The Richard Morgan Thread II

[Jacen]

When is Ridley Scott going to direct Altered Carbon?

[Arthmail]

I heard Uwe Boll was getting it.

Haha....please god no.

[Balefont]

[quote name='Ran' post='1706448' date='Mar 3 2009, 15.28']Yeah, look, guys, I'm having it about to here with the rudeness.

Lets roll back the clock, kiss and makeup, and talk about how fucking awesome Takeshi Kovacs is.[/quote]


Seeing Ran swear makes the axis of my world tilt a little to the left temporarily. :thumbsup:

[Happy Ent]

[quote name='Balefont' post='1706412' date='Mar 3 2009, 21.06']What am I missing? What is the big deal?[/quote]
There are [i]Sentient Trees[/i] in it, for crying out loud! [i]Sentient. Fucking. Trees.[/i] Think Takeshi Kovacs sleeved into an Eishundu Elm with neurasap. Yggradasil with envoy conditioning.

What could be awesomer?

[Balefont]

[quote name='Happy Ent' post='1706480' date='Mar 3 2009, 15.45']There are [i]Sentient Trees[/i] in it, for crying out loud! [i]Sentient. Fucking. Trees.[/i] Think Takeshi Kovacs sleeved into an Eishundu Elm with neurasap. Yggradasil with envoy conditioning.

What could be awesomer?[/quote]

As much as I love you, HE, the Ent Moot had me in tears of boredom. :P

But I was sad when the Yggradasil was sacrificed. :cry:

[Jacen]

Bale is just too damn [i]hasty [/i]to enjoy Entmoots.

And Happy Ent, didn't you hear the joyous good news? More tree-goodness is headed your away, according to Nerdanel. The No-God is a sentient tree too! With armor! and a cyclone around him!

[Lightsnake]

Since all is cool now, might as well ask a question: Richard, who would your dream cast be for a film adaptation of Altered Carbon?

[Happy Ent]

[quote]And Happy Ent, didn't you hear the joyous good news? More tree-goodness is headed your away, according to Nerdanel. The No-God is a sentient tree too! With armor! and a cyclone around him![/quote]
Oh, I read that!

Now, hoping Mr Morgan is still on this thread, let me repeat most of my post #55. We are sometimes discussing the relationship between science and fiction, a debate that I find interesting. I’m much more of a scientist than I am a science fiction reader, but I wonder if “good science” is a reasonable (and constructive) requirement for “good science fiction”. GRRM is a good example of an SF author who seems to be genuinely uninterested in the scientific aspect – he bends technology to the requirements of the narrative.

Anyway, back to #55:
[quote]I’m still Kovacsing, somewhere in Woken Furries. While I enjoy these books, I find them far inferior to Black Man, mainly because of the ridiculousness of the sleeving premise. That seems to me a very pure adaptation of the mind–body dualism that I think is blatantly wrong. Mind you, Morgan does good stuff with the concept, but the whole idea is born out of a conception of Human Nature that is at variance with mine. Faster than light travel I could swallow (it merely breaks phyics as I know it). Downloading “minds” I can’t (it breaks biology as I know it, which to me is the larger crime.)

I suspect that Black Man is born out of the same narrative and didactic urge that drove the original Kovacs novels, but tempered by Pinkerism.[/quote]

Richard, is my suspicion correct? Did you have an epiphanic pop-sci reading experience between the Kocacs novels and Black Man?

[quote]Also: was there a throwaway character in Altered Carbon called Ertekin working of the UN, or am I hallucinating?[/quote]
I’m not hallucinating, it turns out. Nalan Ertekin, chief justice of the supreme court. Appears in Chapter 16.

Is this just a coincidence?

[Richard]

[quote]I wonder if “good science” is a reasonable (and constructive) requirement for “good science fiction”.[/quote]
For what it's worth, I'd tag this one with a definitive [i]no.[/i] In SF the science doesn't have to be good, it just has to be convincing. And that can mean any number of things, but in the end it's less about the writer than it is about the reader(ship); it depends hugely on whether a given reader [i]wants[/i] to be convinced or not. If they do, then the sky's the limit. If they don't, well, you're fucked whatever you try to do. You can't beat the emotional will of the reader.

