight-laced scientist, but no more.) So many SF short stories involve \nthe subversion of rules that ground the story in something we can \nrecognize. Tolkien took the opposite approach, replacing the usual rules \nwith his own, but maintaining a certain distance through the use of \nlanguage; he never let you forget for long that you were experiencing \nsomething more \"real\" than history, but also just as large as history.\n\nWolfe is a stylist above all else, but also a moralist. He seems to see \nhumans as half-truth-telling, /story-/telling beings in a universe of \nunplumbed moral and physical depth. Stories are what we are, and moral \nis what we want to be, so he retells old stories that test morality; I \nwouldn't say he's obsessed with the supernatural, but his awareness of \nit (and conviction in it) leads him to respect material reality while \nconsidering it secondary. If the story always comes first, the result \ncan't ever be hard SF.\n\nAnother point I could make is that plausibility is in a sense a \nnegative. That is, if I don't ever /say /that a pound of feathers weighs \nless than a pound of lead, I can't be caught being implausible. Wolfe's \nengineer side may nix some ideas produced by his mythographer side, but \nit rarely writes the stories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 6:06 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:\nSo you take hard s.f. to be a philosophical position (committed to \nsome form of naturalism, if not physicalism)? I've heard Michael \nFlynn is a theistic hard s.f.er , but I don't know if \nhis worldview affects the writing of his fiction at a sort of \nmethodological level. I've not read any. At any rate, I don't think \nWolfe's fiction reaches full 'hard' status for various reasons - \nregardless of whether we say hard s.f. by definition must remain \nmechanically non-theistic or non-magical or whatever. But you \ndescribe well the tensions Wolfe manfully holds together. It's part \nof what makes his work have a widespread, diverse audience.\n\n-DOJP" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8B64F30C-6652-4E1B-A0CF-B8A2DCDD8BA1@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T01:24:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6A615.8060600@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Nov 28, 2012, at 5:02 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nI'm not sure if it's philosophical exactly, though the examples that come to mind are /Flatland/, which exists to make a didactic point, and the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), which apparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly boring---I mean, that we can terraform Mars. Those examples certainly seem to reject magic and theism entirely.\n\nPlausibility has a lot to do with style. We want to hear about monsters, but they go down better when the narrator is /real/: a grubby criminal, maybe, or a hard-boiled detective character we've been trained to accept just for the pleasure of it. (Once, we would have accepted a straight-laced scientist, but no more.) So many SF short stories involve the subversion of rules that ground the story in something we can recognize. Tolkien took the opposite approach, replacing the usual rules with his own, but maintaining a certain distance through the use of language; he never let you forget for long that you were experiencing something more \"real\" than history, but also just as large as history.\n\nWolfe is a stylist above all else, but also a moralist. He seems to see humans as half-truth-telling, /story-/telling beings in a universe of unplumbed moral and physical depth. Stories are what we are, and moral is what we want to be, so he retells old stories that test morality; I wouldn't say he's obsessed with the supernatural, but his awareness of it (and conviction in it) leads him to respect material reality while considering it secondary. If the story always comes first, the result can't ever be hard SF.\n\nAnother point I could make is that plausibility is in a sense a negative. That is, if I don't ever /say /that a pound of feathers weighs less than a pound of lead, I can't be caught being implausible. Wolfe's engineer side may nix some ideas produced by his mythographer side, but it rarely writes the stories.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 6:06 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So you take hard s.f. to be a philosophical position (committed to some form of naturalism, if not physicalism)? I've heard Michael Flynn is a theistic hard s.f.er , but I don't know if his worldview affects the writing of his fiction at a sort of methodological \n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<97D5D920-C2D4-40ED-BF01-40920A69F2DD@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T01:26:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6A615.8060600@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Surely you mean Kim Stanley Robinson? I was not aware he was catholic, but yes, deadly deadly boring. Not worth looking into his beliefs, really. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Nov 28, 2012, at 5:02 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nI'm not sure if it's philosophical exactly, though the examples that come to mind are /Flatland/, which exists to make a didactic point, and the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), which apparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly boring---I mean, that we can terraform Mars. Those examples certainly seem to reject magic and theism entirely.\n\nPlausibility has a lot to do with style. We want to hear about monsters, but they go down better when the narrator is /real/: a grubby criminal, maybe, or a hard-boiled detective character we've been trained to accept just for the pleasure of it. (Once, we would have accepted a straight-laced scientist, but no more.) So many SF short stories involve the subversion of rules that ground the story in something we can recognize. Tolkien took the opposite approach, replacing the usual rules with his own, but maintaining a certain distance through the use of language; he never let you forget for long that you were experiencing something more \"real\" than history, but also just as large as history.