Why I don’t like sci-fi is because there’s never any logic to it. In Dune, high-tech cultures of nukes, interstellar travel, and long-range fire weaponry all have their soldiers drag around swords and machetes and engage in knife fights. Nobody knows why. They just do.
9 responses to “No Logic”
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I think there’s an internal logic to it, explained in the books but not in the movies.
“The Holtzman personal projectors stop any fast-moving object and let only slow ones through. A bullet will simply bounce off harmlessly off a personal shield. This is why firearms are basically non-existent in the Dune universe, they’re too easy to guard against. You need to use a melee weapon to get through the shield and cut flesh.”
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They also have a bunch of cultural taboos about forbidden technologies. AI danger was a major theme, which is why they have drugged humans instead of computers.
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“Why I don’t like sci-fi is because there’s never any logic to it.”
Oh, come on, Clarissa — I agree that “Dune” goes on and on, and takes forever to get to whatever point it’s trying to make. But is “Dune” the only science-fiction show you’ve ever watched or read?
Some science-fiction stories (like mine — AHEM! — which I sold around 10 years ago for reasonable cash compensation and no critical credit) are so logical that you could figure out the plot with a pocket calculator.
Dreidel
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I love SF, and I’d argue that’s part of the draw. I read genre fiction when I want to chill and not think about what I’m reading too much– it’s atmosphere that counts here. When I’m up all night with barfing children, or (long ago in another life) avoiding smalltalk on airplanes, all I care is that it’s not too demanding, and that I enjoy being abstracted from present RL circumstances. And since it’s written by nerds, I don’t run into the same problems as with, say, romance or chick-lit, where I want to murder every single character and the author, or lose hope for the world because this is unapologetically written for people stuck at a 5th grade reading level but marketed to adults. Romances are also set in a world that doesn’t make any logical sense, you know. It’s just that it pretends to be the current same world I am living in so it’s harder to ignore. With SF, there’s at least the fig-leaf that this is far away in space and/or time. Somewhere else, with different rules. Just roll with it. Fantasy is much the same– arguably fantasy and sf are exactly the same genre, just in fantasy, magic is done with magic, and in sf, magic is done with “technology”. And it has a lower signal-to-noise ratio.
I mean, I still occasionally run into those problems even with SF… but less often.
Have enjoyed some of James S.A. Corey’s books, lately, for barfing-kids episodes. They’re good fun.
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I could recommend SF writing that is logical (Try Count to a Trillion, or City Beyond Time) I cannot do that for any modern SF movies, however, because I cannot do that for any modern Hollywood movies. They are ugly and stupid.
There are questions of storytelling conventions that please or do not that differ from failures of craft. I dislike badly Western stories because of the bad writing. However, I cannot enjoy very good westerns because skilled storytellers take one to the places they create. I have not yet learned to appreciate deserts. Dune, the book, for example, is logical, if nihilistic, and with an unsatisfying ending: it’s an atheist Islam on alien worlds epic adventure.
Then there are types of stories which toss the form of the genre over the tale like a decorative table runner. Romances* like Black Hearts in Battersea which confuse or disappoint those expecting historical fiction, yet please those who appreciate both the quality of the table, and the well-made and attractive bit of cloth.
*Specifically, bildungsroman-esque “Romance” adventure stories for children. Aiken nails the form.
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Oh, yeah, we read the Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea as well as the Witch of Clatteringshaws (beware the Hobyahs!) aloud to the kids– a good time was had by all.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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