Why

[james_davis_nicoll]

Do SF authors make up new elements? The elements don't seem to be in Seaborg's island of stability, either.

Actually, what I really mean is why would the sort of person who can't be bothered to look at a table of elements or think about the general decline in half-lives as atomic mass increases past a certain point bother with SF? What's the attraction for them?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Samuel Delaney used the island of stability when he needed new elements for a story, and he's far more at the literary end of the genre than the blueprint-for-a-spaceship end.

But then Delaney did have an interest in science, even if that wasn't central to the stories he wanted to tell.


William Hyde

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for a person not particularly interested in writing hard SF, Delany is actually scientifically literate. There's a description of the role of genes in development in Triton that's better than what you find in most supposedly hard SF dealing with the subject.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

There's a description of the role of genes in development in Triton that's better than what you find in most supposedly hard SF dealing with the subject.

Oh like that's difficult; hard sf is strangely soft and floppy when it comes to issues relating to the biosciences.

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

How do you find Peter Watts?

[avram]

I look in the SF section, under "W".

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

I find it in the "Are You Feeling Too Optimistic? Have a Hankering For a Dose of Soul-Destroying Hopelessness?" section myself.

[invunche.livejournal.com]

Peter Watts? The Rifters guy? Depressing (http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_RepeatingThePast.pdf)?

I'll believe it when he starts writing comedies.