\n\nWolfe is a stylist above all else, but also a moralist. He seems to see humans as half-truth-telling, /story-/telling beings in a universe of unplumbed moral and physical depth. Stories are what we are, and moral is what we want to be, so he retells old stories that test morality; I wouldn't say he's obsessed with the supernatural, but his awareness of it (and conviction in it) leads him to respect material reality while considering it secondary. If the story always comes first, the result can't ever be hard SF.\n\nAnother point I could make is that plausibility is in a sense a negative. That is, if I don't ever /say /that a pound of feathers weighs less than a pound of lead, I can't be caught being implausible. Wolfe's engineer side may nix some ideas produced by his mythographer side, but it rarely writes the stories.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 6:06 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So you take hard s.f. to be a philosophical position (committed to some form of naturalism, if not physicalism)? I've heard Michael Flynn is a theistic hard s.f.er , but I don't know if his worldview affects the writing of his fiction at a sort of methodological level. I've not read any. At any rate, I don't think Wolfe's fiction reaches full 'hard' status for various reasons - regardless of whether we say hard s.f. by definition must remain mechanically non-theistic or non-magical or whatever. But you describe well the tensions Wolfe manfully holds together. It's part of what makes his work have a widespread, diverse audience.\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2012-11-29T01:34:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6A615.8060600@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 29 Nov 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:\nand the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), which \napparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly boring" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You meant KSR, I suppose. Boring? ... de gustibus. His first novel \n_Icehenge_ has some Wolfe-like ambiguities and twists, and is short ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "philosophical exactly" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How about _Star Maker_?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41B2AA23-B918-4FBE-830C-52F357BB7409@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T01:56:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B69648.5090405@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is that where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the plot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost necessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf.\n\nNo dia 28/11/2012, ?s 22:55, David Stockhoff escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That is, the \"medium\" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, which is the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile myth with physical plausibility to make a story \"work.\" You can see the tension between them, but he never abandons one for the other.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 12:04 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I agree with him too. But Urth is still not \"hard SF.\"\n\nFrom: Daniel Petersen \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:03 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Hard SF\n\nI'd tend to agree with Lee here. -DOJP\n\nOn Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "David Stockhoff: We're not talking about hard SF here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Just for the sake of discussion, I'll disagree. Perhaps Wolfe isn't diamond-hard\nbut I'd give him ruby- or sapphire- on the MOhs scale. I think he makes a\nsincere attempt in most of his work, as the quote below illustrates.\n\nWhere fantasy writers are content to give us shape changers without explanation,\nWolfe provides us with a sponge cellular analogy for Tzadkiel and flexible bones\nand muscles, make-up and hypnotic abilities for Inhumi.\n\nIf the Inhumi really fly through space I'd want more than the skimpy evidence we\nare provided (and less evidence for their lying nature)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Nick Gevers: Speaking as an engineer, how might the godling be constructed so as to\nwalk as a giant on land, where the undines [submarine giantesses] cannot?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gene Wolfe: There are a number of ways you could go. First, get rid of the notion that\nthe godling is going to be proportioned like a human being. Changes in size always mean\nchanges in build. (Dr. Crane touches on that.) A man fifty feet tall, proportioned like\nyou or me, would sink into the ground a lot -- had you thought of that? Take a look at\nthe really big dinosaurs. Bone density could be increased, and the legs and pelvis made\nmore massive, and so on\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B6D32D.2070307@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T03:14:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<97D5D920-C2D4-40ED-BF01-40920A69F2DD@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're right! That makes more sense. This Robinson is a /damned anarchist./" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 8:26 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nSurely you mean Kim Stanley Robinson? I was not aware he was catholic, but yes, deadly deadly boring. Not worth looking into his beliefs, really.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Nov 28, 2012, at 5:02 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'm not sure if it's philosophical exactly, though the examples that come to mind are /Flatland/, which exists to make a didactic point, and the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), which apparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly boring---I mean, that we can terraform Mars. Those examples certainly seem to reject magic and theism entirely.