Being Garrulous (again) with Benjamin X. Wretlind(Part 1)

For those few of you who read Chewing the Cud in the Myriad Spheres, the previous conversation between Benjamin X. Wretlind and myself, here is another exciting installment! Due to its lack of brevity (which is chiefly my fault) we have decided to break it into two parts. Enjoy!

BXW: So I was reading over your latest blog post, Inventing a Universe, and a thought popped into my head: during the writing of Sketches from the Spanish Mustang I spent a great deal of time getting into the characters' heads, walking the paths they might take, looking at the town through their eyes.  Likewise, with the novel I intend to start this summer, Driving the Spike, I have already started the process by walking some railroad tracks where an accident occurred 108 years ago.   The idea, of course, is to see the world through the eyes of my characters.  However, with Science Fiction, especially with imagined worlds (or parallel universes like you discuss), how do you see the world though your character's eyes?

MKR: What I like to keep in mind is that people are people, whether they lived ten thousand years ago or ten thousand years from now. If I were a Clovis hunter following herds of mammoth across the Great Plains I think that, despite the vastly different way of life, my fellow hunters and I would sit around the campfire at night and shoot the breeze just as I do with my friends today. The technology would be different, our clothes, our language, our way of perceiving the universe would all be different but we would still be human beings. A heart not unlike mine would beat in the breast of my Clovis twin. I would want food, shelter, love, companionship. In the two hundred thousand years our species has wandered this Earth that has not changed and there is no reason to believe it will change in the near future.

Now, I have never taken down a mammoth with a spear. But I can imagine it. As a writer, imagination is key to understanding other people, people who eventually become "characters." Would it help if I could go back in time and see how a hunting party surrounded and felled a mammoth, where they jabbed their spears, how many of them it took? Of course. But I can't, so if I were to write a mammoth-hunting scene my imagination would fill in the blanks that the archaeological record has left behind. So it is with science fiction. When we write about the future we are not writing from a blank slate. We have all of human history to draw on to understand how human beings will react in different situations. For example, we know that we tend to be suspicious and aggressive when encountering intelligent beings not like ourselves (from history, we have the sad lesson of the Europeans' encounter with the indigenous Americans. In my fiction, look at the treatment of the Squamata in Sergeant Riley's Account and Sullivan's War: Book II.) Another example from history that I draw on is the simple fact that people generally want to be free of oppression. The entire Sullivan's War series is about this and how many times throughout history has a power structure has fallen due to the discontent of the oppressed? Here where I live in the Southwest, Hohokam civilization collapsed around 1400 CE and there are Pima legends that indicate that the people rose up against the powerful.

So writing science fiction is simply writing about people. I cannot see alien worlds or travel through hyperspace in a ship but my brain is capable of understanding what they might be like. My imagination can fill in the gaps left after taking the entire shared experience of human culture into account. I see their worlds because their eyes are like mine. I share their hopes and desires because those are common to all human beings across history. And my invented universe is not that different from our own, when you really examine it. There are real-life parallels to many of the things I write about.

Now, what I find interesting is that in Castles you described experiences unfamiliar to you despite the fact that those experiences are real for all too many young women across the country, across the world. For me, that is as remarkable a feat as bringing to life an alien landscape. We've talked about this before, but would you care to talk a bit about Maggie's story?

BXW: As I've mentioned before, I believe Maggie spoke through me in a way that's really hard to describe without coming off sounding--how should I put it?--bat-shit crazy.  The fact I squirrel away information that comes to me via media may have enabled my subconscious to postulate how a woman might view a certain situation more so than a man who is trying to force the character into action.  For example, I had a lot of trouble near the middle of the story related to Maggie's view of abuse at the hand of her boyfriend because that's just not something I'd ever experienced.  Somehow after a few months or years, though--and after dealing with abusive people as a manager--Maggie spoke up.

