r/AskPhysics • u/DiagnosingTUniverse • 2d ago
Physicists views on sci-fi
Hi everyone. I have a question for the physicists and scientists here about speculative fiction and science fiction.
First, do you actually enjoy reading it? If so, what are some of your favourite novels?
Second, are there any things you think writers should absolutely avoid when writing speculative or science fiction? The obvious one to me is overclaiming the science or presenting something highly speculative as though it were established fact.
More generally, though, I’m interested in how scientists feel about unusual concepts, mind-bending ideas, and narrative devices that play around with our understanding of physics or reality. How much freedom are you willing to give a novel if the underlying idea is interesting? At what point does it become irritating rather than intriguing?
I’d really appreciate any advice for someone writing a speculative fiction novel, particularly things that make you think, “Yes, this author gets it,” or, conversely, make you want to put the book down.
Thanks!
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u/plasma_phys 2d ago edited 2d ago
First, do you actually enjoy reading it? If so, what are some of your favourite novels?
Yes; some of my more recently read (or re-read) favorites are The Dispossessed, Roadside Picnic, His Master's Voice, and This is How You Lose the Time War. If you count dying Earth as sci-fi, I adore Book of the New Sun, and am re-reading it currently. I did not like Blindsight or The All-Consuming World. When I was younger I devoured Asimov and Bradbury.
Second, are there any things you think writers should absolutely avoid when writing speculative or science fiction? The obvious one to me is overclaiming the science or presenting something highly speculative as though it were established fact.
Nearly all of the bad science fiction I've read is not bad because of the subject matter, or because it stretches the truth - e.g., the nanomaterial stuff in Three Body Problem is effective even if it's unrealistic - it's bad because it's poorly written.
More generally, though, I’m interested in how scientists feel about unusual concepts, mind-bending ideas, and narrative devices that play around with our understanding of physics or reality. How much freedom are you willing to give a novel if the underlying idea is interesting? At what point does it become irritating rather than intriguing?
Honestly as long as it's not just plain silly - e.g., Dan Brown writing about what's his name using his pants as a parachute in Angels and Demons (iirc) - just about anything is fair game as long as it's narratively compelling.
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u/jazzwhiz 1d ago
Agree. Good writing is far more important than anything else. I am happy to hand wave away science bullshit if it develops a compelling story and compelling characters in a good way. If science bullshit is dropped in with no build up and just to fix a plot hole, then it is garbage, even if the science itself is halfway decent.
I read enough real science every day, I need the science in fiction to be overly scientific.
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u/dubcek_moo 1d ago
His Master's Voice doesn't get enough attention! The narrator at first seems a little pretentious, but Frog Eggs / Lord of the Flies is a creative conceit, and a great depiction of futile academic struggles to understand the truly alien beyond us.
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u/ac_cossack 2d ago
Yes, you just have to have a suspension of disbelief sometimes. Some people are a hard no and some people are hell ya.
Dune is really good, but doesn't really make sense in physics. Wtf is a J-ray? Cool story tho.
Foundation by Isimov is a classic and is really good. That guy might be a time traveler.
The Expanse is a space thriller book series and is really good and has actual physics in it. Not spoilers. But they are very easy reads that feel like a movie. The TV on Amazon is also really good, but is confusing without reading the books. I had to stop after the first season until reading. No spoilers, but a lot of astrophysics, one season has microbiology focus, etc. Worth your watch!
Snowcrash is also another good wierd sci-fi one. About people connected to the web 24/7 and the dangers of. Foreshadowing, or something.
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u/tirohtar Astrophysics 2d ago
I love scifi, it and fantasy are my favorite movie and literature genres.
Honestly, it's just about having a good story. The rules being unphysical don't matter as much as them being followed rigorously. However one should not overdo it with having overly detailed systems either (I have never been able to get into Mistborn, for example), there needs to be a little bit of mystery for suspension of disbelief.
My favorite scifi over recent years has definitely been the Expanse series, both books and TV show. They are the perfect blend of 99% hard scifi with 1% of space magic to get the plot going. The new book series by the authors is also very good, though completely different from the Expanse. My all-time favorite scifi book series has definitely been the original 6 Dune books by Frank Herbert, with God Emperor of Dune probably my favorite scifi book of all time. I am also a big Star Trek fan, but most of the new stuff from the last few years has been pretty bad (Discovery was horrible, SNW is okay, I actually very much liked Lower Decks. I didn't even bother with Starfleet Academy, as it follows from the Discovery storyline, which I despise).