\n\nPlausibility has a lot to do with style. We want to hear about monsters, but they go down better when the narrator is /real/: a grubby criminal, maybe, or a hard-boiled detective character we've been trained to accept just for the pleasure of it. (Once, we would have accepted a straight-laced scientist, but no more.) So many SF short stories involve the subversion of rules that ground the story in something we can recognize. Tolkien took the opposite approach, replacing the usual rules with his own, but maintaining a certain distance through the use of language; he never let you forget for long that you were experiencing something more \"real\" than history, but also just as large as history.\n\nWolfe is a stylist above all else, but also a moralist. He seems to see humans as half-truth-telling, /story-/telling beings in a universe of unplumbed moral and physical depth. Stories are what we are, and moral is what we want to be, so he retells old stories that test morality; I wouldn't say he's obsessed with the supernatural, but his awareness of it (and conviction in it) leads him to respect material reality while considering it secondary. If the story always comes first, the result can't ever be hard SF.\n\nAnother point I could make is that plausibility is in a sense a negative. That is, if I don't ever /say /that a pound of feathers weighs less than a pound of lead, I can't be caught being implausible. Wolfe's engineer side may nix some ideas produced by his mythographer side, but it rarely writes the stories.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 6:06 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "So you take hard s.f. to be a philosophical position (committed to some form of naturalism, if not physicalism)? I've heard Michael Flynn is a theistic hard s.f.er , but I don't know if his worldview affects the writing of his fiction at a sort of methodological level. I've not read any. At any rate, I don't think Wolfe's fiction reaches full 'hard' status for various reasons - regardless of whether we say hard s.f. by definition must remain mechanically non-theistic or non-magical or whatever. But you describe well the tensions Wolfe manfully holds together. It's part of what makes his work have a widespread, diverse audience.\n\n-DOJP\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B6D39F.3010808@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T03:16:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Star Maker is in text form somewhere on my Kindle. I hope it doesn't \nstay that way. Thanks for the suggestions." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 8:34 PM, David Duffy wrote:\nOn Thu, 29 Nov 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (another damn Catholic!), \nwhich apparently exists to prove that science fiction can be deadly \nboring" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You meant KSR, I suppose. Boring? ... de gustibus. His first novel \n_Icehenge_ has some Wolfe-like ambiguities and twists, and is short ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "philosophical exactly" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How about _Star Maker_?\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B6D48B.1050800@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T03:20:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<41B2AA23-B918-4FBE-830C-52F357BB7409@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I agree. Science realism is after all impossible, if you are \nproposing scientific impossibilities such as FTL." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 8:56 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nI think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is \nthat where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the \nplot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost \nnecessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf.\n\nNo dia 28/11/2012, ?s 22:55, David Stockhoff > escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That is, the \"medium\" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, \nwhich is the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile \nmyth with physical plausibility to make a story \"work.\" You can see \nthe tension between them, but he never abandons one for the other.\n\nOn 11/28/2012 12:04 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T16:02:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6D48B.1050800@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marquez wrote:\n\nI think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is that where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the plot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost necessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think 'hard SF' is an essentially ambiguous term. It can mean what\nAntonio says - I think Asimov defined it that way, for instance - or\nit can mean SF which is scientifically accurate. It is widely used in\nthe latter sense as well.\n\nObviously the two ideas to some extent go together, in that if you are\nexploring the implications of a scientific hypothesis you have to work\nthem out consistently; it would not be very scientific, for instance,\nto hypothesise that if there were faster-than-light travel there would\nbe unicorns. But in some cases I think the two concepts of hard SF\nactually pull against one another. Those works of SF which focus most\non science are often ones where it is not real-world science - ones\nexploring the consequences of some imagined scientific development\nwhich isn't really possible; conversely, a work of speculative fiction\nin which science is not important, which deals with a future or\nanother world whose distinctive features are social rather than\nscientific, can easily confine itself to the scientifically possible." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T16:34:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6D48B.1050800@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Stockhoff, you're first paragraph made me 'LOL' as they say (in spite\nof its wrong Robinson).