Getting into a character's head is important to me, and that's one reason I like to interact with their supposed environment if I can, and if I can't, then to spend an inordinate amount of time researching that environment. However, in A Difficult Mirror, a dark fantasy epic novel to be released (hopefully) next winter, I couldn't walk around the environment since it didn't exist.  Not that I couldn't take clues from other stories, but that the environment just didn't exist.  (That's a bit vague, I know, but the novel isn't out yet.)

You brought up something I'm curious about. I've mentioned to you before that I was never a huge fan of science fiction; that distinction fell to my brother. I was the fantasy type, the one who believed in dragons and wizards and spells, oh my!  However, some historic science fiction I've read has held a sort of special place in my heart simply because of the impact on our present.  I am, of course, talking about the work of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, or Arthur C. Clarke.  Even Philip K. Dick. Their imaginations of technological advances helped pave the way for our present.  Writers like Ray Bradbury or George Orwell, on the other hand, wrote people into the future--much like you describe--and did so without the need to characterize or build up technology that didn't exist.

How do you view technology in your stories? How do you imagine worlds without borders or limitations, and do you hope to one day create something that would inspire some future geneticist or engineer?

MKR: Technology. Well, let me first point out that I am not technologically-minded at all. I am endlessly fascinated by it but if I had to actually try to describe how an intricate piece of software or hardware operated, I'd probably be trying to do it with sticks and a length of string. So, the technology in my stories isn't particularly original. I'll readily admit that. I rely on many tried and true tropes of the genre: hyperspace travel, energy weapons, fold-up tablet computers, three-dimensional displays. Now, since the Sullivan's War story line is supposed to take place about five hundred years in the future, this may seem like pretty low-tech stuff. I actually have a reason for this that will eventually reveal itself as I continue to explore this universe. I will just say that just because a technological advance is made doesn't mean it will be readily accepted.

I suppose I am comfortable with a certain level of technology, a level that has already been explored by many science fiction writers and is accepted and liked by a great many science fiction readers. Again, my own ignorance about technology prevents me from currently writing anything like cyberpunk. I just don't have the background to do it justice. So I really don't see my science fiction as the type that will inspire future engineers. Rather, I see my work as inspiring (if, in fact, it inspires anyone at all) future humanitarians, future philosophers. Remember, science fiction is about exploring how humans respond to fantastical situations as much as it is about inventing and describing cool technology. This is one of the reasons I consider 2001: A Space Odyssey to be my favorite book. Clarke had the scientific knowledge to make the technology one hundred percent plausible but the story is, essentially, about humanity. I mean, it begins with the dawn of consciousness, with the evolution (via external means in his story) of creatures that would one day become human beings! Because of his invented world of the near future, his characters--Dave Bowman in particular--are able to have experiences that no other humans have before experienced. How it affects them is just as fascinating as how future technology, such as the HAL 9000 computer, might work (or not work). How does the realization that an alien intelligence has visited our solar system affect them?

I often think about what would happen if we were to wake up one day and have undeniable proof that we were not alone in the universe. What effect would it have on world religions? I mean, in the 16th century Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the solar system and while no one with any sense would deny the truth of this model today, there are many who still have a very geocentric, or Earth-centric, view of reality: that we, human beings, are at the center of God's divine plan, that, in fact, we are created in God's image and are his chosen species. Remember, it was only two thousand years ago that not only were humans God's chosen species on the planet, but a very specific group inhabiting the Levant were his chosen race. I speak from a Judeo-Christian perspective, of course, because it is the tradition that has most shaped the Western world. Now, this type of thinking has been used to justify and explain our dominance on this planet. But what if another, intellectually superior species managed to cross the vast distances between star systems and arrive at ours? God wouldn't seem to favor us so strongly then, would he?

