Sci Writing Fi

Featuring STEM folks writing fiction.

[sciwritingfi]

Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (1964)

Isaac Asimov was a biochemistry professor and author/editor of 500+ books during his lifetime from 1920-1992. He was an extremely decorated author (particularly for science fiction), and a heavily lauded research scientist.*

One of his most famous science fiction pieces is “Nightfall”:

https://sites.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf

“Nightfall” is perhaps one of the most immersive sci-fi pieces I’ve read, and depicts an incredibly strong commentary on human reactions to fear, death, and the unknown. In “Nightfall,” readers are thrown into a classic tale of the end of the world. Living on a planet that knows no darkness, scientists are shown calculating and predicting a rare eclipse of their suns that very day. What follows is a clash between journalists, scientists, and religious leaders who all debate what this period without light means, and if it fortells the end of humanity. The commentary is especially strong once the eclipse begins – people become mad, violent, and terrified, and all experience a crushing sense of insignificance upon seeing the stars. These people become desperate for the light, and the world that they know, to return by any means possible.

My favorite passage is below, which to me best depicts a scientist’s reaction their darkness and the appearance of stars:

“Aton, somewhere, was crying, 78 whimpering horribly like a terribly 79 frightened child. 'Stars -- all the Stars -- we                                                   80 didn't know at all. We didn't know anything.                                                   81 We thought six stars in a universe is                                                              82 something the Stars didn't notice is

83 Darkness forever and ever and ever and

84 the walls are breaking in and we didn't 85 know we couldn't know and anything -- ' 86 Someone clawed at the torch, and it 87 fell and snuffed out. In the instant, the 88 awful splendor of the indifferent Stars 89 leaped nearer to them.”

*He also is known for fondling women without their consent, and a reason  many women did not feel comfortable in the sci-fi community.

[sciwritingfi]

David Brin - The Crystal Spheres (1984)

David Brin has a Ph.D in space science from USC and currently works as both a consultant for NASA and as a writer that has won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. His book “The Postman” was created into a film, and he has published sci-fi novels, graphic novels, and a few short stories. He additionally also writes non-fiction, and won the Freedom of Speech Award for his piece “The Transparent Society.”

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-crystal-spheres/

In his short story “The Crystal Spheres,” Brin uses his knowledge of outer space to paint a futuristic society of humans that seek to explore the universe and other intelligent life. Their primary problem in doing so is that every good, water-bearing planet they find is protected by a crystal sphere that prevents anyone else from coming close. Even Earth had this sphere too before they accidentally destroyed theirs. Eventually, the main character and his team discover one good planet that also has a destroyed crystal sphere, and it once housed intelligent, space-traveling life – the Nataral.

What I loved about this story was how it detailed loneliness. Here, humans desperately seek to know of worlds apart from Earth and are eager to finally meet another species in the universe. However, due to how advanced humans from Earth are, they are destined to wait a very long time until they can encounter other life that has the capability to travel through space to meet them. Here we learn that Nataral too ventured out into space to attempt to quell their loneliness:

“Now we, humanity, had been gifted of six beautiful worlds. And if we could not meet the Nataral, we could, at least, read their books and come to know them. And from their careful records we could learn about the still earlier races which had emerged from each of the other five goodworlds, each into a lonely universe.”

[sciwritingfi]

Leo Szilard - My Trial as a War Criminal (1949)

Leo Szilard lived from 1898-1964, and is well known as a physicist intimately tied to the era of the atom bomb. He patented the nuclear fission reactor, and wrote the famous letter signed by Albert Einstein that led to FDR creating the Manhattan Project. Later in life, he also studied biology -- helping clone the first human cells, discover feedback inhibition, and design his own cancer treatment. In his writings, he explored many moralistic themes of the Cold War and atomic weapons, for which he was awarded honors such as Humanist of the Year. He was criticized for warning the public of the horrific potential capabilities of nuclear weapons to kill the human race.

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2592&context=uclrev

In his short story “My Trial as a War Criminal,” Szilard imagines a world in which Russia won the Cold War through bioterrorism after the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. It details the trials of prominent nuclear physicists (including himself) and politicians involved in the atomic bomb. He writes of his careful responses to Russian investigations so that he is neither lauded nor heavily persecuted and can remain in the United States. I can’t imagine being such a prominent figure in history that I could publish a short story like this with myself as the main character.

In the last few paragraphs of the story, readers learn why the Russians so far have not heavily sentenced war criminals – it turns out the vaccine to the bioterrorist attack is “faulty,” causing readers to question if they ever actually had a cure to their virus (that primarily killed children) in the first place.

“Just what happened will never be known with certainty. This much is clear, that the vast quantities of vaccine which the Russians held in readiness to safeguard their own population against the virus were absolutely without any effect. In the laboratory tests such vaccine had proved to be 1oo per cent effective; something must have gone wrong in the changeover from pilot plant operation to mass production, and someone must have forgotten to check the product for its effectiveness. Since the engineer in charge of the production plant at Omsk perished in the disorders which broke out after over half of the children of the town had died, and since all records of the production plants were destroyed in the fire, we shall never know just what had gone wrong.”

This ending was particularly relevant to me given the world’s current pandemic and race for a vaccine. At the time it was published, Szilard’s short story was highly controversial due to remaining post-war tensions.