\n\n\nDavid Stockhoff wrote:\n'If the story always comes first, the result can't ever be hard SF.'\n\nThat would explain why I still haven't found any I enjoy reading." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\n for me, 'hard sf' is that where the workings of science itself are a\nmajor driver of the plot. Little to do with being science-'realistic',\nexcept as an almost necessary implication." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's probably more fair to hard s.f.ers. What the world needs is a\nscience fiction writer who is gifted and trained in the sciences but who is\nalso a mystic and poet - THAT is hard s.f. that I'd read and delight in.\n\n(But I do like that Wolfe tends to have plenty of genuinely 'sciencey'\nstuff going on in the backgrounds of his narratives.)\n\n-DOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 3:20 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nYes, I agree. Science realism is after all impossible, if you are\nproposing scientific impossibilities such as FTL.\n\n\nOn 11/28/2012 8:56 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is that\nwhere the workings of science itself are a major driver of the plot. Little\nto do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost necessary\nimplication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf.\n\nNo dia 28/11/2012, ?s 22:55, David Stockhoff > escreveu:\n\n\nThat is, the \"medium\" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, which\nis the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile myth with\nphysical plausibility to make a story \"work.\" You can see the tension\nbetween them, but he never abandons one for the other." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On 11/28/2012 12:04 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "______________________________**_________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B78EC2.7060309@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T16:35:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew Mason wrote (29-11-2012 16:02):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marquez" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "-es. -es.\n\n(Whereas the o-acute is a matter of detail.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is\nthat where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the\nplot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost\nnecessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think 'hard SF' is an essentially ambiguous term. It can mean what\nAntonio says - I think Asimov defined it that way, for instance -" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "NB I said 'for me'." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "or it can mean SF which is scientifically accurate. It is widely used in\n the latter sense as well.\n\nObviously the two ideas to some extent go together, in that if you are\nexploring the implications of a scientific hypothesis you have to work\nthem out consistently; it would not be very scientific, for instance, to\nhypothesise that if there were faster-than-light travel there would be\nunicorns. But in some cases I think the two concepts of hard SF actually\npull against one another. Those works of SF which focus most on science\nare often ones where it is not real-world science - ones exploring the\nconsequences of some imagined scientific development which isn't really\npossible; conversely, a work of speculative fiction in which science is\nnot important, which deals with a future or another world whose\ndistinctive features are social rather than scientific, can easily\nconfine itself to the scientifically possible." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Very true. But it doesn't need to come to that, unless one is reading it \npurely for the 'science', which I don't think most people do. Books I \nconsider the archetype of hard sf would be Rendezvous with Rama, The \nInvincible and His Master's Voice (I'm addicted to Lem's writing, which is \nbaffling since his characters are quite unlikeable), and in none of those \ndoes the question really arise (in my opinion)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T16:35:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B78EC2.7060309@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason: I think 'hard SF' is an essentially ambiguous term. It can mean what\nAntonio says - I think Asimov defined it that way, for instance - or\nit can mean SF which is scientifically accurate. It is widely used in\nthe latter sense as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks, Andrew. I think the recognition of both meanings is helpful. \n\nI think Urth and its dying red sun qualify as hard SF in Antonio's/Asimov's sense\nof being driven by a scientific premise but doesn't qualify as being scientifically\naccurate. Would a sun that drastically diminished really still be able to support tropical\njungles on Urth? I'd question the liklihood of any major plant growth under those conditions.\n\nI suppose you could make some sort of elaborate argument for how it could happen but I think\nWolfe's red sun was more of a literary choice than a scienfific one. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "nate jarvis", "address": "natejarv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T16:36:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been awhile since I read it, but Orwell's 1984 was science\nfiction and I can't remember any \"science mistakes\" in it. I wouldn't\ncall it hard SF, though. Near-future SF without spaceships or robots\nor any of the immediately recoginizable sciffy tropes can be Hard SF\nIMO--Bear's Darwin's Radio, for instance. For those who haven't read\nit, Darwin's Radio is centered around the idea that junk DNA is a\ndormant mechanism for producing dramatic evolutionary leaps, and the\neffects on society when that dormant mechanism ceases to be dormant.\nSo the focus of the story is a (as far as I can tell) rigorous\nspeculation on a scientific topic.