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Synchrotron Gets Sci-Fi Writer In Residence
kandela writes "CBC News is reporting that Nebula and Hugo award winning author Robert J. Sawyer is to become the first-ever writer in residence at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron facility (see also their media release). Sawyer will spend two months at the facility, where he is hoping to be inspired by the everyday grind of scientists, 'I spent a lot of time visiting science labs over the years, but it's always the VIP tour,' he said in an interview Wednesday. 'You are in and you are out in a couple of hours, and everyone has shown you all the things they want you to see but none of the day-to-day grind of the work as well. I want to get the flavour of that.' As a scientist who has worked at synchrotron facilities (and occasional sci-fi writer myself (page 4)), I'm excited to see what a professional can do with that environment for inspiration."
Obviously the purpose of books is to draw us out of our own day-to-day grind into a universe consisting of... more day-to-day grinds? Right.
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Ok, Kandela. If you're "Daniel Cotton", let me be one of the ones to tell you - that was fscking brilliant! I haven't been so pleasantly smacked in the face by a short story in a very long time. That bit of fiction is a much bigger story than that of some writer trying to get inspired... and yes, I admit it - I've never heard of Robert J. Sawyer, though I've got on the order of 19 untouched copies of "Asimov's" piled up from between the onset of presbyopia and the procurement of reading glasses(it was hard to admit that need).
Shouldn't all science fiction writers have some firsthand experience with science, ideally from an actual involvement with science? Well, maybe or maybe not. But more disturbing is the prevalence of people with no knowledge of science in the business of so-called science journalism. Of course, a few months in a science lab won't cure what ails most science writers. But it would be better than nothing, which is apparently the status quo.
That concept is older than old. Heck, computers randomly gaining sentience was done by Heinlein in 1966 and I doubt he was the first. Going from a single computer gaining sentience to a network of computers does not make it brilliant. Hell, the Sprawl trilogy pretty much created cyberpunk and I think it covered this whole area as well.
The real mark of brilliance in such areas is how you actually treat the subject and what interesting sub-questions you bring to light. There are a hundred different ways to cover some basic ideas and every single one of them can be utterly unique.
I've only read one Sawyer book, Mindscan.
From what I can see, he likes to get ideas from the public. And I will say there were a couple of cool ideas in that book...but the book itself was horrible.
The emotions were canned, the story forced and the characters unsympathetic. It degenerated into just-plain-silly at times with blatant attempts to be 'socially relevant' with all the subtlety of hammering a railroad spike with a hippo.
I'm not kidding when I say that it almost felt like a 7th grader who just watched Outer Limits sat down and wrote a book for his end-of-the-week project.
I'm hoping his other work is better.
From from my own experience doing research at a synchrotron, I call tell you there is nothing "day to day" about it. We get roughly one week to do as much as humanly possible in an environment which drains you (16+ hour days under high fluorescent lighting with the incessant hum of vacuum pumps and machinery).
The scientific environment is electric. Things get done - ideas flourish and are crushed in minutes as a gaggle of intelligent scientists throw ideas around and call on their years of experience. Copious amounts of coffee are consumed and everyone stands there silent when the a-ha moment arrives and all the hard work comes together.
It might be hard for an outsider to appreciate this, and there is a chance this isn't the norm when it comes to the average synchrotron experience.
I think some of the best stories could come from the dialogue between Sawyer and the scientists at CLS. As to the need for a writer to have a backgroud in science, I think we've seen benefits to a writer having it or not. Did you ever see the bibliography of Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton? Now there was a science based story. Other writers haven't had a formal training but an aptitude in the sciences that have led to future predictions that have come true. At the heart of good SF is the story and I have read all of Sawyers works and find him to be one of the most distinctive writers I have read. Here's looking for a future Sawyer novel based at CLS.
I've read three of his other books: The Terminal Experiment, Flashfoward, and Calculating God -- Hoping that maybe they would get better. But sadly, they don't.
He takes far too many of his scene descriptions directly from public spaces. If you've ever lived in Toronto, you know the exact locations he's talking about, and you really wish he would shut up about it, and stop using the word Toronto. He goes into such inane detail that you know which subway stop to get off at, how many blocks over to walk, and which side of the street to be on to be standing right where his cardboard characters uttered something absolutely obvious, and then go over to Pizza^H^H^H^H^HFood Food for all their dietary needs.