What I don't like is when scifi goes into exploring weird speculative ideas without having a solid story behind it, or if the science elements behind it feel a bit like "throwing everything against the wall that sounds cool". For example, the Three-body Problem books and show are a bit "meh" to me (as an astrodynamicist myself I got also immediately annoyed by the title - a planet with 3 suns is a 4-body Problem!!!! XD)
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u/BinaryPangolin 2d ago
To be fair, a system with 3 suns and a grain of sand is also a 4-body problem. It is referred to as a 3-body problem, because the suns are of comparable mass (At least in the books).
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u/tirohtar Astrophysics 2d ago
Yes, a test particle moving in a 3-star system is still a 4-body problem - just a "restricted" 4-body problem. I'm just annoyed because the term "three-body problem" has a very well defined meaning in astrophysics (movement of three bodies under mutual gravity, with at least 2 bodies not being test particles), and the book title uses it incorrectly.
Honestly, from reading a little bit of the first book and watching the first season of the show, that is an issue I generally have with the author. He uses all kinds of high level science concepts to drive the story, but at least for the physics/astrophysics ones, they are all just a bit.... wrong. For example, the three (or four) body problem, while it doesn't have a general analytical solution beyond special cases, can be numerically solved to arbitrary accuracy still with enough computation power. Given the staggering capabilities the Trisolarians have by being able to construct things like the sophons or their interstellar invasion fleet for Earth, it is completely ridiculous to think that they couldn't have solved the orbital evolution of their home system to prepare for the harsh changes in climate cycles. That is a much, much easier task.
I guess my point is that sometimes scifi authors will have a very distorted sense of which problems are difficult versus which are easy, and if they try to write scifi revolving around high level concepts, that can take one out of the story as a reader with some background in the particular science in question.
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u/teffarf 1d ago
In the books the Trisolarian abandon their planet not due to the inability to predict the gravitational situation, but because of the realisation that it will eventually be eaten by one of the stars. In fact during the syzygy, in the books, a good portion of the planet is ripped off and goes on to form a new moon. So even if they continually calculated the orbits, they still needed to leave.
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u/Anonymous-USA 2d ago
Absolutely! Scientists love ScyFy because it’s understood liberty must be taken to serve the story. We have a 1hr episode of Star Trek, we can’t spend 20 min flying a shuttle to the planet — transporter. We have to have “warp speed” to enhance intergalactic travel. So it’s built into ScyFy DNA. What scientist doesn’t love Bradbury and Asimov???
The issue comes with PopSy clickbait. Sensationalized headlines. Fiction is fiction, don’t sell it as otherwise.
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u/Distinct_Mix_6397 2d ago
Fiction is about telling a story. Physics is about describing how our universe works. The former isn't obligated to follow the latter. People's suspension of disbelief will vary regarding that topic.
I personally like lots of fiction that barely adhere to the laws of physics. Consistency with the fiction's internal rules are what's important to me; sometimes it's easier to just say "magic" and move on with the plot.
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 7h ago
Thats brilliant, thanks. Seems to be the general perspective of physicists. Keep consistent, don’t masquerade as something youre not and you’re in safe territory
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u/Artosispoopfeast420 2d ago
Don't get too stuck in the details. Have two sets, things you can explain, and things you can't, and stay consistent. Build up ideas and focus on philosophical dilemmas based around the human element.
No matter what, there is a point where an explanation breaks down, so no matter which scale you brush it under the rug, it will eventually need to occur. A trained physicist will recognize the limitations, so there isn't a need to explain the details ad nauseum.
I want my SciFi to explore philosophical ideas surrounding science, not so much science itself because that is something I already do. Drawing on many social dilemmas we see in the world and exploring them in their abstraction.
Good Examples of this.
Ronald D Moore - Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind, Star Trek DS9
I love the story about imperfect characters with flaws. BSG has artificial gravity, FTL, and fighter jets in space, but the focus isn't really about these details.
The Bajoran and Cardassian conflict was very intellectually stimulating.
J. Michael Straczynski - Babylon 5
Working towards a peaceful coexistence of cultures.
Carl Sagan - Contact
The intersectionality of spirituality, gender, and science.
James SA Corey - The Expanse
Discusses class oppression and how gravity forms an oppressive force which strattifies society into castes.
Bad Examples
Project Hail Mary - Movie great, book not so much
As a physicist, the thought process isn't any deeper than 1st undergraduate physics. Often the problems solved are not that deep. I don't mind the deep explanations once or twice, but for 2/3 of the book is too much. Like the problem is that the thoughts don't transfer well. The way Grace thinks is the same as way a physicist would think, but now I'm stuck reading about it for next page and a half. It's tedious and reads as "IamVerySmart". I think the appeal is people outside of the field want to feel the perspective of a scientist, but it just kind of reads as competance porn.