I do believe in a creator. To believe in a specific god requires more faith than I have, though. I must trust that the creator, whatever it may be, gave me the ability--via evolution--to observe the world empirically for a reason. We are a species that is meant to question the world around us, not invent angels and devils to which to ascribe the mysteries of the universe. To return to my main point, this is my focus when I write science fiction. I hope to inspire future dreamers, people who will look at our world and see it for what it really is but also see what it can be if we throw off the shackles of tribe, of clan, of race, of nation, even of species. I know that to date my work hasn't explored this as fully as I would like but I am working toward it and my next project, Chrysopteron, will fully explore these ideas.

Read Part 2 here!

Classic Science Fiction 04: “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov

(Note: After writing this I realized that it is less an examination of "The Last Question" than it is an expression of the thoughts and feelings the story inspired in me. But after all, isn't that what fiction is for?)

What is the ultimate fate of humanity? Annihilation. If our descendants are still around in five billion years and even if they somehow manage to escape our solar system when the sun expands to incinerate the Earth, they will eventually die, along with the rest of the universe. Some 100 trillion years from now star formation will cease. The universe will slowly die. Entropy will be irreversible. I doubt we would be recognizable as humans by that point but it wouldn't matter. Everything we had accomplished, all our scientific advances, all the great art and music, the books and poems, would all have been for naught. Even if the universe then collapses back upon itself and gives birth to a new big bang, a new universe, all matter will have been reverted to the molecular state. Nothing that existed before will exist any longer.

Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" chronicles several generations of humans and their descendants pondering the question of how the entropy of the universe can be decreased. They address this question to various incarnations of supercomputers and the answer is always the same: "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER." I will not reveal the ending in case you haven't read it (you can read it here) but the asking of the question, not the ultimate answer, is what fascinates me most about this story.

Everything humankind has accomplished will eventually be destroyed. No matter what happens to the universe, every trace of us will ultimately vanish. What does this mean? How does one process this information?

I suppose most people just end up ignoring it. They may read about entropy, etc., may briefly realize what this means, then slip comfortably back into their lives. Perhaps this is the most logical response. After all, what can you do about it? Nothing. Why let if affect you?

But I do not believe this is the correct response. What we should do is realize that no matter what happens in the future, we have today. We have the people around us that we love and care about, we have the ability to make today better not just for ourselves but for others. When you look at life on the scale of the entire history of the universe, isn't it a bit mind-boggling that of all the possible outcomes, your life is one of them? Doesn't it give you pause to think that the chain of events that led to your existence goes back nearly fourteen billion years in an unbroken line?

As Carl Sagan said, "[s]ome part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

What do we take away from this? How should we live our lives, knowing this? I've written before about wishing to leave a literary legacy. I've expressed the hope that my work is read a hundred years from now or more. It is an egotistical wish, to be sure. But I think about legacy in more ways than one. If there is some message I can impart to future readers, if one of them reads my work and goes away thinking about notions of right and wrong, thinking about what could be done to make our little corner of the universe more just, more peaceful, then my legacy will have been secured. But I need not write a single word to accomplish this. If I can have a positive influence on the lives of the people I know, if I can live by example and show them that a life of joy and contentment can be had without exploiting or hurting others--that, in fact, the joy is more pure than if I had gained it on the backs of others--I will have left a legacy. If they, in turn, try to live their lives according to the same ideals, they can leave a legacy when they are gone.

The future illuminates the present. What can happen tomorrow tells us very clearly and without hesitation what we must do today. If tomorrow we may die, then today we must live. If tomorrow a child will go hungry, then today we must arrange to feed her. If tomorrow a war may begin, then today we must ensure peace. These are not difficult things to grasp. We have the means to largely rid the world of misery. Why haven't we? Is it the nihilistic strain within humanity that says that ultimately it won't matter? No. It is the selfishness that says whatever I give to them, I cannot have for myself. Well, that ultimately won't matter either. But if you can bring a little joy, a little happiness to someone's life, if you can remove a little misery from the world, that does matter. That will have an effect here and now. And if enough of us do it, it can have an effect until the universe comes to an end.

