Science In My Fiction

Warning: This post contains spoilers about the books Who Goes There? as well as I Am Legend and The Hunger Games.

Have you ever wondered what is it about science fiction that gives this particular genre such a broad appeal?

Looking at Hollywood movies, it’s tempting to think it is the visual sensation of blockbusting special effects, but nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, the reliance of movies on mind-bending special effects has diluted rather than enhanced great science fiction stories.

Science fiction has a strong appeal because it is intelligent, it stimulates our thinking. And, often times, this distinction is lost when books morph into movies.

In Who Goes There? John Campbell introduces us to a creature Hollywood immortalized as The Thing.

Although The Thing is a vivid and faithful rendition of Campbell’s novella, it misses a significant amount of the reasoning the scientists go through as both they and the readers struggle to comprehend a hostile alien encounter. And that is where the brilliance of the story lies, in the exploratory, inquisitive, reasoning nature of man.

The essence of the storyline in Who Goes There? is, how can reason triumph over a mindless, instinctive monster, one than can perfectly mimic its target? Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie, but the way the scientists drive their minds to understand the nature of this alien beast in the novella is brilliant, and it is lost in the screen adaptation.

In the novella, the trapped scientists consider the biological nature of the alien, they think about how the infection spreads at a cellular level, realizing that the infected cow at the Antarctic station would have laced their milk with parasitic spores, dooming them all. They discuss why the alien won’t engage in open combat with them, realizing it has evolved a unique strategy to avoid such confrontations, and they come to the chilling realization that it would sweep unopposed throughout the world if even the smallest biological trace remains. When it comes to The Thing, just a few cells is all that’s needed to overrun Earth’s entire biosphere. As a reader, you feel like an unnamed member of the ice station, traveling with them on this voyage of the damned.

In the same way, I Am Legend, takes an absurd, mythological notion and says, what would happen today if the legend of vampires were true? How could vampires exist in a modern world?

The protagonist of the novella, Neville, talks us through the logic of why vampires fear the cross. Surprisingly, it’s not because of any inherent supernatural power in that particular shape, it turns out that the shape is a catalyst for thought, a vivid reminder of what the vampire has become and so causes a physiological revulsion. Neville even conducts experiments with vampires of Jewish origin, noting they suffer the same aversion to the Star of David as former Christians do of the cross. He hypothesises that a Muslim vampire would find the crescent shape equally repugnant, but would not be worried by a cross.

In the same way, mirrors allow vampires to see themselves for what they really are, and they are repulsed by the realization that they are monsters.

Garlic, rather than an old wives’ fable, becomes a biological agent that causes anaphylactic shock within the vampire.

Sunlight, it seems, breaks down the vampiric bacteria, just as UV is known to destroy other types of bacteria.

And in the course of the story, the question is raised, why do stakes kill vampires and not bullets? Neville, our rational hero, applying science over superstition, learns that the hemorrhaging caused by a stake cannot be contained as easily as the smaller holes caused by a bullet. And the reader finds themselves inhabiting a world where the absurd has suddenly become plausible and rational, at least in a fictitious sense in which disbelief can be suspended for the enjoyment of the adventure.

The Hunger Games is another recent example of intelligent science fiction.

The movie is breathtaking, but action and adventure win out over the awe of reason. In the movie, we see Katness attack the supplies of the upper crust contestants from Districts 1-5, but without the audience really understanding why. In the book, we get a sense of the hunger and desperation Katness suffers in the wilderness (after all, it is called the Hunger Games). And so, rather than a mindless attack on the stores of wealthy tributes, we see Katness attack these stores to level the playing field, to square up the fight and ensure that the rich kids also have to scavenge and forage for basic necessities. In this way, they can no longer ruthlessly hunt down the other tributes with such ease.

And so the book allows us to explore this fictional world with Katness, and to understand its means and motives in a way that is glossed over in the movie.

As a science fiction author, I appreciate what these authors have done, they’ve started with a simple premise and explored the possibilities latent therein, seeking to build fictional worlds for our enjoyment.

It is said that the plot is the character in action. When it comes to science fiction, the plot is the character interacting with science in a way that influences both their actions and the actions of their opponents. I’m a little bias, of course, but I love the way science fiction makes us think about the challenges facing a protagonist.

Peter Cawdron is the author of the highly acclaimed dystopian novel, Monsters

What would we see if we stood on an alien world?