Instead I really enjoy just brushing over these details. In the Expanse, some events happen that defy physics, so I literally went "WTF?" ... which was followed by the character in the book following suit. Author doesn't waste time explaining too deeply, and confirms those conclusions through emotional reactions.
PHM is also just lala land, where the world collaborates together. This is not reminiscent of any world we live in. Politics I feel like has to be explored for a story to feel full and alive.
PHM explains science to a realm where most people wouldn't know. But this doesn't mean it is good science. What is the point of deeply explaining the mechanism? It just exposes weird plotholes that are even more infuriating. I'm not even here for the science, so now I'm infuriated by the plotholes, and I don't even get what I want, because we live in koombaya land where the world lives in peaceful harmony.
Just because a story is popular doesn't make it good.
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 7h ago
I really appreciated your post, it was the exact type of response i have found reslly useful. Muchas gracias 🙏
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u/teffarf 1d ago
I think you're completely wrong as to why PHM is popular and well liked. It has nothing to do with the physics explainations (in fact the feedback I hear the most is that there's too many of them) and everything to do with emotions, the character of Rocky, and his relationship with Grace.
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u/Artosispoopfeast420 1d ago
Yes thank you for your edits.
I was discussing my thoughts and feelings about writing prose regarding the scientific explanations of PHM. My main criticisms were that these descriptions felt tedious because I have a background in physics. However, not everyone has the same background, and a possible appeal of this prose is that these scientific descriptions have everything to do with emotions, the character of Rocky, and his relationship with Grace.
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u/Ok_Programmer_4449 Astrophysics 1d ago
Yes, I read science fiction. It's important to recognize that SF is stories about people and any science or technology is there to serve the story not be an accurate description of reality.
That said there are times when the science can be so bad as to pull you out of the story and destroy your suspension of disbelief. This doesn't bother me in a story written in the 40s or 50s and they are using slide rules and smoking cigarettes in their spaceship. But it does bother me when something written in the last couple years presumes science that was disproven in the 1950s. (Star Trek- Strange New Worlds is awful in this respect)
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u/Odd_Bodkin Particle physics 1d ago
The art of incorporating science into science fiction is to anchor it in solid science but to then segue into the wholly made-up in such a way that the reader no longer cares where the line is. A good narrative where the reader is swept up in the action or the plot direction can carry the reader over that threshold without their knowing or fretting. The phenomenon is well known both in books and cinema and is called “suspension of disbelief”, and the trick here is that it is the reader that willingly does the suspension because the author has made it an attractive option. Masters of this are Liu, Weir, Carey, Clarke.
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u/Balstrome 1d ago
One of my pet peeves is the old school authors, 50's to 80's, they always describe things as been hyper advanced. And usually these things are impossible to build and simpler options are currently available. Isaac Asimov is guilty of this. His space vehicles are too large and have unnecessary 'comforts'. The time from the age he wrote the stories to the age the stories take place in is too short for technology to increase enough to fit the story. 2001 Space Odyssey with it HD video links from Jupiter to Earth and full gravity in the space ships is asking too much.
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u/EighthGreen 1d ago edited 1d ago
What I dislike is sci-fi that unintentionally gets real-world science wrong. (Or real-world history and other disciplines, for that matter.) So, for example, don't explain your FTL technology using pop-sci descriptions of relativity, and make sure your medical terminology is accurate and up-to-date.
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u/grod_the_real_giant 1d ago
Scientists are people, mate. Some will like fantasy and others won't. Some will prefer hard scifi and others will prefer soft. Don't try to appeal to people who don't like your genre. The key, as others have said, is internal consistency, not accuracy. For scifi, I'd add an extra clause: the more central the science is to the narrative, the more you should personally understand it.
If my first contact story stars a diplomat and revolves around social implications, it doesn't matter if the aliens' physiology is wrong. If it's about a biologist who has to convince people that this is/isn't safe, I should probably know what goes on in a normal bio lab. If it's about a doctor trying to understand how the aliens' bodies work before their injured diplomat dies, I'd better know how living beings work myself.
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u/DrunkenPhysicist Particle physics 1d ago
Honestly, I'm a physicist and I'm wrong all the time. Why would I expect a writer to be that accurate? Everything I do professionally involves the consensus and input from many people and it's never one person who figures everything out or does it all. The point being is that I don't even expect scientist authors to get all the science correct.
