Nikki’s questions for Becky

There’s a difference between established science (“This is so, and we have the understanding to prove it”), possible science (“This might be so, but we need to find the evidence/develop the technology to support or refute that idea”) and implausible science (“This can’t be, because it violates a rule of nature”). As a storyteller, can you talk a bit about how and why it is important to you to distinguish between them? How do you decide when to step over the line, and what determines how far you are comfortable overstepping?

It’s exactly like you said: it all depends on the type of story you want to tell. Science fiction is a vast spectrum. On one end, you’ve got your rock-hard science fiction, where every circuit and bolt is accounted for, and you follow the rules of nature to the letter. On the other, you’ve got science fantasy – Dune, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars F in which the goal of having a cosmic adventure is far more important than it adhering to the rules of the universe we live in. Knowing what kind of science fiction you want to write is one of the most important decisions at hand when you begin work on a book, because little details that affect that flavor will come up again and again as you go.

Let’s use faster-than-light travel as an example. Are you going to allow it in your story, or no? If yes, are you including the challenges of time dilation, or are you hand-waving that away because you need your characters to stay the same age during their travels? Both answers are totally acceptable within the context of sci-fi, but you have to think about how that choice will color your story. If your goal is to tell a story that feels possible, then ignoring relativity isn’t going to help your cause. But if your story requires you to have a crew that’s hopping around the galaxy, then the right thing is to do what serves the story, instead of what satisfies science.

The only constant is that once you’ve made all your choices, you have to stick to the rules. If somebody dies within a minute or so after being kicked out an airlock, you can’t have somebody else survive the exposure. That’s cheating.

How do you delineate between science fiction and pseudoscience?

It’s right there in the name. Science fiction is fiction. If you pick up a sci-fi book, you don’t (I hope!) have any illusions about it being real, even if it’s on the super-accurate end of the genre spectrum. That story may alter the way you think, and it may spark actual social change or technological developments, but the rules of that universe don’t bend the rules of ours. Loving a story is a powerful experience, but love alone isn’t enough to make that world real. I know that if I try to apply the scientific method to stuff I’ve made up, it will fail, because . . . I made it up.

Pseudoscience, on the other hand, is posing as the real thing, even though it, too, is a fiction. It’s claiming that the world is different than it actually is, rather than suggesting that the world could be different than it actually is. And that’s infinitely worse than just telling a bad story, because in many cases, you’re playing with people’s lives.

I find, in general, that science fiction writers are up-front – and often cheerfully so – about the stuff in our books that isn’t possible. Conversely, it’s crushing when you learn after the fact that you screwed up something you tried really hard to get right. We acknowledge our conceits, and we bow to reality.

As scientific knowledge advances, does it make you more or less hopeful about where we are driving this pale blue dot?

For me, the question of hope hinges on not the knowledge itself, but what we do with it. Climate change is the obvious, looming example here. Knowledge of what we’re doing to the planet is daunting to the extreme, but it’s simply an explanation of the situation we’re currently in. I will admit to having concerns about our likelihood to respond to it with the swiftness and scope that the problem demands, so in that regard, it can be difficult to feel hopeful.

However, the other side of the coin is that the more we learn, the better equipped and better informed we are, which improves our chances of making the right decisions. I could say the same about any realm of science, be it medicine or technology or our understanding of other species. I’m not going to predict what we’ll do with that knowledge. I’m unsure of where I’d place my bets. My feelings on that depend very much on the day. But of course, hope isn’t about predicting the future; it’s about how you approach it.

So, while I have no illusions about the challenges at hand or the tenacity of short-sighted thinking or the cost of us steering things wrong, I’m going to stick with hope, because we still have time to choose. The end hasn’t been written yet.

An Excerpt from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

No tready to land back on Earth?

Keep reading for a short extract from Becky Chambers’s debut novel

THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET

Day 128, GC Standard 306

Transit

As she woke up in the pod, she remembered three things. First, she was traveling through open space. Second, she was about to start a new job, one she could not screw up. Third, she had bribed a government official into giving her a new identity file. None of this information was new, but it wasn’t pleasant to wake up to.

She wasn’t supposed to be awake yet, not for another day at least, but that was what you got for booking cheap transport. Cheap transport meant a cheap pod flying on cheap fuel, and cheap drugs to knock you out. She had flickered into consciousness several times since launch – surfacing in confusion, falling back just as she’d gotten a grasp on things. The pod was dark, and there were no navigational screens. There was no way to tell how much time had passed between each waking, or how far she’d traveled, or if she’d even been traveling at all. The thought made her anxious, and sick.

Her vision cleared enough for her to focus on the window. The shutters were down, blocking out any possible light sources. She knew there were none. She was out in the open now. No bustling planets, no travel lanes, no sparkling orbiters. Just emptiness, horrible emptiness, filled with nothing but herself and the occasional rock.

The engine whined as it prepared for another sublayer jump. The drugs reached out, tugging her down into uneasy sleep. As she faded, she thought again of the job, the lies, the smug look on the official’s face as she’d poured credits into his account. She wondered if it had been enough. It had to be. It had to. She’d paid too much already for mistakes she’d had no part in.

Her eyes closed. The drugs took her. The pod, presumably, continued on.

Day 129, GC Standard 306

A Complaint

Living in space was anything but quiet. Grounders never expected that. For anyone who had grown up planetside, it took some time to get used to the clicks and hums of a ship, the ever-present ambiance that came with living inside a piece of machinery. But to Ashby, those sounds were as ordinary as his own heartbeat. He could tell when it was time to wake by the sigh of the air filter over his bed. When rocks hit the outer hull with their familiar pattering, he knew which were small enough to ignore, and which meant trouble. He could tell by the amount of static crackling over the ansible how far away he was from the person on the other end. These were the sounds of spacer life, an underscore of vulnerability and distance. They were reminders of what a fragile thing it was to be alive. But those sounds also meant safety. An absence of sound meant that air was no longer flowing, engines no longer running, artigrav nets no longer holding your feet to the floor. Silence belonged to the vacuum outside. Silence was death.