The interesting thing is, most readers seem to set up their series of mental roadblocks depending on their literary tastes rather than their scientific background or acumen (I think you're unusual in not doing this, HE). Which is why you very often can't get mainstream literary readers to go anywhere near genre, regardless of what scientific background they may have - eg: Steven Pinker is on record as pretty much dismissing SF out of hand as a form he'd have any interest in reading. Another interesting thing is that these roadblocks get moved radical distances further down the road when it comes to a different medium like film or gaming, so someone who wouldn't dream of reading an SF novel will cheerfully sit through an SF movie or play an SF video game. In fact, within those other media, SF has long ago attained a general level of respectability that us guys in print fiction are still on our knees gagging for. Which in turn says something about how little this has to do with actual science - the premises of most SF movies and games are about as probable as the Rapture.

[Larry.]

I have to disagree slightly with you there, Richard. I believe there are certain non-genre readers who are drawn to certain genre styles, but it seems, based on my experiences and observations, that a good deal of those who can switch back and forth between styles are postmodernists who are drawn to those genre stories that utilize postmodern elements in their fiction (like much of Gene Wolfe and Jeff VanderMeer's earlier works, for example). Would agree that modernists are much more likely to have difficulties with reading genre fiction and vice versa, as naturalist mimetic fiction doesn't often leave much room for the imagination to operate.

[Lightsnake]

[quote name='Richard' post='1706912' date='Mar 3 2009, 20.42']For what it's worth, I'd tag this one with a definitive [i]no.[/i] In SF the science doesn't have to be good, it just has to be convincing. And that can mean any number of things, but in the end it's less about the writer than it is about the reader(ship); it depends hugely on whether a given reader [i]wants[/i] to be convinced or not. If they do, then the sky's the limit. If they don't, well, you're fucked whatever you try to do. You can't beat the emotional will of the reader.

The interesting thing is, most readers seem to set up their series of mental roadblocks depending on their literary tastes rather than their scientific background or acumen (I think you're unusual in not doing this, HE). Which is why you very often can't get mainstream literary readers to go anywhere near genre, regardless of what scientific background they may have - eg: Steven Pinker is on record as pretty much dismissing SF out of hand as a form he'd have any interest in reading. Another interesting thing is that these roadblocks get moved radical distances further down the road when it comes to a different medium like film or gaming, so someone who wouldn't dream of reading an SF novel will cheerfully sit through an SF movie or play an SF video game. In fact, within those other media, SF has long ago attained a general level of respectability that us guys in print fiction are still on our knees gagging for. Which in turn says something about how little this has to do with actual science - the premises of most SF movies and games are about as probable as the Rapture.[/quote]

I'd have to agree with this completely. If an author can sell you on the basic premise, so long as they don't bypass some certain realms of logic in the story itself (Like Terry Goodkind having human beings being able to slaughter 30 armed swordsmen in a battle and being able to rip out a man's spine with their bare hand) then a great deal of premises should be open season.

[Finn]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1706934' date='Mar 3 2009, 18.10']I have to disagree slightly with you there, Richard. I believe there are certain non-genre readers who are drawn to certain genre styles, but it seems, based on my experiences and observations, that a good deal of those who can switch back and forth between styles are postmodernists who are drawn to those genre stories that utilize postmodern elements in their fiction (like much of Gene Wolfe and Jeff VanderMeer's earlier works, for example). Would agree that modernists are much more likely to have difficulties with reading genre fiction and vice versa, as naturalist mimetic fiction doesn't often leave much room for the imagination to operate.[/quote]
Now that we're done being rude to Morgan, can we be rude to Dylanfanatic?
He seems to be offering some kind of invitation here. Hell, he seems to be deploying some kind of bat signal.
Maybe just a raspberry or two . . . ? We've been good . . .
:)




:cheers:

[Larry.]

No, no you can't, because odds are high that I'd just ignore you quite quickly and move on to more mundane affairs :P

[Stego]

A few quick words on why The Lord of The Rings works brilliantly as a story for adults:


[i]The Scouring of The Shire[/i] was absolutely revolutionary in that effect and not just a (insert random religion/social viewpoint) moral was shown in fantastic literature. Although lacking, perhaps, in the vivid description of post-war horror, The Scouring showed that one simply can not go home again; that youth and innocence are lost in war and nothing can ever be the same again.

The pain that Frodo feels; one which wanes and flows with the day and upon a chance remembrance strikes me (as a veteran diagnosed with PTSD) as utterly genuine. And utterly heartbreaking.

The aftermath is what makes The Lord of The Rings such a visceral reality despite the fancy and wonder. The aftermath is what makes it such a wonder of literature.