As the word ‘alien‘ originally meant ‘foreigner, stranger, one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country in which they are living,‘ we naturally expect everything alien to be different, and perhaps it will be, but the laws of physics are universal so we should expect some similarities.

The classic science fiction interpretation of an alien world is often as though Earth were pictured through a blue/purple/black or blood red filter had been placed over the lens of a camera just for the sake of it. And although there is some scientific basis to this assumption, as different stars will emit a different light spectrum, it is an overly simplistic way of coming up with something ‘different‘ for the sake of being different. We have black plants here on Earth, as an example, making them not-quite-as-alien as we thought.

The danger is that science fiction may be trying too hard to come up with something radically different just so it seems alien, with alien being synonymous for jaw-dropping and unexpected. Reality may be stranger than fiction in that the laws of physics and chemistry are what determine biology, and as the laws of physics and chemistry are universal, astrobiology too may be much more similar than we’d expect.

Theoretically, life could arise in a multitude of places we wouldn’t anticipate, using chemistry we haven’t seen exploited on Earth (like silicon-based lifeforms), but as a university professor recently pointed out to me, the odds on favorite has to be carbon from a purely chemical perspective. Carbon is the most versatile atom for forming complex molecules.

So what would alien landscapes look like? Well, they’re going to be bound by the same laws of physics and chemistry we have on Earth, although probably in different proportions, as it’s unlikely there will be the same gravitational strength, or atmospheric mix, etc.

I’d venture to say with the astounding diversity of environments we see on Earth, there’s enough versatility to give us a good idea about alien landscapes.

These are snow covered trees in lapland. With temperatures dropping as low as -40c in winter, these hardy trees survive encased in ice.

Just a couple of hours from where I was born you can find boiling mud in the thermal wonderland of Rotorua. As a kid, I’d marvel when we’d stop by the side of the road to watch mud bubbling away in the forest.

If you ever get to Sydney, Australia, you should take a trip to the Blue Mountains to the Jenolan Caves. It takes several hours to walk through these caves, but the stalactites and stalagmites are magnificent. They’re reminiscent of the surreal artwork of H.R. Giger, made famous by Ridley Scott in the Alien movies.

No, it’s not Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. These giant selenite crystals have grown beneath the ground in Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales. With temperatures reaching 58 °C (136 °F) and up to 99% humidity, these caves are largely unexplored, but crystals have been found almost 40 feet long, weighing up to 55 tons.

Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone is an example of how “alien” life on Earth can be. The deep blue color is the natural result of water clarity and depth, but the greens, yellows and ocre-reds are all the result of bacterial life. In particular, this spring hosts chemotrophs, microbes that use chemicals rather than photosynthesis as their energy source, but its the cyanobacteria, photosynthesizing bacteria, that give off the green, yellow and ruddy colours. Chemotrophs and cyanobacteria are among the oldest forms of life on Earth.

Geology is one thing that’s likely to be highly similar between planets, especially those within the Goldilocks Zone that are roughly the same size and composition as Earth. This image, showing the erosion of sedimentary layers within the Arizona desert is particularly striking.

These limestone structures in the White Desert of Egypt have withstood considerable weathering over the ages, leaving a jarring impression on the landscape.

If you were to visit Socotra island, off the coast of Africa, you’d be greeted with a host of plant life that seems out-of-this-world. This island has been isolated from the mainland of Africa for millions of years and so life has evolved in an isolated niche, producing trees that wouldn’t be out of place in the latest Star Trek movie.

The Richat structure in Africa, visible from outer space, is not the result of a meteorite impact, but rather is the result of geological processes.

There really is such an astounding degree of diversity here on Earth that science fiction writers can draw upon in so many ways.

These geysers from the Black Rock National Park in the US are spectacular.

What will we see on alien worlds? What would an alien landscape appear like? Well, there’s a good chance it could look very much like the unusual “alien” panoramas we have here on Earth.

Any alien world will undoubtedly have volcanoes, but, as we have seen within our own solar system, not all volcanoes seeth with boiling magma. The moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune have all displayed cryovolcanoes, erupting with cold/frozen gases and liquids such as water, methane and ammonia. Volcanoes like these may well be the chemical mixing pot for life on other worlds.

Here on Earth we see a variety of life arising around volcanic hydrothermal vents where sunlight can never penetrate.

Although it might look like something from the Alien franchise of movies, this microscopic worm was discovered around a deep sea thermal vent.