\n\nMost of the Charles Stross stuff I've read centers around a heist\n(Halting State) or a chase (Iron Sunrise, Saturn's Children) or\nsomething similar, but I'd still call his stuff hard SF. The\n\"hardness\" is in the details, and on virtually every page there's a\nline that makes me wanna run to google and see if there's a white\npaper on whatever he's talking about. Stross might not meet the\ndefinition Antonio proposes, though.\n\nNate." } ] }, { "message_id": "<3F06D85E0A9149E89A4A8864DF5CD523@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T17:25:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B6D48B.1050800@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: David Stockhoff " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I agree. Science realism is after all impossible, if you are \nproposing scientific impossibilities such as FTL." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/28/2012 8:56 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is \nthat where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the \nplot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost \nnecessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That’s my view too. \nThere are different types of hard SF though. There is the realistic sort where the writer tries to tell a story that could actually happen (e.g. the Mars trilogy). And there’s the kind where the writer takes some dubious physics theory and extrapolates wildly based on that (e.g. Schild’s Ladder by Greg Egan). \nOf course, even a hard SF writer isn’t going to get the science perfect. (I never believed you could oxygenate Mars using wind power.) \nWolfe isn’t writing hard SF, so his standard for plausibility divided by coolness is correspondingly lower.\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5874991D67D94386A6EB0EE3EEF8CE75@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T17:32:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Lee Berman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Urth and its dying red sun qualify as hard SF in \nAntonio's/Asimov's sense\nof being driven by a scientific premise but doesn't qualify as being \nscientifically\naccurate. Would a sun that drastically diminished really still be able to \nsupport tropical\njungles on Urth? I'd question the liklihood of any major plant growth \nunder those conditions.\n\nI suppose you could make some sort of elaborate argument for how it could \nhappen but I think\nWolfe's red sun was more of a literary choice than a scienfific one." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it is also a key element of the story.\n\nPersonally I would question whether dropping a black hole into the sun would \ndim it. I think it would cause it to burn hotter, although its life would \nbe reduced. That said, one can imagine mechanisms that would have the \nopposite effect. Perhaps it generates an accretion disk with causes the \nsun's core to expand and cool.\n\nBasically, most SF involves a lot of hand-waving, probably more than even \nthe author knows. [Otherwise he'd be writing science, after all!]\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T17:40:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<3F06D85E0A9149E89A4A8864DF5CD523@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's a sort of grey area of reasonably-hard SF (firm SF?) where certain\n\"canonical miracles,\" such as FTL travel, are allowed, but the story ideas\nstill need to be based around solid scientific speculation. A good example\nof this is Larry Niven's \"known space\" series, which is generally\nconsidered hard (or hardish) SF despite the presence of FTL and psi,\nbecause it speculates hard about things like tidal effects and antimatter." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 9:25 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n *From:* David Stockhoff \n\n > Yes, I agree. Science realism is after all impossible, if you are\nproposing scientific impossibilities such as FTL." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 11/28/2012 8:56 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think I've said this a number of times but, for me, 'hard sf' is\nthat where the workings of science itself are a major driver of the\nplot. Little to do with being science-'realistic', except as an almost\nnecessary implication. In that regard, Wolfe's work is not hard sf." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " That’s my view too.\n\n There are different types of hard SF though. There is the realistic\nsort where the writer tries to tell a story that could actually happen\n(e.g. the Mars trilogy). And there’s the kind where the writer takes some\ndubious physics theory and extrapolates wildly based on that (e.g. Schild’s\nLadder by Greg Egan).\n\n Of course, even a hard SF writer isn’t going to get the science\nperfect. (I never believed you could oxygenate Mars using wind power.)\n\n Wolfe isn’t writing hard SF, so his standard for plausibility divided by\ncoolness is correspondingly lower.\n\n - Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1354214507.95526.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T18:41:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Exactly. And there's a related subgenre of space opera one could call \"(military) hardware porn,\" where the science is totally made up but the technology is lovingly described. I don't know any names, but I've flipped through a few at my local library. OK, there's post- Ringworld Jerry Pournelle . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Daniel Petersen \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 11:34 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Hard SF\n\n\nDavid Stockhoff, you're first paragraph made me 'LOL' as they say (in spite of its wrong Robinson).\n\n\nDavid Stockhoff wrote: \n'If the story always comes first, the result can't ever be hard SF.'\n\n\nThat would explain why I still haven't found any I enjoy reading." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1354214955.24761.YahooMailNeo@web84512.