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\title{Midterm Exam}
\author{David Golombek}
\date{\today}

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\maketitle
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\section{The Role of Science in Science Fiction}

If all science fiction were perfectly accurate, it would quickly
become required reading in all my other classes, taking much of the
fun out of reading it.  The key to science fiction is not the accuracy
of the science within it; science fiction is driven by the imagination
and speculation involved in the exploration of some alternate
reality.  Although science has a very major role in the genre (as
evidenced by the name of it), so many other realms, such as alternate
histories and telepathy, have fallen under the name of science fiction
that it's name might more reasonably be changed to Speculative
Fiction. 

``Tandy's Story'', by Theodore Sturgeon, contained almost no science
at all, yet was still an extremely good story that I would hate to
exclude from the genre of science fiction.  The themes of mind control
and free will brought up in Sturgeon's story are provocative enough to
warrant a place in science fiction, even though the theme of aliens
was so underplayed as to be misinterpreted as actual Brownies of
mythology.  That a situation similar to the one discussed in ``Tandy's
Story'' could never happen in the world we live in (as we comprehend
it, anyways) and that this difference in worlds is one of the major
themes of the story are all that are required to classify it as
science fiction.  

Under this definition, science's role in science fiction is extremely
tenuous.  The forward extrapolation of scientific progress is certainly
an easy way of differentiating a world from the present, and any
society described as not being effected by these changes would be
extremely unconvincing, and thus science is a common theme in science
fiction.  However, science fiction is not restricted to only these
themes, and thus a wide range of literature falls under its roof.
While provably false science may raise problems for some readers, if
the questions raised by such speculation are interesting, then the
story can reasonably be called science fiction.

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\section{Paradigms}

In Harlan Ellison's ``I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream'', all action
is set within the bowels of a giant, malicious computer.  The five
remaining humans on Earth are trapped within this computer and
tortured as it tries to extract its revenge on humanity.  As one of
the characters puts it: ``Hot, cold, hail, lava, boils or locusts ---
it never mattered: the machine masturbated and we had to take it or
die.''  The entire universe of these characters is actively
malevolent, trying to inflict eternal pain on them.  Yet this story is
surely science fiction, for it explores a powerful concept and
involves a giant computer, set a few hundred years from now.

Trying to limit science fiction by restricting it to a select few
realms of exploration is contrary to the very heart of the genre.  To
limit speculation to the preconceived notions of the readers would
remove many of the tools of an author.  Certainly readers will always
enter a story with a notion of the universe that they've built up over
their lives; we are all products of our environments.  It is the
writers job to stretch this view of the world for us, to bring us
beyond the world we live in and force us to think about a larger scope
of possibilities.

A fundamental fairness in the universe is a fairly comforting thought
to going to bed with, but there is little actual evidence for it.
Mankind may be destined for greatness, as conceptualized in Brin's
Uplift War series, unique in the universe as supposed by Asimov in the
Foundation Series, or just another backwater race, as in \underline{A
Fire Upon the Deep} by Vernor Vinge.  By breaking the paradigms a
reader believes in, an author brings additional thought levels into
his novel.  Breaking the preconceived notions of the reader is key to
the success of a science fiction work, and any attempt to limit this
range of subjects is contrary to the definition of science fiction.
The set of possibilities that can and should be explored by science
fiction is the limits of human thought, leaving no immaginable thought
unturned.  This impossible goal leaves a hearty future ahead for
authors around the world, for there are an infinity of universes to
explore.  

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\section{Compare and Contrast}

Despite both being collections of science fiction short stories and
novellas, the Norton and Dozois anthologies are very different in
style.  The Norton anthology is heavily influenced by Le Guin's
editing, with all stories sharing a non-confrontorial tone.  Perhaps
Le Guin sums the tone of her anthology best at the end of her
introduction: ``'Invaders' closes our book ... because its last words
are the last words of all the stories in the book, and they are: 'and
everyone lived happily ever after.'''  On the other hand, Dozois
attempts to take the best stories of the year and mesh them together
solely through his summations of the authors.  Yet these short factual
blurbs greatly help in the reading of Dozois's collection; they
separate the stories by pulling the reader's mind out of science
fiction mode and into the real life, preventing the sloshing of one
story into the next, as tends to happen in Le Guin's collection.

The entire cast of human characters of \underline{Neuromancer} perhaps
puts less total thought into their actions during the entirety of that
novel than Charlie does while an idiot.  Even though Case, Molly,
Armitage and crew are all adults, the world and environment they live
in contrive to prevent thinking before acting.  Case perhaps best
typifies this lifestyle; from his suicidal dealings in Chiba to his
reckless runnings of the matrix, Case never takes more than a second's
thought before making his decisions.  Even Molly, the most thoughtful
character of the book, has to force herself to run away from Riviera
after his performance to prevent herself from killing him there and
then.  This tendency towards immediate action is in sharp contrast to
the measured pace of ``Flowers For Algernon.''  The metered tone of
diary entries sets the pace of this novel; even at the peak of the
bell curve that traces Charlie's development, he thinks through his
life and reflects upon it.  The other characters of Flowers,
particularly the scientists, match this thought process, to a large
degree rationalizing (even when falsely) the decisions they are
making.  This difference in time scale for thoughts marks a great gap
in the way the characters of the two novels think.

The producers of the version of \underline{The Island of Dr. Moreau}
movie that we watched in class would have been better off taking a
fresh story and starting over than attempting to graft a female lead
into the existing story.  Although both stories can claim an island
with a scientist creating half-human, half-animal beings, the removal
of the ethical and social points contained in the book leaves the
movie as an empty hulk.  The traditional book to movie replacement of
such ``deep'' elements with charismatic acting and fancy scenery was
even lacking, leaving the movie an almost worthless shell, making the
novel great by comparison.

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\section{Media and Written Science Fiction}

Science fiction Fandom is large enough to make a moderate success of
well written science fiction novel; a piece of media science fiction
must appeal to the mass public to break even.  This difference in
economic scale forces media works to appeal to the broadest common
denominator, necessitating the inclusion of sex, violence, and action,
all proven crowd bringers, while allowing for the removal of
speculative material, leaving only the ``flashy'' parts of technology
behind.  Meanwhile, a written work may work with the smaller budget
constraints and target a much smaller audience.  The written work can
convey the breathlessness of a fight in a couple dozen words, delving
onto the reasons behind it.

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\section{Recommended Novels}

First, I suggest incorporating \underline{Across Realtime} by Vernor
Vinge into the course readings.  This book contains excellent handling
of several different subjects in science fiction; the first half of
the novel covers cybernetics and the control of technology, while the
second half details Vinge's predictions about the continued
exponential growth of technology, which he expects to head towards a
{\it Singularity} where a fundamental shift in understanding happens.
Secondly, I suggest \underline{Beggars in Spain} by Nancy Kress for
it's well written thoughts on economy, evolution, society, and
learning.  Both novels are beautifully written explorations of very
complex ideas and succeed admirably in bringing thoughts and even
solutions to the questions posed into the reader's mind.


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\section{Extra Credit}

For its troubles, the robot was given a rustproofing job by Harris's
assistant, whom was able to boldly go where no man had gone before.

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Ideally the entire ``who was able to boldly go where no man has gone
before'' would be removed, but this changed the meaning of the
sentence to dramatically for me to consider correct.  Note that the
phrase is ambiguous in whom it is describing --- I choose to tie it to
the assistant.

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