{"id":37117,"date":"2026-06-09T05:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=37117"},"modified":"2026-06-08T21:02:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:02:46","slug":"photogs-second-law-of-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/photogs-second-law-of-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"photog\u2019s Second Law of Science Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I formulated my first law of science fiction:<\/p>\n

photog\u2019s First Law of Science Fiction \u2013 Thou shalt not change more than one basic law of physics when making a good story.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Well, that was so much fun I thought I\u2019d try for another one:<\/strong><\/p>\n

photog\u2019s Second Law of Science Fiction \u2013 Thou shalt not bore the poor reader to death.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And really this should be the first law because it really is essential.\u00a0 Honestly, if the reader is interested, he will probably forgive anything else; excessive use of time travel, repetitive battle scenes, gratuitous sex and violence, even scurrilous attacks on political enemies.\u00a0 As long as the story keeps the reader\u2019s interest, it\u2019s a success.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now this is an iron law for any kind of fiction.\u00a0 But because different genres have different readers it behooves the author to pay attention to what his particular genre considers interesting.\u00a0 So, if you write romantasy you must make sure you include plenty of female protagonists being ravaged by minotaurs or some other equally absurd mythical beast.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But if you write science fiction and especially if you write hard science fiction you have to make sure you can pass the science literacy test when it comes to the gadgets and phenomena that you hang your tale on.\u00a0 So, that\u2019s step one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Step two is to make the characters and the plot interesting.\u00a0 And this is where some of the best hard sf writers are found lacking.\u00a0 For myself, personally, Arthur C Clarke seemed to have a hard time writing characters that were actual people.\u00a0 Most of the time there just didn\u2019t seem to be a recognizable human being on the page.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not saying he was a bad writer.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 He was quite skilled.\u00a0 It just seemed that he didn\u2019t care about the human aspect in the story.\u00a0 Now compare this to Isaac Asimov.\u00a0 When I recently (four or five years ago) reread the Foundation books I thought the plot was at times marginal.\u00a0 But even the less developed characters seemed to have recognizable voices and personalities.\u00a0 Asimov managed to make the characters seem somewhat alive.\u00a0 And live humans are interesting to live humans.\u00a0 And since the people buying books are (for the most part) live humans it becomes critically important to write characters that appeal to the book buying public.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that is why even the most technically savvy sf author must (in my opinion) learn how to simulate human characters.\u00a0 And that is okay.\u00a0 Because we don\u2019t expect Tolstoy.\u00a0 You can make the characters resemble almost any humans you\u2019ve ever met.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s better if you mix it up and include a bunch of different types.\u00a0 This will help to avoid the serious problem of all your characters sounding and thinking exactly like you.\u00a0 And believe me, that is a big problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, I guess the second law means that a good science fiction writer must also be a good writer in general if he doesn\u2019t want to fail miserably.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I formulated my first law of science fiction: photog\u2019s First Law of Science Fiction \u2013 Thou shalt not change more than one basic law<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,1289,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\nphotog\u2019s Second Law of Science Fiction - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/photogs-second-law-of-science-fiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"photog\u2019s Second Law of Science Fiction - 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