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T18:49:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B78EC2.7060309@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rendezvous with Rama is actually a great example of well-balanced hard SF, where the science it part of a great story. Clark was a true storyteller who really knew how to make science an adventure.And I don't recall any impossible stuff in there." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1354215033.14096.YahooMailNeo@web84516.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-29T18:50:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Totally. I'm not sure why, then, you would classify Urth as \"driven by a scientific premise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 11:35 AM\nSubject: (urth) Hard SF" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Andrew Mason: I think 'hard SF' is an essentially ambiguous term. It can mean what\nAntonio says - I think Asimov defined it that way, for instance - or\nit can mean SF which is scientifically accurate. It is widely used in\nthe latter sense as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thanks, Andrew. I think the recognition of both meanings is helpful. \n\nI think Urth and its dying red sun qualify as hard SF in Antonio's/Asimov's sense\nof being driven by a scientific premise but doesn't qualify as being scientifically\naccurate. Would a sun that drastically diminished really still be able to support tropical\njungles on Urth? I'd question the liklihood of any major plant growth under those conditions.\n\nI suppose you could make some sort of elaborate argument for how it could happen but I think\nWolfe's red sun was more of a literary choice than a scienfific one. ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T18:53:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<1354214507.95526.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 10:41 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nExactly. And there's a related subgenre of space opera one could call\n\"(military) hardware porn,\" where the science is totally made up but the\ntechnology is lovingly described. I don't know any names, but I've flipped\nthrough a few at my local library. OK, there's post- Ringworld Jerry\nPournelle . . ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This would be people like John Ringo, Eric Flint, etc. The \"grand master\"\nof this, though, is David Weber, and his Honor Harrington metaseries*,\nwhich is actually pretty readable.\n\n--Dan'l\n\n* \"metaseries\" both because it has books that fit in nonlinearly, and\nbecause it's metastasized." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T18:54:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<1354214955.24761.YahooMailNeo@web84512.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Clarke was also something of an atheistic mystic, particularly visible in\nstories like \"Against the Fall of Night/The City and the Stars.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 10:49 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nRendezvous with Rama is actually a great example of well-balanced hard SF,\nwhere the science it part of a great story. Clark was a true storyteller\nwho really knew how to make science an adventure. And I don't recall any impossible\nstuff in there.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<3ed2fa6ad32b33dced02d149e3802281.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T19:26:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, November 29, 2012 10:36, nate jarvis wrote:\nMost of the Charles Stross stuff I've read centers around a heist\n(Halting State) or a chase (Iron Sunrise, Saturn's Children) or\nsomething similar, but I'd still call his stuff hard SF. The\n\"hardness\" is in the details, and on virtually every page there's a\nline that makes me wanna run to google and see if there's a white\npaper on whatever he's talking about. Stross might not meet the\ndefinition Antonio proposes, though." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Charlie intentionally writes to different levels of plausibility. Halting\nState and Rule 34 are more like slightly futuristic technothrillers, he\ncomplained in his blog that the news kept swiping his plot devices.\n\nSaturn's Children is an example of mundane SF\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction\n, though the posthuman millieu gives him a bit more wiggle room to have a\nHeinlein pastiche and some silent movie melodrama.\n\nIron Sunrise is a totally whacked implausible setting with time travel,\nFTL, space nazis, nova bombs, etc being dealt with by a couple of people\nof more modest ability to defy the laws of physics." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2012-11-29T21:36:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<3F06D85E0A9149E89A4A8864DF5CD523@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 30 Nov 2012, Gerry Quinn wrote:\nAnd there’s the kind where the writer takes some dubious physics theory \nand extrapolates wildly based on that (e.g. Schild’s Ladder by Greg \nEgan)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know what's going on with you people. First someone calls Kim \nStanley Robinson boring, and now Gerry's making out quantum loop gravity \nis dubious. Didn't you read Egan's paper?\n\nhttp://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0208010.pdf\n\nAnd no, it's not in the section next to\n\nhttp://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8144\n\nCheers, David Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2012-11-29T21:55:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: David Duffy" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 30 Nov 2012, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And there’s the kind where the writer takes some dubious physics theory\nand extrapolates wildly based on that (e.g. Schild’s Ladder by Greg\nEgan)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know what's going on with you people. First someone calls Kim\nStanley Robinson boring, and now Gerry's making out quantum loop gravity\nis dubious. Didn't you read Egan's paper?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0208010.pdf" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it has fallen out of favour as far as I know!