Perhaps we shouldn't ask "how can entropy be decreased?" but rather "how can joy be increased?" And let it not be the last question, but the first. Humanity's joy is my joy, humanity's accomplishments are my accomplishments. What benefits the planet benefits me in a very nontrivial way. Maybe that is what I am after when I speak of legacy. I want a way for my life to have not been trivial. To do this, I write. But I also live my life as well and as ethically as I can. I suppose that even if I don't leave behind a literary legacy, this will have been enough. This will have made a difference and my life, in that unbroken chain leading from the beginning of the universe to its end, will have been a link worthy of that legacy.

What Science Means to Me

I am a science fiction writer. I write in other genres, but science fiction is my first love. I love the possibilities, I love, as I said in a recent interview, asking and answering the "what ifs?" But this is the fiction part. Let's examine the science part for a moment.

It is an ironic fact that science makes science fiction more difficult. The pulp science fiction stories of the '30s did not have to adhere to the truths of the universe because those truths were not known. Rocketry was in its infancy, there was still very serious speculation about life--nay, civilizations--on Mars and Venus and the relationship between time and space that Einstein had proposed was not fully--or even partially--understood outside of the offices and laboratories of physicists.

So we had rockets taking off then landing vertically on Mars or Venus and encountering bizarre alien creatures. We had ships travelling to distant stars via standard propulsion and returning a mere months or years later.

But as science progressed, as we learned that Mars was a cold and barren landscape with little liquid water, as we learned that the atmosphere of Venus was poisonous and oppressive, as aeronautics advanced and the vast distances between the stars became insurmountable with any technology the mind of man could then dream of, those stories came to seem... ridiculous. Especially reading from our 21st century perspective, those stories are not just implausible but laughably so.

But those stories laid the groundwork for something wonderful. Future thinkers read them and let their imaginations run rampant. Some of them went on to become the physicists who showed the implausibilty of those stories. I think that for many, science fiction opened up the world of science. I recall a television program that interviewed several scientists and engineers who were directly inspired by Star Trek. Science fiction, even in its infancy, was mind-expanding stuff!

And so it was--it is--for me. But here I must make a confession: while I am endlessly fascinated by science, while I would say I know more than the average American about the evolution of the universe, much of it I find completely baffling. I simply cannot comprehend how a human mind was able to come up with relativity or string theory just by observing the universe and conducting thought experiments. I cannot do it. I am not a genius. I received my degree in anthropology, a safe, secure discipline. There are many questions still to be answered, of course, but it is much easier to get a grasp on human civilization and culture than it is the formation of the cosmos.

And here's another confession: the science in my science fiction is not "hard" by any means. I rely on tried and true tropes such as hyperspace travel. However, I think I did come up with an interesting way to explain how hyperspace travel works and if you've read Sullivan's War: Book II you can let me know what you think of it.

But despite this, despite my vast lack of understanding and my reluctance to use science rigorously in my fiction, science still means a great deal to me. It means that as a species we are beginning to get a grasp on the true origins of the universe. The physical laws that we observe are a part of the creation and if one believes in a creator, as I do, then those laws can be seen as a kind of guidepost toward the truth. Those laws have repeatedly struck down the fears and superstitions of less-enlightened ages. Science, and the knowledge that we receive through it, is a gift.

For example, an intellectually honest person cannot rigorously study biology, geology, astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, primatology, paleontology, linguistics, physics, history, mythology, genetics, medicine or theology and still believe in creationism, that the Earth, and by extension the universe, simply came into being fully-formed, or very near it. One may still believe in a creator, that there was some impetus for the creation of matter, but all of the ancient creation myths--and the modern ones--must be cast aside through the use of the greatest gift given to humanity, be that gift from a creator or otherwise. They must be cast aside by the gift of knowledge.

Through science, the truth is illuminated. Through science, ignorance can be left in the past if we so choose. Through science, we can make the world a better place for our descendants and leave a legacy of striving to understand the marvelous universe that surrounds us.

What does science mean to you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.