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Why do "Hard SF" authors goes crazy?

post #1 of 42
7/30/08 at 11:32pm
Thread Starter 
This is something I've wondered about for a while now. THIS Thread motivated me to pose the question here. Let's go down the list:

Orson Scott Card: Began with some really good short stories, Ender's Game, then gradually became a batshit crazy "Mormans are the Chosen Gays are the evil" nutjob

Greg Bear: wrote some really cool novels in the 80s'; now writes shitty tirades about the Islamic Threat to All of Civilization

Robert Heinlein: wrote classic SF but gradually became an advocate of wingnut Libertarianism and incest.

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged.

Michael Crichton: Started as a Gadfly whose every novel concerns technology gone wrong, to crazy ass tirades marketed as novels against "Greens"


Contrast these folk with guys like Arthur C Clarke, who also wrote "hard" SF (meaning SF with an emphasis on technology, where often the plot revolves solving a scientific or engineering problem) but who was what I'd call "Steadily Eceentric" as opposed to falling off the deep end.

It seems that a large percentage of Hard SF writers have Right Wing or Libertarian leanings, and after a while they just fall over into outright insanity
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post #2 of 42
7/30/08 at 11:34pm
Don't forget Phillip K. Dick. Though, perhaps he was nuts from the start.

I think they go crazy because they can actually see the future, and it disturbs them.
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post #3 of 42
7/30/08 at 11:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
Don't forget Phillip K. Dick. Though, perhaps he was nuts from the start.

I think they go crazy because they can actually see the future, and it disturbs them.
Good Catch! I lean towards the "crazy from the start" theory, but on the "making of" documentary of the movie Scanner Darkly they interview his daughter who basically says drugs drove him out of his mind
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post #4 of 42
7/30/08 at 11:40pm
Doesn't the very existence of Harlan Ellison kind of balance out your argument?
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post #5 of 42
7/31/08 at 11:24am
I've always thought of Dick and (even moreso) Ellison as being "soft sci-fi," along with Bradbury, LeGuin, etc. The ideas and psychology take precedence over the mechanics of hard science. Also notable is that Dick went nuts; the other folks mentioned above embraced conservative ideals. Very different.

And I think Rand tends to fall into that Orwell/Burgess/Huxley/Vonnegut category where it's not really sci-fi so much as idea-heavy lit that uses sci-fi devices. And, with her, the crazy ideas preceded the novels, anyway.

It does seem to be the hard sf people, specifically, who go right-wing. The soft sf writers tend to lean left as a general rule.

Of course, a lot of the writers in any of these sub-genres (especially Ellison) take issue with being ghettoized even into the broader heading of science-fiction and would prefer to be known simply as writers of fiction.
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post #6 of 42
7/31/08 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
I think they go crazy because they can actually see the future, and it disturbs them.
One of my favorite quotes from an author is by Ray Bradbury. An interviewer asked him something like, "So, how is it you go about trying to predict the future?"

Bradbury: "Good Lord! I'm not trying to predict the future, I'm trying to prevent it!"
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post #7 of 42
7/31/08 at 12:47pm
Love Ray Bradbury.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...MpemrAKQoYioBg
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post #8 of 42
8/1/08 at 3:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
Robert Heinlein: wrote classic SF but gradually became an advocate of wingnut Libertarianism and incest.
Not sure where you're getting the incest advocacy from, but Heinlein was always an advocate of "wingnut Libertarianism." He was a registered Socialist, worked on Upton Sinclair's campaign for Governor of California, was editor of the EPIC newsletter until it's dissolution, and his second marriage was "open."

I recommend reading "For Us, The Living" to contextualize the rest of his work (not so much as a novel; but then, it was the first book he wrote).
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post #9 of 42
8/1/08 at 10:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fafhrd View Post
Not sure where you're getting the incest advocacy from, but Heinlein was always an advocate of "wingnut Libertarianism." He was a registered Socialist, worked on Upton Sinclair's campaign for Governor of California, was editor of the EPIC newsletter until it's dissolution, and his second marriage was "open."