\n\nBut by 'dubious' I meant 'unlikely to be correct'. Even if the vacuum is \nmetastable, it's (fortunately) unlikely that we could destabilise it by \nexperiment.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-30T13:33:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe's red sun was more of a literary choice than a scientific one. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Totally. I'm not sure why, then, you would classify Urth as \"driven by \na scientific premise.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good question. I'll try to explain. It is a common hard SF trope to have primitive aliens \nbelieving in some magical principle to understand some large, problematic issue in their lives. \nThen some space-faring humans come in with their scientific knowledge and technology and use it\nto fix the problem, often becoming \"gods\" along the way. We all get a good chuckle out of that.\nThis can be recognized as a remnant of the colonial/imperialist thinking here on earth.\n\nI think Wolfe has turned this formula on its head. On first reading, we see there are some \nmystical explanations floating around Urth to explain Urth's dying sun. But as readers we\nunderstand that stars have a lifespan and Urth's sun has simply arrived at the end of one.\nSo for most of the story we have a scientific explanation for Urth's condition in mind.\n\nEventually, through the Green Man and Master Ash, we get the sense that there actually is\na solution to the dying sun. With Tzadkiel and Yesod and the white fountain cancelling out\nthe black hole we have the \"scientific\" solution to the problem. But it isn't human beings\nusing science who facilitate the solution. It is higher beings using what appears, even to\nus readers, as some sort of divine power.\n\nWhat I am suggesting is that the premise of \"hard SF\" is that magic is the soft\nexplanation and science is the hard explanation.\n\nBut what Wolfe is doing is suggesting that to a divine intelligence, science is a soft, magical\nprimitive way of understanding the universe. There is a harder, more comprehensive \nunderstanding than science to those higher beings who can grasp it.\n\nSo, I think, from Wolfe's own perspective, he is not really writing Fantasy/SF. He is writing \nSF which takes \"hard\" to a new level and definition. As science is harder than magic, so Wolfe\nfeels there is a divine knowledge which is harder than science. (I don't mean to suggest Wolfe\nis alone in taking this approach) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<35EE536095E84252A22EAE2860809FEC@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2012-11-30T14:39:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Lee Berman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: Totally. I'm not sure why, then, you would classify \nUrth as \"driven by\na scientific premise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Good question. I'll try to explain. It is a common hard SF trope to have \nprimitive aliens\nbelieving in some magical principle to understand some large, problematic \nissue in their lives.\nThen some space-faring humans come in with their scientific knowledge and \ntechnology and use it\nto fix the problem, often becoming \"gods\" along the way. We all get a good \nchuckle out of that.\nThis can be recognized as a remnant of the colonial/imperialist thinking \nhere on earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe has turned this formula on its head. On first reading, we \nsee there are some\nmystical explanations floating around Urth to explain Urth's dying sun. \nBut as readers we\nunderstand that stars have a lifespan and Urth's sun has simply arrived at \nthe end of one.\nSo for most of the story we have a scientific explanation for Urth's \ncondition in mind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, we learn the correct explanation from Dr. Talos's play, in the \nsecond book:\n\n PROPHET: Yet even you must know that cancer eats the heart of the old \nsun.\n At its center, matter falls in upon itself, as though there were there a \npit\n without bottom, whose top surrounds it.\n\n AUTARCH: My astronomers have long told me so.\n\nThe above is a very explicit depiction of a black hole. The explanation is \nnot known to Severian, but it is known to many humans in high places. I \ndon't think Severian's ignorance of science can stand in for all of \nhumanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What I am suggesting is that the premise of \"hard SF\" is that magic is \nthe soft\nexplanation and science is the hard explanation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But what Wolfe is doing is suggesting that to a divine intelligence, \nscience is a soft, magical\nprimitive way of understanding the universe. There is a harder, more \ncomprehensive\nunderstanding than science to those higher beings who can grasp it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This I can agree with.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B8C62D.1030304@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-30T14:43:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Aha. Well, we can certainly agree that there is an \nunderlying/overarching thrust to the Cycle that subordinates both \nscience and literature to itself. It is /scientific /in the sense of \nbeing or embracing a principled, methodical quest for understanding.\n\nBut I think a better terminology might be to say it is /rational. /I \nassume that one of the attractions of Catholicism to Wolfe is its blend \nof the rational with the religious, even mystical, as well as with the \nmoral. Severian observes and records and speculates and may even have \ninsights, but he does not experiment or do maths, nor does he \ndistinguish the products of scientific work from the products of \ntheological work. Rationality---or rational morality---is the common \nthread.\n\nI don't think it's coincidental that he is somewhat in the position of \nGalileo and Kepler, who could observe and speculate, but even with \nmathematics were unable to conduct experiments to prove that the earth \ncircled the sun. That's more or less where the Commonwealth is in \nunderstanding the universe, give or take a few alien technologies and \nancient records." