Re: Tech building

I'm a physicist, and generally pride myself on getting the science
right in my stories. However, I recently did a story where the plot
really required what I would call "silly science." IMO, it's the best
thing I've ever written :-) Look, readers will forgive you for writing
fantasy, if it's a really good story. They don't care that magic isn't
real. Readers will forgive you for writing a story like Jurgen, or
Little Red Riding Hood, where you don't even pretend to be depicting
psychological reality. They'll forgive anything, if the story is good.

If you know a ridiculous amount about 19th-century
firearms, and decide to fudge about the properties of a particular
revolver for plot purposes, nobody's going to know or care. The
danger is actually that you'll use too *much* of your knowledge of
19th-century firearms. You just don't want to fudge from a position
of ignorance.

If I write a story about a character named Sam Chrzanowski, who lives
on Edwards Street in New Haven, CT, my reader is not going to
go to the New Haven phone book, check for the name, and get upset
because Sam Chrzanowski isn't in it. If my reader happens to be
familiar with New Haven, he's just going to be impressed that
I did careful enough research to use the name of a real street.

I learned a heck of a lot of physics, as a kid, from reading science
fiction. At the time I was reading it, I pretty much knew when I
was finding out about real science, and when I wasn't. Warp drive:
fake. People on the moon have normal inertia but low weight: real.
It's like Little Red Riding Hood: it's not like we're damaging little
kids' knowledge of biology by making them think wolves can talk.
.

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