Richard, I don't know of a bigger proponent of your work among fans than I. Black Man taught me a lot about myself. I collect your works in various editions and have driven hundreds of miles to have them signed by you. I'm a fanboy, I'll admit it.

But I think you're entirely wrong here.

[Richard]

Well, Pinker's objection/reservation seemed to be, as I recall, that what he derives pleasure from in literature is keenly observed human behaviour and interaction playing itself out, and SF blows this out of the water by "breaking" the fixed rules of the human universe we live in, and so in essence making anything possible. So (my interpretation) for him reading SF would be like trying to play chess with someone who keeps changing the rules of the game. I see where he's coming from, but it seems to me a bit like Atwood's argument that SF is "chemicals and rockets and squids in space". It's the critique of someone who hasn't (or affects not to have) read anything in genre that wasn't printed before about 1956. What I find fascinating about Pinker's position (in contrast to Atwood, who just bores me) is that his books are all about thought experiments in genetics, psychology and the social implications of those things, and yet he seems utterly cold to the idea of fiction exploring (among other things) exactly those avenues. Dunno, maybe it's a turf thing. :)

Actually, I have the horrible suspicion that at base none of this stuff is rational. I think we respond to our entertainment almost entirely at an emotional level, and then come up with (mostly extremely shaky) rationales to back up that emotional response after the event. Into that response system goes prior experience, social context, acquired habit, self image and sheer genetic disposition. Rational critical response is just the pink paper umbrella you stick on top of that cocktail. So, Dylanfantic, I think a lot of the post modern crossover readership you're talking about there (which undoubtedly exists) is motivated as much by a general liking for transcending canonical boundaries per se (Look!! I read SF! How outside conventional lit crit mores is [i]that?[/i]) as it is by any genuine detection of like elements within certain genre texts.

We saw a similar tendency with cyberpunk and William Gibson. Gibson's great achievement was not to write great SF (which he did - the man is one of my literary heroes) but to make SF [i]cool.[/i] And [i]Cool[/i] runs cables deep into the psyche to buried levels way below any rational critical appreciation. Extra-genre types didn't read Gibson because he was good, they read him [i]because he was the hip thing to read.[/i] That's also why the Gibson effect never really extended very far beyond Gibson himself. Cool, being an intensely emotive thing, is also wired tightly into human preferences for individuals over conceptual abstracts (hence the phenomenon of the passionate fan-base :uhoh: ). So while there were any number of other talented writers working in or near the cyberpunk field at the time, none of the mainstream glory that stuck to Gibson ever really attached itself to the rest of them. Run names like Stirling or Cadigan past the literati and see what you get.

So mainstreamers [i]will[/i] read Toby Litt's new SF novel (which Ursula Le Guin has just pretty efficiently trashed in a review for the Guardian) and probably claim to like it. They [i]will[/i] read Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go or David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas or Atwood's Oryx and Crake, but however much they do or don't like those books, no [i]way[/i] are they ever going to go check out the SF shelves in a bookshop, or ask an assistant "so, about this SF stuff - what's good?" That's just not [i]them,[/i] that's not [i]their thing.[/i] And so they'll miss Geoff Ryman, Tim Powers, the aforementioned Ursula Le Guin, Ian McDonald, Elizabeth Hand and a whole host of other under-regarded genre writers. And no amount of rational argument will shift those internal blocks, because the blocks were never set up at rational levels to begin with.

[Richard]

[quote]But I think you're entirely wrong here.[/quote]
Of course I'm not - you are!

:)

Seriously, Stego, thanks for the stupendous compliment re Black Man, and one day, on another thread a long way from here, or maybe face to face when you've blown another wad of gas on me, we can sit down and argue that one back and forth a bit. But right now, I'm still way too raw from all the unpleasantness earlier. And see above - in the end, I think these are things it's very hard [i]to[/i] argue rationally because the initial responses are so intrinsically emotional (eg I'll readily admit my not liking LoTR any more is based on emotional response to the text - though of course I can drum up a pretty good post de facto rationale for why I'm [i]right[/i] about to react that way :) )

[Arthmail]

Morgan, have you read the Politcal Brain by Drew Westin? It pretty much corresponds with what you are saying. People have a gut reaction to any given subject, be it politics, books, religion, or what have you, and correspondingly create arguments based off of supporting their view. The more intelligent they are the more likely their argument is going to be persuasive, but at the end of the day, they are still seeking out information that corresponds to the preconcieved notions that they hold. Self-affirming prophecy, i suppose.

