Missing the obvious

Last time, I said this:

I can't actually think of any examples of myth-chasing plots in fantasy or sci-fi off the top of my head, unless you include the vast number of fantasy stories which feature prophecies.

I clearly wasn't thinking too hard about the sci-fi, because there's one obvious myth-chasing plot that turns up all the time. It's based on the Fermi Paradox, which basically goes like this: given the size of the universe, and even moderate probabilities for the emergence of intelligent life, where are all the aliens?

There's a huge amount of sci-fi on this topic, although a lot of it doesn't really qualify as myth-chasing. In David Brin's Uplift series, for example, the explanation for the Paradox forms the basis of the setting, but it isn't really a mystery. Sometimes, though, it's all about trying to chase down the solution to that puzzle. Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series is an excellent example, and perhaps that's why I like it so much. My recollection is that first book in the series -- Revelation Space [2000] -- even begins on an archaeological dig.

Oh, hey, look: Jo Walton wrote an article on the Fermi Paradox in science fiction for Tor.com. So there you go.

I've also been pondering the possibility that the Big Dumb Object story is somewhat related to the myth-chasing plot. There are obvious differences -- the Big Dumb Object isn't exactly something you have trouble finding! But the process of unravelling its purpose, and how it got from there (wherever there is) to here, is not entirely dissimilar to piecing together the truth behind a myth. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, though. What do you think?

An ode to Jonathan Strahan

It was Alastair Reynolds and Revelation Space that got me back to seriously reading science fiction. I picked that book up as a present for my mother, who had been complaining to me that she hadn't read any good SF in a long time. Once she'd read -- and enjoyed -- it, I gave it a crack myself, and got hooked. I then tackled all of Reynolds' back catalogue, but after that I stalled. I didn't know anyone who read (modern) SF, and I wasn't sure how to find out what was good. 

I hit on the idea of buying some short story anthologies as a way to sample a bunch of authors quickly. One of the first ones I grabbed was The New Space Opera, edited by -- you guessed it -- Jonathan Strahan (and Gardner Dozois). I loved it. Which was a pretty big deal for me; I'd managed to convince myself somewhere along the line that I didn't particularly like short fiction. Boy was I wrong.

Long story short (heh!), I started hunting out other anthologies edited by Strahan. Through these I discovered many of authors that I'd now rank amongst my favourites: Karl Schroeder, Ted Chiang, Jay Lake, Peter Watts, Sean Williams, and probably more besides. I have consistently enjoyed the anthologies that Strahan edits, and I await the next one eagerly.

Of course, I don't only read anthologies edited by Strahan, but I have found that my tastes seem to align most closely with his -- his are the anthologies I enjoy most consistently. He had help, from Gardner Dozois in particular, but I think Strahan deserves most of the credit for getting me interested in reading (and, by extension, writing) short SF.

The question I now realise I have no answer to is this: what is it about Strahan's particular choices that I so enjoy? "What do you look for in a story" is probably a pretty tricky question for him to answer, but perhaps I'll get a chance to ask him one day anyway? In the meantime, I've got a shiny new copy of his Engineering Infinity to read, and I'm going to see if reading it with that question in mind brings me any enlightenment.

While I do it, I'm also going to dream about one day having a story in something he has edited. Because that would be ace.

Things I like #3: writing for the sheer joy of it.

I just got through reading a short story called "Zeppelin City", by Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn*, and it was very timely. I've been thinking about the purpose of genre fiction recently, worrying over questions of worth (if you can't write a worthy story, should you write one at all? What about a clever story?). "Zeppelin City" crossed my path at exactly the right moment because it didn't fret itself over any of that. It was just plain good fun.

It felt to me like the authors were having a grand time writing it. It was full of things that are cliched enough to be dangerous (brains in jars! Rhetoric-spouting revolutionaries! Daring girl pilots and grubby-but-cute engineers!), but written with such affection that you had to forgive them. Or perhaps congratulate them. Because brains in jars are cool, right?

I feel like I don't read this sort of story very often. Probably because it is a tricky thing to pull off successfully. I remember feeling the same way after "The Hero", by Karl Schroeder, and it was enough to send me chasing off after some of his books. I seem to recall it happening during parts of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, too. The sense that the author wrote something because they thought it was cool, and that I was having fun reading it for exactly the same reason.

So there you go, another thing I like: writing for the sheer joy of it.

* "Zeppelin City" was originally published on tor.com, where you can still read it. I read it in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Four, edited by Jonathan Strahan.