Science Fiction Prototyping. Brian David Johnson
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of AI and robotics. At the back of the book in the appendices, you will find the full SF prototype stories and scientific papers that we make reference to and use as examples throughout the book. Ultimately, as you read this book you will be able to build your own SF prototype, imagine your own possible futures and then go build them.
Foreword
Science fiction is a literature largely born in the 20th century. As Brian David Johnson details within these pages, it has its early roots earlier, in such works as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. However, it was in the wildly developing technological cauldron of the 20th century that SF really got its true birth, in the pulps, grew and developed, matured and became the mature literature of a new millennium that it is today.
And now, Mr. Johnson proposes that science fiction can be a means by which scientists can explore the ramifications of new technologies, develop and test hypotheses, and find solutions to problems that come with pioneering techniques and emerging science.
Well, why not? Science fiction—whether in its text form, or film or comics—has, from the very beginning, been a literature of ideas. When the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s were turning out a constant stream of two-fisted SF adventures, they were not quite the same as the twofisted detective stories, two-fisted war stories, two-fisted Westerns, two-fisted romances and other two-fisted tales of the pulps. Because SF was about the amazing, unimaginably exciting future.
Like comics, like science fiction movies before 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction stories were considered lowbrow stuff, the kind of thing that kids like me—and probably every other kid who read SF and comics and loved the tacky but exciting SF flicks of the 1950s and 1960s—were not supposed to read or see. They were, as Brian points out later in the book, not healthy activities for young minds.
Aside from the paranoid and misguided warnings of Frederik Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocents, I am not sure exactly what our parents thought would happen to us when we did these things. What I do know is that the combination of science and science fiction was positively intoxicating to our eager young minds. Within the ranks of science fiction readers and others interested in the field, there has long been a debate: what is the golden age of science fiction? Some argue for the 1930s, others the 1940s, or the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s. But most people will agree that in truth, the golden age of science fiction is around twelve—or whatever the age at which someone first becomes hooked on the stuff.
In the early 1960s, as the space program of the United States was getting started, one could see that the designs of spacecraft and other hardware bore a resemblance to the ideas and illustrations of science fiction books, comics and films. It was not hard to understand how that could happen. A lot of the scientists, engineers and technicians working on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs had themselves grown up on that crazy skiffy stuff.
The lure of the future—of the challenge of being part of creating the future—was, and remains a potent lure for people of vision. The visions have changed over the decades, but the challenge and the allure of creating something new, something that nobody has created before, is something that drives those who create science, as it does those who create science fiction.
Within these pages, Brian David Johnson has brought together the talents of a number of very talented people to show, through interviews with professionals in the three fields of fictional creation—science fiction stories, films and comics—and also professionals in the sciences, how science fiction can be used to prototype methods to make science and technology and solve problems that occur in its development.
But also within these pages is much more. There are nuggets of wisdom and insight from such people as Cory Doctorow, Gregory Benford, Will Eisner, Peter David and other very talented, creative people, about the craft of writing, the structure of fiction and the history of the genre. There are also tales here—real-life tales—of some of the great legends of these fields, including one of the most iconic science-fiction writers of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov and the legendary, towering genius of comics, Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit and a master of the form acknowledged by comics writers and artists alike as a seminal influence on the modern form.
The history in these pages isn’t dry or dusty—it’s exciting and dynamic, because it all deals with the ways in which brilliant, creative people have helped to change and develop the modern forms that are the focus and basis for the science prototyping that this is all about. You’ll discover a good deal about the Silver Age of Comics of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Julius Schwartz breathed new life into DC comics with reimaginings of characters like The Flash, Green Lantern and others, and Stan Lee seemed to have created the Modern Marvel Comics of Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and others.
Doubtless I’m biased, because I was a kid when that all happened, but I have the feeling that it’s not mere coincidence that some of the characters who were brought to life then have become great film franchises, like the Uncanny X-Men, Spidey himself and Iron Man, for starters.
But this book is also about science, and anecdotes about Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking and others also enliven the text.
And yet, with all of this cool stuff, the heart of the book, is still Brian’s how-to, step-by-step tutorials on how to use the three art forms of science fiction in the service of developing scientific solutions to problems that require creative thinking, with what pop culture today terms “outside-the-box” thinking.
There are some special bonuses here as well, including a full-color comic by the legendary Steve Ditko.
Science fiction writers famously deny that they predict the future, and I must agree with that. SF is, first and foremost, fiction, not science. When a science fiction scenario is mirrored by a scientific development in the real world, it is a happy coincidence, no matter how much fiction might have inspired that development. But I predict that if you read on, you will not only learn a great deal; you will also enjoy yourself in the process.
James Frenkel
Productively confusing science fact and science fiction may be the only way for the science of fact to reach beyond itself and achieve more than incremental forms of innovation.
Julian Bleecker
Artist and Technologist
Author of Design Fiction
Without science there is no science fiction.
Michio Kaku
Theoretical Physicist
Author of Physics of the Impossible
Dedication
For Vic, Simon, Sarah, and Sumi
Acknowledgments
The story of SF prototypes really began several years ago in Ulm Germany during a late night conversation with Vic Callaghan and Michael Gardner. The spirited debate continued as we walked home under the looming spire of the Ulm Munster—I cannot thank these two gentlemen enough for their good humor and intellectual curiosity. And Michael doesn’t even like SF!
Part of the joy of writing this book was having some really compelling and fascinating conversations with Cory Doctorow, Sidney Perkowitz and Chris Warner. I consider my discussions with these three to be a privilege and I will always be indebted to them.
This book is filled with references and quotes from numerous authors, scientists and researchers. SF prototypes would not be possible without their imagination and intelligence: Brian Aldiss, David Wingrove, Michael Ashley, Isaac Asimov, Stanley Asimov, Kelley Baker, John Baxter, Gregory Benford, Elizabeth Malartre, Julian Bleecker, Nick Bostrom, John Brady, Michael Brooks, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Close, Peter David, Karl Schroeder, Paul Dourish, Genevieve Bell, Simon Egerton, Graham Clarke, Victor Zamudio, Will Eisner, Russell Evans, Syd Field, Gardner Fox, Ron Goulart, Lois Gresh, Robert Weinberg, Stephen Hawking, Sarah Perez-Kris, T. D. Ferro, J. R. Porter, Kar-Seng Loke,