They did studies of people during an election cycle, monitering their brain patterns. When those people that supported one candidate over another were shown inconsistencies in their guys (or gals) argument, they would justify it using whatever information they had at hand. At that point, the brain and body were actually flooded with pleasure impulses - as if to congratulate them for buying their own shit. Its probably why within politics you see a swing amongst politicians who realize that no matter what, there are just some people they are not going to get, and its better to focus on those they can get. Adversely, you can see it in the idea of some politicians ignoring those they know they are going to get in favor of seeking out that crucial swing vote. Swing vote being a euphamism for having no fucking idea, of course.

Bought the Steel Remains last night, starting today, pretty excited.

[Richard]

.......and in answer to a few questions I've been asked above:

[i]Altered Carbon[/i] the movie - I'm informed that although Ridley Scott was asked to read the script at one point, he has since decided not to take it on. The option continues in force, though, and there's every sign it's at or near the top of the pile as far as both Warners and Silver Pictures are concerned. Personally, my cast for Kovacs (well, the Ryker sleeve) would be, and has been for some time now, Benicio del Toro. The superb performances he turned in in [i]Che Part 1[/i] and [i]Things We Lost in the Fire[/i] have only strengthened that first pick.

Ertekin - yeah, there's no real link. I once knew a Turkish woman with that surname and I always liked how it sounded. A bit like the Nemex which crops up in the Kovacs books and also in [i]Market Forces[/i], it was a case of a name just being too good not to re-use.

Truth is, much though the idea appeals of linking the Kovacs books to [i]Black Man[/i] in a fictional continuum, the math won't work. [i]Altered Carbon[/i] assumed that by the time [i]Black Man[/i] takes place the sleeving technology is well along, the Martians ruins found and interstellar colony ships already having their keels laid. More importantly, it just wouldn't have been possible to write [i]Black Man[/i] in a universe where sleeving technology existed, so it was a conscious choice to break the link.

Pop sci epiphany? Well, that's maybe overstating it a bit, but certainly, yes, I'd begun to realise even before I finished [i]Woken Furies [/i]that the really scary interesting cutting edge science was in the area of genetics rather than data technology. The Kovacs books offer a fairly abstract/metaphorical meditation on questions of human identity, whereas [i]Black Man[/i] was a lot closer to an examination of what might actually happen in the future.

That said, HE, I continue to get mixed signals from the scientific community about personality up/download. I'm persuaded by the bulk of the available evidence that Ray Kurzweil is just dead wrong and that models of human consciousness as digital data are erroneous; then again, I was told recently that some lab somewhere has actually built and can run a neuron by neuron accurate digital simulation of a mouse brain. Then [i]again,[/i] it seems unlikely mice have consciousness as we understand it, so maybe that's no help. And of course, as you say, the real problem is not so much the data storage issue as the likelihood of systems for wiping and printing the physical brain with whatever personality you're downloading. Ahhh, I dunno - given nanotech, hi-speed biotech engineering dynamics - it'd be a pretty brutal process, that's for sure, but then systemic brutality was always part of the noir ethos of those books anyway.......

Like I said before, if you can get the reader to [i]want[/i] to suspend disbelief, your work is done. And - my constant catechism in any of these situations - it's more believable than vampires, right? :) (apart from the rather brilliant Peter Watts variety, that is).

[Arthmail]

"I'm persuaded by the bulk of the available evidence that Ray Kurzweil is just dead wrong and that models of human consciousness as digital data are erroneous"


I don't know. Kurzweil is certainly an optimist about his ideas, but he's also been proven right a goodly amount of the time. Wrong as well, of course, but....something just strikes me that he knows whats going on.

[Richard]

[quote]Bought the Steel Remains last night, starting today, pretty excited.[/quote]
So the shameless self promotion and coat-tail riding worked, then.

:)

Thanks, Arthmail - that's even better than the e-mail you sent me. Hope you enjoy the ride.

Haven't read Westin (though I know about the book). But there is interesting work being done on this at the University of Virginia (and a couple of other universities in California), all tied into [url="http://www.yourmorals.org"]this website.[/url]

A key article on it all is [url="http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/articles/haidt.graham.2007.when-morality-opposes-justice.pdf"]here.[/url]

I think this stuff speaks quite well to the reasons why you were so upset by Kovacs' slaughter of Carrera's Wedge (and why I, despite understanding very clearly the implications of what I was writing, didn't [i]feel[/i] it in anywhere near the same way)