Comments on: Science Fiction Fails Immunology

By: Chakat Firepaw

Chakat Firepaw — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:13:55 +0000

I’ll throw some kudos in the direction of Anne McCaffrey: In her FSP setting, not only does she make mention of the issue but specifically noted that the single most common task for the brainships is hauling around vaccines, drugs and doctors to deal with the latest outbreak.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:20:41 +0000

Oops, I see Jill already mentioned that. Not sure how I missed the comment.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:19:48 +0000

This is one of the themes of Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book. If I recall correctly, there is an epidemic from the past that “time travels” by lying dormant in a graveyard. A time traveling historian travels back to the past, not realizing she has been infected. The locals are immune to the disease she carries since they had only recently survived an outbreak, but eventually succumb to the black plague.

It’s pretty bleak, disease-wise.

By: Amanda Barrett

Amanda Barrett — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:01:21 +0000

I appreciate all of the recommendations in response to this post! I look forward to reading better examples of immunology being explored in science fiction.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:26:45 +0000

Connie Willis has addressed some of this, particularly in The Doomsday Book, where the time-travelling characters think about and discuss it with great care. It also addresses medical approaches to illness a century or two from now.

The post is absolutely right, of course, about the normal state of SF writing and immunology. The book I mention here is an exception.

By: Amanda Barrett

Amanda Barrett — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:15:19 +0000

I just started reading Transmet! I look forward to that story arc.

By: Amanda Barrett

Amanda Barrett — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:14:36 +0000

Thanks for pointing that out! Distinguishing between the innate immune response and the allergic response would have required a bit too much detail for a piece like this. It’s also very true that we have an extremely narrow concept of ‘life’ based entirely on our own experience, which may be very different from the reality of other forms of life on different worlds.

By: Ann Chatham

Ann Chatham — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:16:22 +0000

I can actually think of one example where the different populations of humans problem was handled pretty well: H.M. Hoover’s ANOTHER HEAVEN, ANOTHER EARTH. It’s a far-future SF kids book, and it covers not only the problem of separate groups of humans meeting after several hundred years of separation, but also the idea that the subtler conditions (gravity differences, trace minerals, etc) on other planets might not work out well for earth-bred populations even if the atmosphere isn’t a problem.

I agree, a little more of this would not be a bad thing for the field.

By: Paul Schroeer-Hannemann

Paul Schroeer-Hannemann — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:32:43 +0000

As far as the time travel bit is concerned, I recall a “Transmetropolitan” comic where Spider was visiting a number of “cultural reservations” recreating past societies. First he had to take a series of vaccines to protect him from the nasty bugs people lived with back then, as well as something to protect the inhabitants from the nasty bugs he lived with every day.

By: j.w.bjerk

j.w.bjerk — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:03:36 +0000

Admittedly most sci-fi simply ignores the issue.

But you seem to be assuming that any life out there will be more or less “life as we know it”. We have no other data points, but many sci-fi authors make life of other planets chemically fundamentally different. The human body may be as hostile a place for alien microbes as UV-bathed chlorine is for earth microbes. Several authors i’ve read make a point of stating that no alien infections could possibly survive in the very different biology of life from another planet, as no life is the same: Poul Anderson for instance.

Of course, even if you world build on this premise, your explorers aren’t safe to breath the air. Living or not, alien proteins, dust, microbes, whatever are still liable to cause an allergic reaction. While not as dramatic as an infection that can be caught, i think allergic reactions are even more probable and even more completely ignored– though i think i’ve seen that idea a few places.