Looking for magic

I've been reading stuff again.

Not so much actual paper books, although I am a little way through Ben Bova's Exiles trilogy at the moment. No, I've been reading alternate timelines written by a fella who goes by the forum name : Whatisinaname. That's a link to him on an Alternate History board. To get to most of his stuff, you'll need a login on there.

So what's it about ? I first got to reading his Star Trek non-Federation Timeline. He'll take scifi and then introduce something different ... For example, his Non Federation Timeline is set in the same Star Trek universe we know from the various TV series but the POD (Point Of Divergence) is that the Brits went ahead with the HOTOL project.

HOTOL was a Space Shuttle competitor that would have seen a single stage to orbit space craft that landed and took off mostly like a conventional aircraft. If it had survived, I bet we'd have seen a lot more space development than we have from a rather sluggish NASA. There's actually a Son Of HOTOL in development at the moment called Skylon. (Link to Reg report) Crossing fingers that this gets off the ground. So to speak.

I'm digressing again - the Non Fed timeline takes the events of Star Trek but instead of a unified earth, we have 2 major powers. There's the Royal Space Corps led by the Brits and the Commonwealth, with the UESPA taking the place of the Star Trek Federation. It's well worth a read if you've got an age to read through it all.

Gotta say, his English could use a bit of work but his ability to keep the narrative interesting is much better than some established authors I could name. I've just finished reading his British Stargate thread and am eagerly waiting for more.

What's that about magic ?

There's a very famous quote : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The very best sci fi authors don't attempt to explain how their stuff works, it just does. To the reader, descending into technobabble tends to take the gloss off the magic. It feels like padding to flesh out the episode to the 42 minutes demanded by the TV execs. Better stories establish their rules early on and then play with narrative within those rules. Or they'll just ignore rules and make it up as they go along a la Doctor Who.

But even there, Doctor Who has certain rules it will follow. And a fez.

The Jack Campbell Lost Fleet books are a great example of keeping the scifi magic, as are the David Weber books up to a point. In the Lost Fleet, the equipment rules are established early :
Ships run on fuel cells, giving them limited range - cue needing to stop off along the way to resupply
Weapons are grapeshot, missiles, lasers and null fields
Can't cheat light speed

And a few other rules. They're established early, being integrated into the narrative instead of being allowed to dominate. The same holds true for David Weber Honorverse books, although lately the narrative in those has been allowed to submerge underneath irrelevance.

That's the good, how about the bad.

I've been having mixed feelings about Iain M Banks books lately ... His early Culture books are about a society managed by Minds (highly advanced computers), some of which will run ships with others running space stations. There's also the Drones (less advanced mobile computers) and their companion people.

It's magic. When he's talking Culture specifically, it's a magical universe where anything is possible. The explanation for why things happen is handled without descent into technobabble. But you still need that magic to make the books Interesting. That's where Matter fell down, I wasn't particularly interested in reading about the industrial age society that dominates this book, I wanted Space Ships.

Heinlein does particularly well with keeping the Magic intact, as does Larry Niven. It's not so much about the science, it's how to write great fiction in a scientifically advanced world. R.A. Salvatore is good at this too, although his specialty is magic in a fantasy world.

I suspect finding that magic is one reason I may be a little off gaming at the moment. The games I have are ageing and not particularly fresh. (Plus there's game breaking bugs like those introduced in Mass Effect 2 Arrival). I have my hopes up for Mass Effect 3, although that'll be waiting until next year. I'm also hoping for a bit of magic in Iain M Banks' Surface Detail, which is due at the end of this month.

Right - my hair is still damp after shower, time to look for a little magic before bed time :-) (a few chapters of Exiles I think)