{"id":10008,"date":"2015-04-13T13:20:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T17:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/?p=10008"},"modified":"2015-04-13T13:20:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T17:20:25","slug":"good-examples-of-science-in-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2015\/04\/13\/good-examples-of-science-in-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Examples of Science in Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

I continue to read way too much about the ongoing Hugo mess, and will most likely eventually lose my battle not to say anything more about it. In an attempt to redirect that impulse in a productive direction, I wrote a thing for Forbes about some of my favorite treatments of science in SF<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nOf course, now that I\u2019m a professional scientist, I end up finding a lot of stories about science to be lacking. Not just in the usual \u201cthe laws of physics don\u2019t apply\u201d sense, where science is bent to serve the purpose of the story\u2013 I\u2019m generally pretty accepting of that, because sticking too strictly to known science dramatically limits your plot options\u2013 but in the way fictional science is done. Fictional portrayals of science lean very heavily on tropes like the Lone (Possibly Mad) Genius and other lazy clich\u00e9s, and because of that, they often fail to ring true because of that. My reading over the last fifteen or twenty years probably skews a bit more toward the fantasy side of the genre as a result, because I\u2019m less likely to be bothered by the implausible behavior of people working with magic.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s rather too much negativity in SF right now, so I want to offer something a little more positive: a list of fictional stories about science that get things mostly right. Or at least, more right than a lot of what\u2019s out there. This is not by any means a definitive list, just some of my personal favorites (which is why it\u2019s heavy on physics), and I welcome additions to the list in comments. I\u2019m also trying to promote some lesser-known stuff\u2013 I am well aware of Vernor Vinge and Greg Egan and other science-heavy authors, but I\u2019m deliberately leaving them off.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I doubt this will contain any surprises for regular readers here, but go check it out, anyway. There’s also an image gallery version<\/a>, courtesy of the Forbes staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I continue to read way too much about the ongoing Hugo mess, and will most likely eventually lose my battle not to say anything more about it. In an attempt to redirect that impulse in a productive direction, I wrote a thing for Forbes about some of my favorite treatments of science in SF: Of… Continue reading Good Examples of Science in Fiction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,265,7,37,11,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-in_the_media","category-physics","category-pop_culture","category-science","category-sf","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}