I recommend reading "For Us, The Living" to contextualize the rest of his work (not so much as a novel; but then, it was the first book he wrote).
I know next to nothing about Heinlein (although Wikipedia mentions his involvement in all the things you mention, as well as support for Cylon's incest assertion), but it seems to me that there might be some contradictions in being both a socialist and a libertarian. There's probably a way to reconcile these positions and Heinlein may have found it for himself, but the fact that he subscribed to one of them certainly doesn't support the fact that he subscribed to the other.
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post #10 of 42
8/1/08 at 11:54am
Didn't Issac Asimov and Larry Niven manage to keep their sanity through their long careers?
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post #11 of 42
8/1/08 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
but it seems to me that there might be some contradictions in being both a socialist and a libertarian.
Not if you consider Socialism a purely economic philosophy/theory (the Social Credit, production for use, and all that). It was the Hearst syndicate, in response to Sinclair's gubernatorial bid, that started painting Socialism as an 'all aspects of life' government only slightly removed from Communism.
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post #12 of 42
8/1/08 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fafhrd View Post
Not if you consider Socialism a purely economic philosophy/theory (the Social Credit, production for use, and all that). It was the Hearst syndicate, in response to Sinclair's gubernatorial bid, that started painting Socialism as an 'all aspects of life' government only slightly removed from Communism.
I stand corrected. Incidentally, it wasn't so much that I misunderstood the socialism/communism dynamic of the time, but more that I hadn't really considered libertarianism outside of its current, usually right-leaning, pro-capitalist connotation. I hadn't really associated it with Chomsky, anarchism, etc.
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post #13 of 42
8/1/08 at 1:37pm
Do we even want to count L. Ron Hubbard in this? I'm not up to snuff on what qualifies as "hard SF".
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post #14 of 42
8/1/08 at 1:42pm
I don't believe Hubbard is Hard SciFi, but he certainly had the crazy in spades.
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post #15 of 42
8/2/08 at 1:39am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
Do we even want to count L. Ron Hubbard in this? I'm not up to snuff on what qualifies as "hard SF".
Wikipedia to the rescue!

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.[1][2] The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science Fiction.[3][4][5] The complementary term soft science fiction (formed by analogy to "hard science fiction"[6]) first appeared in the late 1970s as a way of describing science fiction in which science is not featured, or violates the scientific understanding at the time of writing.


More at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_sf
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post #16 of 42
8/2/08 at 2:21am
Terry O'Quinn could make a very decent Heinlein.
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post #17 of 42
8/2/08 at 4:36am
I find it interesting that authors who specialize in valuing science and technology over human beings tend to be right wing. Hard science fiction is rarely remembered for its subtle and engaging characters, or its intriguing drama. Human life tends to be de-emphasized. So yeah, that makes sense.

Although, if we could get Republicans more interested in scientific progress, maybe we'd be getting somewhere.
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post #18 of 42
8/8/08 at 9:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
Do we even want to count L. Ron Hubbard in this? I'm not up to snuff on what qualifies as "hard SF".
I for one do not think Hubbard was crazy, amorally opportunistic and cynical yes he was.
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post #19 of 42
8/9/08 at 1:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
I for one do not think Hubbard was crazy, amorally opportunistic and cynical yes he was.
Look at the quote. That's not what he was objecting.
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post #20 of 42
8/14/08 at 4:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
I find it interesting that authors who specialize in valuing science and technology over human beings tend to be right wing. Hard science fiction is rarely remembered for its subtle and engaging characters, or its intriguing drama. Human life tends to be de-emphasized. So yeah, that makes sense.