With nematodes being discovered up to a mile beneath the Earth’s surface, the extreme boundaries at which live can thrive continues to be redefined. Life is far more remarkable and surprising, resilient and prolific than we dared to imagine even just a decade ago, raising hopes of life being able to etch out an existence in the far-flung corners of our own solar system on planets and moons like Mars, Enceladus and Europa.

_______

Peter Cawdron is the best selling author of Monsters, a dystopian look at the importance of reading

Contrary to the common misconception perpetuated on Amazon, science fiction is not fantasy. Sometimes fantasy slips into the genre, but science fiction is about science in fiction.

Science fiction is hypothetical. It’s conjecture about how science could, in one form or another, shape the world of the future, and in that regard it is forward thinking and thought provoking.

It’s fiction in that it’s not real and doesn’t pretend to foretell the future, and yet there’s an element of exploration in science fiction, not of stars and planets, of future people and evolving cultures.

Science fiction looks to preempt and predict how mankind will adapt to the challenges of the future, however wild they may be.

Some of the science fiction classics could loosely be termed science friction in that they agitate and challenge preconceptions. Throughout its brief history, the best loved science fiction stories have been those that dared to challenge the status quo.

IMHO George Orwell’s 1984 is, arguably, the greatest science fiction novel ever written.

Half a century before Skype video chats and Google hangouts, George Orwell saw the danger of our seemingly innocuous video screens with their built-in cameras, speakers and microphones.

Thought-police, newspeak and Big Brother became the clarion called that allowed the West to avoid the Stalinist-style abuse of technology portrayed in 1984.

If you’ve read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago you’ll understand this was no idle, misplaced phobia on Orwell’s part. Had Stalin, Hitler or Mao had access to such instruments of surveillance, their repressive, murderous regimes might still be with us.

And yet, a book review in 1949 noted

“This may mean that [1984's] greatness is only immediate, its power for us alone, now, in this generation, this decade, this year, that [1984] is doomed to be the pawn of time. Nevertheless it is probable that no other work of this generation has made us desire freedom more earnestly or loathe tyranny with such fulness.”

Far from being limited to its day, 1984 stands as a dire warning about the dangers of authoritarian rule for countless generations to come.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a reactionary tale, written by Kurt Vonnegut, capturing the trauma and senseless waste of war as he experienced it personally during the Allied fire bombing of Dresden.

The book is fictional, but it is also allegorical and somewhat biographical, capturing the heart-rending futility of death and violence as epitomized by destruction of Dresden. It’s hard to do the history of Dresden justice, needless to say, it was an Allied war crime. This excerpt from a survivor of the bombing conveys the horror Vonnegut witnessed.

Explosion after explosion. It was beyond belief, worse than the blackest nightmare. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. It was dark and all of us tried to leave this cellar with inconceivable panic. Dead and dying people were trampled upon…

~

We saw the burning street, the falling ruins and the terrible firestorm. My mother covered us with wet blankets and coats she found in a water tub.

~

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers… and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm [sucked] people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.

~

As a writer, Vonnegut could not ignore the devastation he’d witness in World War II. His protagonist is propelled around in time, chaotically flashing back and forth, capturing the emotional trauma of survivors in an allegorical fashion.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut wrote, “It is, in the imagination of combat’s fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called ‘mopping up.’” In this way, Vonnegut sought to arrest our attention, to ensure the past was not buried and forgotten, to make sure that the lessons were learned, not ignored in the future.

In the words of George Santayana, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Vonnegut was determined we should not forget.

Science friction is fiction that wakes us from our lethargy, stirring us to action.

Robert Heinlein wrote several notable stories in this regard. But his classic, Starship Troopers, became a cautionary tale in a way Heinlein never intended.

In Starship Troopers, Heinlein sets out his arguments against communism, the Cold War, and the need for duty to reinforce civic responsibility, all set against the backdrop of an interstellar conflict with alien bugs.

Somewhat ironically, the extremist right-wing views he promoted as future social values backfired on him. Throughout the book his characters debate the weakness of democracy and the need for military service and loyalty to the state, but the book was published just a few years before the Vietnam war escalated out of control. Starship Troopers became a parody of reality, a dire warning against such extremism.

The book’s description of society happily accepting life on a war footing became a stark contrast to the socially traumatic events of the 60s. If anything, Heinlein’s vision highlights a fascist extreme the US narrowly avoided.

In 1962, Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. With its focus on the formation of a new religion comprised of celebrities, one wonders if he intended his “all worlds religion” as a mockery of scientology.

