Science, Fiction & Truth

This is a special Thursday, everyone! I am having my first guest post and my first giveaway, all at once! Please welcome David Gaughran, author of If You Go Into the Woods and Transfection (I expect clapping, folks). On a normal weekday, you can find him on his super-helpful blog Let's Get Digital, Digital.

EDIT: Forgot to say, I'm on Wicked & Tricksy as usual. It's Villainy Week!

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My science fiction tastes have always been very compartmentalized. Space operas must be TV shows. I’m not convinced they work as well as movies, let alone books. Anything to do with robots, I prefer as a movie. I want to see the robot, and only movies have the budget to make it look really cool.

I’m a little more democratic when it comes to books. A good story will trump all, but I do gravitate towards near-future dystopia. Spaceships and aliens and all that are okay, but I would rather have a story about a man who struggles to form relationships because he can read minds, or about a cloning experiment gone wrong. For me, the further the story is away from the real world, the less it says about it in a clever way.

This latter qualification is important to me. Sure, you can have a version of Romeo & Juliet set on an interplanetary cruiser, or have an alien encounter story that teaches us about racism, but I prefer my messages a little more subtly coded. I don’t like neon signs telling me what to think.

Philip K. Dick is a favourite. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was great, but I liked Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said even more. He was a master of creating this sense of unease in the reader, which perfectly mapped what the character was feeling.

In many of his stories, it takes a while to figure out if this is taking place on our world or not, or whether it is set in the future or not, or whether the main character is crazy or not. That sense of dislocation is a brave move for a writer. So many feel compelled to do their world-building right from the start, with unwieldy explanations of various technological advances or geographical quirks that signify to the reader, right from the off, that you are somewhere else.

Instead, Dick deliberately keeps that from you, and the overall effect is very disturbing. You really get under the characters skin, and start seeing this strange world through their eyes, and begin questioning yourself, just like the character does.

I call that old-school science fiction. We used to have a lot more of it before Star Trek, the comic-book movie explosion of the 80s, and the alien boom of the 90s. I’m talking about guys like Ray Bradbury, movies like Soylent Green, and shows like The Twilight Zone – where there was more of an emphasis on the science than the fiction.

I think the distinction comes from the genesis of the story and the priorities of the writer. In the space operas and alien splatter-fests, I think the idea of “world” comes first and story second, whereas in old-school science fiction, the story always comes first.

My favourite kind are “what if” stories – which Hollywood likes to call “high concept” stories – and science provides fertile ground here. What if no-one ever became pregnant again (Children of Men)? What if we lived in a society so controlled that even thought was a crime (1984)?

The first half of the 20th century was a period of such massive technological change – cars, airships, televisions, airplanes, tanks, nuclear bombs - that there was this feeling that science could accomplish anything.

But there was also an undercurrent of fear. Scientists were often depicted as weak, amoral people who could be easily co-opted by nefarious governments and corporations.

Maybe I’m just reading the wrong stuff, but I think we have lost some of that from science fiction today. It’s a pity, because science is providing is with just as much material as before: cloning, cryogenics, nanobots, in vitro meat – there is so much great stuff there.

I wanted to write a story with that old-school vibe. Like most of my short story ideas, it came from a conversation with a friend over a few beers. We were talking about genetically modified food, and some of the fears out there, and whether they had any basis.

Then, as the night went on, we started going in ridiculous tangents about tampering with organisms at the most fundamental level, and what potential side-effects there could be that we haven’t even considered.

I remembered the story of the Radium Girls.  They were a group of factory workers in New Jersey during World War I, whose job was to paint watches with glow-in-the-dark paint for the military.

They were told the paint was harmless and were instructed to lick the paintbrushes to keep them pointed. The girls often painted their nails and teeth for fun.

The paint, of course, was radium-based, and the girls’ continued exposure led to radiation poisoning. The company attempted to smear these women, and claim their symptoms were caused by syphilis, and medical records were withheld by doctors and dentists to aid in the cover up.

It is still unknown how many Radium Girls died.

The point is that science and truth don’t always go hand in hand, not when there is money involved. It’s in these cracks that stories are born, and I think science fiction is uniquely placed to share them with the world.

Transfection, an old-school science fiction short, is available from Amazon and Smashwords for 99c.

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That story about the Radium Girls gave me shivers. It goes on the list of scary science things from Sommer's post this Monday.

Now, about the contest. I am giving away five copies of Transfection*, because it is awesome and creepy, and I think you should all read it.

All you have to do is to answer this question: "What area of science do you find creepy?"

You can do so here in the comments, or on twitter. If you use twitter, tag it with #creepyscience so I can see it (and feel free to link to this post if you have room)! I'm giving four copies to the comments, and one to the twitter participants. So, yes, you can technically enter twice!

The answer can be a whole area of study, an anecdote (such as the radium girls) or, well, pretty much anything science-related that creeps you out. Go wild!

You have until Wednesday June 15^th, 11:59 PM EST to answer. I'll announce the winners next Thursday!

*If you don't own an e-reader, you can always read e-books from your smartphone, iPad or laptops with this free amazon app.