Although, if we could get Republicans more interested in scientific progress, maybe we'd be getting somewhere.
If you want Hard Sci-Fi with compelling characters, the Mars Trilogy is good, though it has a tendency to almost fetishize geological formations.
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post #21 of 42
8/14/08 at 8:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schwartz View Post
Look at the quote. That's not what he was objecting.
Which authors can really be counted as true Hardcore SF writers? Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson, Bradbury, and Michael Crichton not sure who really else seems to try to fallow the rules of science. Even these guys push it to the point that over time their SF stories are not longer science, but become fantasy. Most SF writers are just writing oddball fantasy stories.
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post #22 of 42
8/14/08 at 10:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
Which authors can really be counted as true Hardcore SF writers? Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson, Bradbury, and Michael Crichton not sure who really else seems to try to fallow the rules of science. Even these guys push it to the point that over time their SF stories are not longer science, but become fantasy. Most SF writers are just writing oddball fantasy stories.
Kim Stanley Robinson.
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post #23 of 42
8/15/08 at 12:00am
Larry Niven, Greg Bear, Isaac Asimov.
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post #24 of 42
8/15/08 at 12:54am
Poul Anderson. L.E. Modesitt Jr. maybe.
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post #25 of 42
8/15/08 at 10:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
Which authors can really be counted as true Hardcore SF writers? Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson, Bradbury, and Michael Crichton not sure who really else seems to try to fallow the rules of science. Even these guys push it to the point that over time their SF stories are not longer science, but become fantasy. Most SF writers are just writing oddball fantasy stories.
Bradbury's typically not considered hard sf. In fact, he's usually one of the first mentioned when soft sf comes up. He probably does have some stories and books that adhere to the rules of science, but a lot of his best known work is pretty fantastical and driven by character, not science.
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post #26 of 42
8/15/08 at 10:57am
Alastair Reynolds and Iain Banks as well.
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post #27 of 42
8/15/08 at 12:34pm
Thread Starter 
Bradbury is a poet, pure and simple.

I'd add Harry Harrison as a hard SF writer as well, and one of the few who would be considered Left wing or at least Liberal. His "To the Stars" trilogy would make a great film or TV series.
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post #28 of 42
8/15/08 at 2:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhukov View Post
Poul Anderson. L.E. Modesitt Jr. maybe.


I like his SF stories, but the one I read are not really science. Anyone who used macro Wormholes for travel is not using Science, but fantasy. Gravity and time are real bitches, also they are linked.

Kim Stanley Robinson, haven't read her yet.

Greg Bear's is blood music and some of his other works violate thermodynamic as far as bit creation/destruction goes. Although when Bear wrote Blood Music the roll of thermodynamic in bit creation/destruction may not have been known yet.
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post #29 of 42
8/29/08 at 8:46am
Found myself profoundly saddened to hear that Bradbury is a pretty firm conservative these days, enough so to say that if Gore had won in 2000, it would've been comparable to someone stepping on a butterfly in the past and wrecking the country, as in A Sound of Thunder.

Which is ironic, considering the first thing I thought after Bush was given the victory was "Jesus, someone stepped off the path."
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post #30 of 42
8/29/08 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dax View Post
Found myself profoundly saddened to hear that Bradbury is a pretty firm conservative these days, enough so to say that if Gore had won in 2000, it would've been comparable to someone stepping on a butterfly in the past and wrecking the country, as in A Sound of Thunder.

Which is ironic, considering the first thing I thought after Bush was given the victory was "Jesus, someone stepped off the path."
He a old man it not so much that he became conservative as conservatives have just caught up to him. Bush is more liberal then President Kennedy ever thought about being, as an example.
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post #31 of 42
8/29/08 at 4:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dax View Post
Found myself profoundly saddened to hear that Bradbury is a pretty firm conservative these days, enough so to say that if Gore had won in 2000, it would've been comparable to someone stepping on a butterfly in the past and wrecking the country, as in A Sound of Thunder.