[sciwritingfi]

Marissa Lingen - Surfacing (2015)

Marissa Lingen, born in 1978, has published over 150 sci-fi/fantasy short stories. She studied physics and mathematics as an undergraduate, and worked for a time at a scientific research facility in California. She nearly studied nuclear physics in graduate school, but instead decided to leave and become a full-time writer. Her most celebrated work is “In the Gardens and the Graves.” which won the Isaac Asimov Award.

In her short story “Surfacing,” Lingen illustrates a world constantly at war. We learn that the main character, Mishy, is a soldier that deserted her post to join a sub-human race amphibians that live at peace underwater. It is here that she is able to live for 20 years without war:

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/surfacing/

“They were amphibian, and that was the obvious change, but also the subtle one. They had choices where she had none. It changed how they thought, how they moved, even when they were in the dry parts of the world.”

Observing their ways of life changes her thinking on if war is necessarily, and she learns many non-violent techniques in fighting. When she eventually comes back to the surface, Mishy helps a talented young girl avoid being drafted.

[sciwritingfi]

Jennifer Rohn - The Pair-Bond Imperative (2008)

Jennifer Rohn was born in 1967 and received her Ph.D in Microbiology from UW in 1996, with postdoctoral work at Cancer Research UK. She currently works at University College London as a cell biologist and researches UTI treatments. She has written several novels and short stories, and is most known for coining the term “lab lit,” which is a sub-genre of works that describe scientists/science accurately in their stories.

In “The Pair-Bond Imperative” short story, Rohn explores a world in which genetic diversity is of the upmost importance in order to avoid the consequences of inbreeding for their species. The story follows a mother watching her young daughter rebelliously try to “pair-bond” with a boy much too similar to herself, and society’s attempts to stop her.

https://www.nature.com/articles/454666a

“Eve knew the rules like everyone else, but, unlike her mother, when she looked at the man, who was called Paul, she stubbornly saw only differences. His hair was like nothing else on the planetoid: it was the hue of honeycombs held up to the sun, glowing coppery-gold, or perhaps the soft shade of citron fuzz on the insects that created them. His eyes weren't the same blue as hers or anyone else's; they were the blue of the midsummer double-solstice sky when the system's two suns remained half-set all night long, causing a perpetual twilight and a muted glow that blocked out the starlight. When she looked at him, she didn't think about her duty, or the survival of her people. She saw the knowing reciprocal glimmer of his face and felt a deep, implacable tug that had yet to be bred out of their species. She wanted, like a desire for food or water, something that was both part of him and part of her, though she had little conscious understanding of the underlying genetic imperative.”

With powerful imagery, here we see the daughter Eve struggling with their society’s rules, because love still hasn’t been “bred out of their species.” She refuses to see how genetically similar he is to herself, and dramatically details all the wonderful characteristics she sees in Paul with a near-primal desire.

[sciwritingfi]

Ted Chiang - Exhalation (2008)

If you’ve seen the sci-fi movie “Arrival,” you are already familiar with Ted Chiang, as the movie is based on his work, “Story of Your Life.” As also a technical writer with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown, Chiang’s writing makes great use of his computational scientific knowledge -- with his works depicting incredibly detailed, technical imagery. As a writer in science fiction and fantasy, his work is celebrated with multiple Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards.

Here I am featuring Chiang’s work, “Exhalation”: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/

The story features a robot scientist that dissects his own brain in an effort to understand how their gold-leafed brains operate.

What I love about this piece is both its captivating imagery of a robot scientist’s emotions and experiments, and its heavy emphasis on the theory of the universe’s tendency towards equilibrium.

To me, Chiang describes the overwhelming curiousity, excitement, and careful control scientists possess when the scientist begins to take apart his head:

“I began by removing the deeply curved plate that formed the back and top of my head; then the two, more shallowly curved plates that formed the sides. Only my faceplate remained, but it was locked into a restraining bracket, and I could not see its inner surface from the vantage point of my periscope; what I saw exposed was my own brain. It consisted of a dozen or more subassemblies, whose exteriors were covered by intricately molded shells; by positioning the periscope near the fissures that separated them, I gained a tantalizing glimpse at the fabulous mechanisms within their interiors. Even with what little I could see, I could tell it was the most beautifully complex engine I had ever beheld, so far beyond any device man had constructed that it was incontrovertibly of divine origin. The sight was both exhilarating and dizzying, and I savored it on a strictly aesthetic basis for several minutes before proceeding with my explorations.”

Here Chiang’s robot scientist is basically worshipping the wonders of his own being during the experiment. For me, this was where I related to and humanized the robot scientist the most. Internally, he can barely contain himself, but externally, he remains collected and precise.

Near the end of “Exhalation,” the scientist ponders what he thinks is the inevitable demise of his species. While nearly immortal, the robots rely on a pressure gradient to breath. That gradient, he knows, will eventually dissipate due to the universe’s tendency to move towards equillibrium. He extrapolates that no matter the beings that follow their species, they will also eventually befall the same fate. You can see this here:

“I wish you well, explorer, but I wonder: Does the same fate that befell me await you? I can only imagine that it must, that the tendency toward equilibrium is not a trait peculiar to our universe but inherent in all universes. Perhaps that is just a limitation of my thinking, and your people have discovered a source of pressure that is truly eternal. But my speculations are fanciful enough already. I will assume that one day your thoughts too will cease, although I cannot fathom how far in the future that might be. Your lives will end just as ours did, just as everyone’s must. No matter how long it takes, eventually equilibrium will be reached.”