The Sword and Laser discussion

I alluded to it a little bit in the thread about questions for Sawyer, but Andrew pointed out it'd be a good discussion topic, so making a thread in this part of the forum, too. :)

So far (and admittedly, I've only read the first three chapters), the science aspects that have come up in the book have kind of detracted from the narrative for me. It feels like Sawyer read up on the history of CERN and what the LHC does and then felt a need to educate his audience. Unfortunately for me, it didn't flow. As a reader, I'm not sure I needed to know at what temperature they keep the liquid helium for the superconductors, for example. (Incidentally, reading the Wikipedia entry for CERN and LHC really sounds familiar--it's almost as if Sawyer's description came directly from there).

I've definitely felt this in other books, too, that sometimes the "science" in the science fiction feels forced or otherwise unnatural. Anybody else?

For what it's worth, Sawyer's book was published years before Wikipedia was conceived.

The issue of the infodump in science fiction is always hard, because it has to be done. There's no way to get around it. Authors who have tried to do it often leave me feeling like I'm hurrying to catch up... in a bad way. Sawyer isn't particularly good at this, as his feel a lot like the infodumps from 1950s science fiction flicks: "As you know, Bob, radiation can often mutate cells so they grow uncontrollably. We've seen this in the lab time and again. So when we started dropping atomic bombs out in the desert, it only stands to reason that sooner or later we'd get GIANT TUMBLEWEEDS!"

Neal Stephenson is terrible at infodumps in that his entire books are infodumps. That's why I like The Diamond Age best of his novels - the information is presented much less obtrusively. Douglas Adams did a lot of infodumps, too, but his were like Stephenson's in that it's infodump raised to the power of art. It's why you buy the book.

I prefer it when the info is parceled out in smaller doses, such as being interleaved into the dialogue. Gibson was good at this in his earlier books. He'd explain a couple things to the novice character (a stand-in for the reader) while throwing in stuff that wasn't explained but you could get from context. One I recall 25 years later: "My car was in the shop getting its hydrogen cell repacked."

Both Heinlein and Haldeman did brilliant jobs of presenting their armored combat suits in Starship Troopers and The Forever War, respectively. Heinlein's was clear and concise while Haldeman's was snarky, but they both did the same job of entertaining while explaining.

Trike wrote: "For what it's worth, Sawyer's book was published years before Wikipedia was conceived."

Oh, I hadn't meant to imply that he'd "taken" it from Wiki, just thought it funny how similar the descriptions were.

I agree about The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer and how Stephenson handled infodumping there. I'm trying to think of some others that did it well.

Nah, I think Trike meant to say that nowadays you can look something up on wikipedia if its not described well in a book. So authors may feel less of a need to tell every detail concerning certain things.

The science in the first few chapters didn't throw me off at all. I'm pretty forgiving of the first few chapters of a book and try to give the author a chance to set things up.

Hmmm.. It's been awhile since I've read The Diamond Age, I'll have to keep this (how it transmits the science knowledge) in mind when I reread it.

Like others I did find the science in flashforward a little.. hmm blocky (lecture-y) in delivery (if that makes sense).

Alas, a nice laser book. No swords or spells. No fighter, wizard, dwarf and elf doing the mandatory quest. And while I agree there were some information core dumps that were a little stiff, compared to the real math and physics, it's a breath of fresh air.

Trike wrote: "Neal Stephenson is terrible at infodumps in that his entire books are infodumps. That's why I like The Diamond Age best of his novels - the information is presented much less obtrusively. Douglas Adams did a lot of infodumps, too, but his were like Stephenson's in that it's infodump raised to the power of art. It's why you buy the book.."

For some reason Stephenson's infodumps work much better for me than Sawyer's in Flashforward. Part of it may be that the information in Stephenson's books is generally more inherently interesting to me, but more of it may be that Stephenson's style makes the information just a tad more engaging (which can make all the difference when digesting an infodump).

When I re-read Dune, which I still love, the infodumps are more obvious and a bit painful, especially when it's compounded by the obvious exposition of one character telling another things they'd clearly already know.

Most of the time it really took me out of the story. I could have used more of either explanation or skepticism when the pseudo science was rushed to explain why all the tapes were blank. Do we really swallow quantum theory to that conclusion? Huh.