Which is ironic, considering the first thing I thought after Bush was given the victory was "Jesus, someone stepped off the path."
Hard science fiction authors are often staunch conservatives. It's what happens when you value human beings less than ideas.
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post #32 of 42
8/29/08 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
I like his SF stories, but the one I read are not really science. Anyone who used macro Wormholes for travel is not using Science, but fantasy. Gravity and time are real bitches, also they are linked.

Kim Stanley Robinson, haven't read her yet.

Greg Bear's is blood music and some of his other works violate thermodynamic as far as bit creation/destruction goes. Although when Bear wrote Blood Music the roll of thermodynamic in bit creation/destruction may not have been known yet.
Not to pick on you, but where did we lose the term fiction?

It's called Science Fiction for a reason. Now if some ideas that are in these books become a reality, that's a different story.
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post #33 of 42
8/30/08 at 1:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
Greg Bear's is blood music and some of his other works violate thermodynamic as far as bit creation/destruction goes.
What the hell is "bit creation/destruction"? You're not referring to entropy, and mistaking Earth for a closed system are you?
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post #34 of 42
8/30/08 at 1:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fafhrd View Post
What the hell is "bit creation/destruction"? You're not referring to entropy, and mistaking Earth for a closed system are you?
Every time you make or destroy a bit of information you create heat. Even if there is no electron leakage.
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post #35 of 42
8/30/08 at 1:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by billylove View Post
Not to pick on you, but where did we lose the term fiction?

It's called Science Fiction for a reason. Now if some ideas that are in these books become a reality, that's a different story.
My objection is what they are witting is not based in Science but fantasy. If they want to call what they are writing fantasy fiction that would be okay. If you claim to be writing about future science you should at least acknowledge the laws as we understand them today, most SF writers don't
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post #36 of 42
9/1/08 at 12:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
Every time you make or destroy a bit of information you create heat. Even if there is no electron leakage.
"Information"? Destroying information does not create heat. Are you just putting words in a blender or what? I assume you're talking about the annihilation of matter.
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post #37 of 42
9/1/08 at 7:19am
Also Kim Stanley Robinson is male. Not that it is a big deal.
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post #38 of 42
9/1/08 at 8:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
"Information"? Destroying information does not create heat. Are you just putting words in a blender or what? I assume you're talking about the annihilation of matter.
I think he's talking about qbits. Which is to say Quantum Computing. Which is to say big giant skullfuck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit
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post #39 of 42
9/1/08 at 9:03am
Barely sixty years ago, there were scientists who swore that it was impossible to break the sound barrier. We went from rudimentary powered flight to landing on the moon in about 70 years. So as long as something sounds like a scientifically plausible extrapolation of current knowledge or technology, I'm not going to get hung up on whether, right now, it's not possible.
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post #40 of 42
9/1/08 at 2:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
"Information"? Destroying information does not create heat. Are you just putting words in a blender or what? I assume you're talking about the annihilation of matter.
Signal entropy and the thermodynamics of computation, Maxwell's Demon is a bitch!

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...of+computation
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000230/

Quote:
It is generally accepted, following Landauer and Bennett, that the process of measurement involves no minimum entropy cost, but the erasure of information in resetting the memory register of a computer to zero requires dissipating heat into the environment. This thesis has been challenged recently in a two-part article by Earman and Norton. I review some relevant observations in the thermodynamics of computation and argue that Earman and Norton are mistaken: there is in principle no entropy cost to the acquisition of information, but the destruction of information does involve an irreducible entropy cost.
if you don't know, then you don't. I though you guys liked science
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post #41 of 42
9/1/08 at 2:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Man Mundt View Post
Also Kim Stanley Robinson is male. Not that it is a big deal.
And Robinson is a strong liberal and environmentalist. His speculative fiction often has to do with how future scientific discoveries could be used to benefit all of humanity.
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post #42 of 42
9/1/08 at 4:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eenin View Post
if you don't know, then you don't. I though you guys liked science
The problem is that you routinely express yourself so badly that we can't tell when you're legitimately making a mistake. See above sentence.
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