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 11/30/2012 8:33 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nI think Wolfe's red sun was more of a literary choice than a scientific one.\nDavid Stockhoff: Totally. I'm not sure why, then, you would classify Urth as \"driven by\na scientific premise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Good question. I'll try to explain. It is a common hard SF trope to have primitive aliens\nbelieving in some magical principle to understand some large, problematic issue in their lives.\nThen some space-faring humans come in with their scientific knowledge and technology and use it\nto fix the problem, often becoming \"gods\" along the way. We all get a good chuckle out of that.\nThis can be recognized as a remnant of the colonial/imperialist thinking here on earth.\n\nI think Wolfe has turned this formula on its head. On first reading, we see there are some\nmystical explanations floating around Urth to explain Urth's dying sun. But as readers we\nunderstand that stars have a lifespan and Urth's sun has simply arrived at the end of one.\nSo for most of the story we have a scientific explanation for Urth's condition in mind.\n\nEventually, through the Green Man and Master Ash, we get the sense that there actually is\na solution to the dying sun. With Tzadkiel and Yesod and the white fountain cancelling out\nthe black hole we have the \"scientific\" solution to the problem. But it isn't human beings\nusing science who facilitate the solution. It is higher beings using what appears, even to\nus readers, as some sort of divine power.\n\nWhat I am suggesting is that the premise of \"hard SF\" is that magic is the soft\nexplanation and science is the hard explanation.\n\nBut what Wolfe is doing is suggesting that to a divine intelligence, science is a soft, magical\nprimitive way of understanding the universe. There is a harder, more comprehensive\nunderstanding than science to those higher beings who can grasp it.\n\nSo, I think, from Wolfe's own perspective, he is not really writing Fantasy/SF. He is writing\nSF which takes \"hard\" to a new level and definition. As science is harder than magic, so Wolfe\nfeels there is a divine knowledge which is harder than science. (I don't mean to suggest Wolfe\nis alone in taking this approach) \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-30T18:03:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<50B8C62D.1030304@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: Actually, we learn the correct explanation from Dr. Talos's play, in the \nsecond book." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Being toward the end of the second book of the originally intended four, this puts the\nblack hole explanation roughly at the mid-point. A first-time reader might conclude this\nis the \"correct\" explanation or might lump this theatrical explanation along with the\nother \"sky gods are angry at us!\" explanations.\n\nStill, a black hole remains a scientific explanation. Scientific explanations, such as\nevolution and Big Bang, rely on the default assumption that our universe is the product\nof purposeless, natural forces, not intelligent design.\n\nIt isn't until the end of BotNS that we get a strong sense that this black hole might\nbe the product of intelligent design. Thus, the black hole explanation is \nnot \"correct\" in the sense that it is not complete. Purpose and intention are missing. \n\nI think this is Wolfe's admonition to us. Perhaps we feel secure in our purposeless, scientific\nexplanations of the universe. But the possibility (perhaps certainty to him, as a religious man) \nremains that there is an intelligent purpose to the design of the universe, if only we were \nsufficiently advanced enough to perceive it. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-30T18:10:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A quick addendum to the last post:\n\nIt may be that Wolfe's philosophy that attachment to the person of the Monarch is \nsimultaneously the highest and lowest basis for governance is related to the \nscience vs. magic understanding of the world.\n\nPerhaps Wolfe is saying the primitive who believes in magic sky gods who express their will\nthrough storms and earthquakes and other global effect are actually tapping into something \ntrue- a divine will that science is not privy to understanding. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B93DBA.20109@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-11-30T23:14:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Definitely." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/30/2012 1:10 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nA quick addendum to the last post:\n\nIt may be that Wolfe's philosophy that attachment to the person of the Monarch is\nsimultaneously the highest and lowest basis for governance is related to the\nscience vs. magic understanding of the world.\n\nPerhaps Wolfe is saying the primitive who believes in magic sky gods who express their will\nthrough storms and earthquakes and other global effect are actually tapping into something\ntrue- a divine will that science is not privy to understanding. \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50BBE95D.2010705@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-12-02T23:50:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hard SF", "in_reply_to": "<1354214507.95526.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/29/2012 12:41 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nExactly. And there's a related subgenre of space opera one could call\n\"(military) hardware porn,\" where the science is totally made up but the\ntechnology is lovingly described. I don't know any names, but I've\nflipped through a few at my local library. OK, there's post- Ringworld\nJerry Pournelle . . ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Did Pournelle write any books before his friend Niven wrote RINGWORLD?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] } ] }