In stark contrast to Starship Troopers, Heinlein unveils a world of free love, drugs and promiscuity. With themes such as homosexuality, hippies and a fascination with psychic powers, the book pre-empted the radical movements of the 60s and 70s.

The US Congressional Library named Stranger in a Strange Land as one of a hundred books that helped shape modern America. The stark contrast between Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land captures the contradiction that was America in the 1960s.

Perhaps the most radical work of science fiction friction is Planet of the Apes.

Although the motivation for the book was originally to highlight cruelty to animals and to challenge the presumption of man’s position at the head of creation, the movie version became a social statement on US racial tensions.

The racial overtones in both the movie and the book are overt, and clearly not intended just as an analogy for animal cruelty. African-American slavery, segregation and discrimination are subject to a role reversal within the movie, with Charlton Heston appearing as a white European slave held in chains. This switch was intended to shock audiences into the realization that racism is unjust.

White supremacist groups like the KKK didn’t miss the point. In supremacist rallies in the late 1960s, bigots displayed racist placards decrying what they saw as America descending toward a “Planet of Apes” as the result of the dissolution of segregation.

In much the same manner, during some of the later movies in the series, black audiences cheered for Caesar, drowning out the movie’s dialogue as they cheered for his rebellion against oppression.

The point of all this is simple: We need mirrors. We need mirrors to take a good look at ourselves, and science fiction does that like no other genre.

We need to see ourselves in a mirror, to see who we really are and where we are going in life, and science fiction does that, but not with flashy light-sabres and green muppets, with stories that provoke some depth of thought. Science fiction shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica are legendary not because they fired photon torpedoes or travelled faster than light, they pre-empted social change. It’s no surprise the first interracial kiss on TV occurred in Star Trek.

Science fiction can easily address topics we would not otherwise talk about in society. Often, these are the topics we needed to be talking about.

In the words of Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, “I knew I could get away with Martians saying things Republicans and Democrats couldn’t.”

Science fiction should cause friction, but not to be obnoxious or sensational, to provoke critical thinking.

_________

Peter Cawdron is the best selling author of Monsters, a dystopian look at the importance of reading

Everyone’s aware of the five senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing, but did you know you have a sixth sense? And, although you can’t see dead people with it, this sixth sense does involve the subject of ghosts. No, this isn’t a over bloated movie review for M. Night Shyamalan and Bruce Willis, this is the fascinating world of proprioception.

Proprioception is a form of sensory perception that assists and enhances the other five senses and yet it is, in itself, a sense in its own right. Proprioception gives the body a sense of context, it manages spatial relationships, allowing you to close your eyes and touch your nose. If you miss, you’re probably drunk.

Proprioception is the sense that allows you to walk through a dark room without stumbling over your own feet. Teenagers, experiencing rapid growth, are clumsy not because they’re lazy and inattentive (as some of us dad’s may assume), but rather because their sense of proprioception is lagging behind their physical growth. They need to mentally grow into their new limbs. In the same way, someone that has had a limb amputated will often feel a “ghost” limb. They may feel a sense of twitching or even a desire to itch a limb that no longer exists.

Based on these examples, you may think that proprioception is simply an extension of touch, but it influences all the other senses. Coming from New Zealand, my family would often visit Rotorua during the holidays. Rotorua is a land of geysers and thermal springs. When driving into the city, you’re invariably met with the overwhelming smell of sulphur or, as the kids call it, rotten eggs and farts. After light-heartedly blaming each other for the smell for a few minutes, the smell fades away. In reality, the smell is still there but our sense of proprioception has masked it, subconsciously moving it into the background. Remarkably, this suppression does not affect the overall sense of smell. Stop to smell some roses or stop by a bakery and smell some freshly baked cookies, and you’ll find you enjoy the scent even though the sulphur is still hanging in the air.

Proprioception allows us to listen to a single person talking in a crowded bar, separating their voice out from all the overlapping noise and confusion, something impossible to replicate with a microphone. As a tinnitus sufferer, I can’t help but wonder if proprioception is coming into play here as well. The phantom ringing a tinnitus sufferer hears appears be due to proprioception compensating for the physical loss of auditory input in the high ranges. As actual hearing loss occurs, the brain compensates by supplying the missing frequencies. Much to my dislike, it seems tinnitus is my mind trying to help me out. Thanks, mind

If someone loses there sense of proprioception the results can be quite disastrous. Simple tasks, like walking, become extremely difficult and require immense concentration. With retraining, the problem can be reduced, but they’ll never be able to cartwheel again. Extreme cases, known as the Dr. Strangelove syndrome or the alien hand syndrome, can be quite distressing for the patient and quite incredulous to those around them.