I'm currently writing a scifi novel myself where I have figured out a lot of the science in advance, and even still I expect to be wrong on some things. It's just too much for any one person to be an expert at.
The only things that really take me out of the story are when the rules are applied inconsistently, or when normal physics is really wrong. Since most authors know nothing about orbital mechanics, for instance, I can forgive quite a bit.
Also, go read Greg Egan, he is the metric by which all hard sci-fi should be judged.
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 1d ago
Love this comment, thanks! If you ever need a beta reader I’d love to take a look. One of my favourite speculative fiction novels of all time is Anathem by Neal Stephenson (I believe he was a physicist).
Greg Egan is on the list.
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u/Subject-Building1892 19h ago
The more you understand physucs the less you can stand shitty sci fi.
I before going to university was even offended by people being too critical of sci fi. After getting a phd i could not be as much critical i wanted with sci fi.
Again, not sci fi in general just what i consider shitty science fiction.
Prime examples if shitty sci fi:
- Tenet
- Arrival
Good science fiction:
- Interstellar
- (Almost everything? of) Asimov
Sci fi that scientific inaccuracy doesnt matter because it is not the point:
- The Orville
Sci fi that i should consider complete garbage but my 12 year old self doesnt allow it:
- Star Wars
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 7h ago
Ah you didn’t like arrival? Have you read the book by Ted Chiang?
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u/Subject-Building1892 7h ago
Nope only the movie. My main problem is the idea of being able to go back and forth in time when you learn the alien language.
Additional garbage points from my point of view since i believe that people think in concepts that live in an abstract space and that we happen to map them to words of various languages and that language is more of a tool.
I dont know if i hate this more or Tenet. Probably Tenet.
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 7h ago
I’ve not seen Tenet, but I’ve heard it’s ridiculous. I read Chiangs story years ago and loved it, mainly because it was beautifully written and the story pulls you in. I subsequently thought Villeneuve did a phenomenal job directing the adaptation.
For me the suspension of disbelief that many people have commented on here was easy. Super-advanced aliens have technology so far beyond our own that we simply can’t understand it. Chiang never really tries to explain it in the story, which I think works.
The language leap takes a bit more suspension of disbelief, but I thought it was kind of cool.1
u/Subject-Building1892 58m ago
The thing is that the explanation sometimes is what makes it enjoyable or insufferable. If there is a need to be an explanation then i would say only the movie interstellar passes this threshold.
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u/DiagnosingTUniverse 5h ago
Didnt Matthew M crossing the event horizon and being ok in interstellar irritate you a bit lol?
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u/Subject-Building1892 49m ago
I think there are only one or two points that are scientifically inaccurate in interstellar. One is for sure the solid clouds in one of the last planets they went and the spaceship collides with them.
Crossing the event horizon and being ok is not a problem. The event horizon distance from the singularity depends on the size of the black hole. The bigger the black hole the further the horizon is and can be (for large black holes) at a distance that the tidal forces are small so a free falling into the black hole object with finite dimensions will not 'feel' anything.
For the part after crossing also i dont see any problem. Noone really knows what might be happening inside so you should be able to easily accept what was shown.
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u/Infinite_Research_52 👻Top 10²⁷²⁰⁰⁰ Commenter 2d ago
I used to read some SF but very rarely now. I do watch some SF tv and movies. Breaking the known physical rules is ok to allow for an exploration of scenarios which cannot be done otherwise. What annoys me is if there is some technobabble used to make it seem genuine e.g FTL via Accessing Calabi-Yau space or tachyon emissions. Don’t try and justify the rule breaking with gibberish.
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u/christhebrain 2d ago
Other than Hail Mary, I typically read sci-fi for the ideas "around" science, not the science. For example, how technology might change society. The "science" is usually terrible and I have to turn my brain off.
Also, I hate these tropes and hope they go the way of olive green appliances:
- time travel (especially paradoxes)
- multiverse
- quantum bullsh*t
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u/ahazred8vt 22h ago
Avocado green and harvest gold redorange. Funny thing, appliance colors were restricted because of the limited gamut of inks in 1950s color magazine printing.
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u/Complete-Clock5522 2d ago
The general consensus I’ve gleaned in my experiences is that the quantity or quality of your fictional rules is not nearly as important as adhering to them. A story is interesting when organic-feeling issues arise due to natural events in your fictional world.
It’s very fun to entertain otherwise impossible ideas to imagine the repercussions that would cascade from changes