It shouldn’t be that surprising to us that we have more than five senses. In fact, wikipedia lists ten! It’s just that seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting are so dominate we miss the subtleties associated with the others. Other animals, like fish, can sense electrical and magnetic fields in addition to these. It makes one wonder what senses an alien species might have after evolving somewhere other than this terrestrial orb.

You can test your sense of proprioception with some simple tricks that are great fun for kids and adults alike.

• Stand in an open doorway with your hands by your side and push outward on the door frame with your wrists for twenty seconds. Step out of the doorway and relax your arms and they should feel light and tend to float upward
• Grab a basketball and press it hard between your two hands for twenty seconds. Then place your hand on a flat surface and the tabletop will feel curved

OK, so they don’t work quite so well for everyone, but this is your sixth sense, your ability to be aware of spatial relationships in relation to your body.

_________________

Peter Cawdron is the author of the acclaimed hard science fiction novel, Anomaly.

If you haven’t heard of Cargo Cults, you’ve missed out on one of the most intriguing insights into human nature, first made popular by Richard Feyman in his 1974 commencement speech at Calttech.

Although the cults themselves did not originate in the second world war, it was this war that transformed them. During the war, the people of Melanesia found their normal daily routine overwhelmed by the Japanese and then the American war machines. Overnight, air bases would spring up. Forrest were cut down, runways built, and large steel birds flew in from the sky full of cargo, the likes of which the islanders had never seen before. The Melanesian people were fascinated by this radical transformation of their island and struggled to comprehend the world at large beyond the seas.

When the war ended and the air force abandoned them, they began mimicking the actions of the soldiers. They would clear bushland to form a runway, march with sticks instead of rifles, hoist American flags, build control towers complete with pseudo radios made from coconuts and straw, all in an effort to bring back the planes with their precious cargo.

All this would be a rather amusing by-line in history if it weren’t symptomatic of deeper characteristics shared by humanity at large. You see, over fifty years later, the cargo cults still thrive, they still honour John Frum Day on February 15th, they still await the return of their saviour.

Cargo cults highlight the confirmation bias spiralling out of control and examples of this can be seen all through modern society, albeit to a lesser extreme. The pervasive influence of homoeopathic remedies is a classic example, with dilutions for the cold remedy Oscillococcinum reaching 200C when such a dilution equates to 1 in 100^200 (or 100 with two hundred zeros following it). That’s roughly one molecule of the active ingredient for every molecule in the observable universe! In the 1800s, homoeopathy had a semblance of pseudo-science but, even then, it was questionable and failed double-blind experimental tests. Now, it’s nothing but snake oil. That’s the thing about Cargo Cults, though, thinkers need not apply. Please leave your logic at the door.

The characteristics of Cargo Cults are, unfortunately, all around us. In sales meetings, managers will hound their staff to examine previous successes, plan account activities and repeat “time tested sales methods” to drive up results. Get your coconut headsets on and guide those sales in to land.

This irrational confusion arises from our failure to distinguish cause from effect and our desire to replicate past achievements. If only somehow we try harder, work smarter, the gods of sales or homoeopathy will shine upon us. Sports stars will wear their lucky underwear, bounce a tennis ball five times before serving (not four times, not six, it must be five). Superstition, it seems, is a desire to wrest control from the chaotic world in which we live. It’s driven by the insecurity of not being able to control everything in life.

When it comes to science, Richard Feyman points out that an experimenter has to have disproving his theory as his first priority. It takes little mental effort to reinforce your position, but to challenge it, to try to tear it down, to do all you can to undermine your own position and still see it stand, that’s true science.

In a letter to J. Scott, Charles Darwin put it this way.

It is a golden rule, which I try to follow, to put every fact which is oppose to one’s preconceived opinion in the strongest light. Absolute accuracy is the hardest merit to attain.

In another letter, Darwin noted:

I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones.

If Darwin and Feyman had to drive their minds to avoid a confirmation bias, we too should be vigilant to ensure we maintain a balanced perspective in life with honesty and clarity, and avoid the natural human tendency to stack the deck in favour of what we’d like to see. If we don’t, we may awake up one day to realise we’ve been wearing coconut headphones.

_________________

Peter Cawdron is the author of the acclaimed hard science fiction novel, Anomaly.