N-s.p.a.cE.
by Larry Niven.
FOREWORD.
PLAYGROUNDS FOR THE MIND.
When every page has been read has been read and and the book has been put down, is the the book has been put down, is the story over? story over?
Some stories flow onward through the reader"s imagination. Some authors leave playgrounds for the reader"s mind. That was what charmed me about Andre Norton"s stories: all the endings were wide open. I could close the book and continue moving further into the unknown.
As I grew older I began demanding endings.
As a writer I learned that endings are not so easy. They do make better art; at least most critics would say so. Poul Anderson is king of the powerful ending. . . . . but when his story is over, the playground remains. but when his story is over, the playground remains.
Something should be left behind at the end of the story. There are characters unkilled, and actors who never reached the stage. Esoteric technologies. Alien ecologies. Worlds. The laws by which the universe behaves. The playground. behaves. The playground.
I knew it long ago: I"m a compulsive teacher, but I can"t teach. The G.o.dawful state of today"s educational system isn"t what"s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications. G.o.dawful state of today"s educational system isn"t what"s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot "suffer fools gladly." The smartest smartest of my pupils would get of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can"t handle being interrupted. all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can"t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And n.o.body interrupts a printed page.
I knew what I wanted when I started writing. I"ve daydreamed all my life, and told stories too: stories out of magazines and anthologies, aloud, to other children. started writing. I"ve daydreamed all my life, and told stories too: stories out of magazines and anthologies, aloud, to other children.
One day my daydreams began shaping themselves into stories. I wanted to share them. Astrophysical discoveries implied worlds weirder than any found in fantasy. I longed to touch the minds of strangers and show them wonders. I wanted to be a published science fiction writer. I wanted a Hugo Award!
Money formed no part of that. Science fiction writers didn"t get rich. (Robert Heinlein excepted. Kurt Vonnegut excluded.) I used royalty statements to keep score: how many minds had I reached?
I had my Hugo Award three years after I sold my first story. Among science fiction fans one becomes a Grand Old Man fast. Now what?
Now: become a better writer. I"ll always have things to learn. In my earlier novels almost n.o.body got old or sick. I still have trouble writing about the things that hurt me most.
But I"m learning.
I used to get allergy attacks. Alcohol, dry air, lack of sleep, or any air, lack of sleep, or any combination could cause me to wake up blind and in pain, with deep red eyes and puffy eyelids. I had to use a humidifier, or go to sleep with a wet towel. combination could cause me to wake up blind and in pain, with deep red eyes and puffy eyelids. I had to use a humidifier, or go to sleep with a wet towel.
I stopped smoking in August of 1987, and the allergy attacks went away.
And they"d be none of your business if I hadn"t made it all public. I gave the allergy to Gavving in THE INTEGRAL TREES and Rather in THE SMOKE RING, for story purposes, and I had to nerve myself up to it. I still have trouble writing about what hurts me.
Also, parts of my life are private. My computer erases my early drafts, and that"s fine. My mistakes are not for publication.
Writing is the ideal profession in many ways. It"s not always easy, but- You set your own hours.
You"re being paid to daydream.
In psychoa.n.a.lysis you would hire a professional to listen to you. You"d have no idea whether he was seriously interested. You"d operate on his his schedule. The most you could expect from him is that he"d force you to face the truth about what you"re saying. schedule. The most you could expect from him is that he"d force you to face the truth about what you"re saying.
But a writer has several tens of thousands of psychoa.n.a.lysts. He knows they"re listening because they"re paying him for the privilege. Writer and reader both set their own hours. And he will seek the truth within himself, because more realistic writing is more convincing.
This feedback to the author: it"s rare outside of fantasy and science fiction.
A few years ago, while the Citizens Advisory Council for a National s.p.a.ce Policy was in session in my living room, I s.n.a.t.c.hed a moment to read my mail. Then I ran in to announce, "Hey, I just got a love letter!""
It sure was. A woman in Britain wanted me to write a congratulatory letter for her husband"s birthday. He was a fan, and she was in love.
Hard science fiction in particular is a game played with the readers. They try to spot my mistakes. I see mathematical treatments of the dynamics of neutron stars, design alterations for the Ringworld, detective story outlines for Gil "the ARM" Hamilton. I get a constant flow of letters from strangers to keep me current on transplant technology, Bussard ramjet possibilities, black holes, magnetic monopoles. There are songs about the Motie Engineers and Lucifer"s Hammer, sculptures of Pierson"s puppeteers in every conceivable medium, and paintings of the Ringworld.
All of this is proper use of playground equipment. A reader need not be satisfied just to read the book. He paid his way in; he can stay as long as he likes.
I know where to go to talk a story over, to be admired, to get criticism, to meet my peers, even to ~o some business. There"s always a science fiction convention going somewhere.
I was never sane until I became an established writer. So why do some writers go crazy?
There are are occupational hazards. occupational hazards.
It"s lonely. How many professions are there such that you spend most of your working time alone with the door locked? (Terrorist, maybe. Does Stephen King qualify as a terrorist?) A nice view from your window is a liability. An interruption from your loved ones can break a valuable chain of thought.
Collaborations? Not everyone can stand to share a dream, and n.o.body in his right mind would collaborate with a novice, not even another novice.
Writing is a collaboration with the readers. I sensed that long before I wrote my first real collaboration. It goes like this: Somebody out there, thousands of somebodies, are entertained by the same things I am. They like to play in their heads, and I"m out to help them. I"m writing a dialogue between me and the paying public. I"m not really alone in here. I"m not really alone in here.
The money is lousy. After you"ve got a few books in print, and if they"re any good, you"ll be paid for them forever via royalties and foreign sales. But you really need to be born with a trust fund to survive the first several years.
Gene Wolfe says that what an aspiring writer generally wants is to quit his job. Gene argues that his job frees him to write what he likes, and spend as much time as he likes on any story-which to Gene is important, as he"s the world"s prototype nitpicker-and he can do it without worrying about deadlines.
I wouldn"t know. I was born with a trust fund. And now I don"t need it, but I lived off it for the first ten years of my career.
Marijuana is death on writers. I"ve seen several go that route. Typical behavior for a long-time marijuana user is as follows. He gets a story idea. He tells his friends about it, and they think it"s wonderful. He then feels as if he"s written it, published it, cashed the checks and collected the awards. So he never bothers to write it down.
Alcohol can have the same effect.
The suicide rate is high among writers. Maybe you have to be neurotic to write and sell your first story. H. Beam Piper"s agent had neglected to send him a check. Piper may have felt that his work was no longer popular, since he thought his story hadn"t sold, and he needed the money, too. For us, love and money may be nearly indistinguishable.
"I suppose I"ll say this again sometime," Steve Barnes said, "but I just love love being a writer!" We were finishing up "Achilles" Choice," a novella, "the story we were being a writer!" We were finishing up "Achilles" Choice," a novella, "the story we were born born to write." And yeah, it was fun. to write." And yeah, it was fun.
Too many would-be writers are really would-be authors. They want to have written. to have written.
But a writer can pay moral debts by dedicating a book. He can put friends in his stories, changing them to suit his whim. The feedback can be wonderfully soothing to the ego. There"s the opportunity to sound off without being interrupted.
I suppose there was always a fanatic inside me, demanding to be let loose; but I was lazy. I didn"t get fanatical about anything until the organ transplant problem entered my soul.
If organ transplants become easy and popular, who are the donors? Condemned criminals have already donated their eyes and such to hospitals. The Red Cross must ultimately see the obvious, that a man on death row could donate five quarts of blood as easily as he faces the gas chamber.
The problem is this. While Jack the Ripper has five quarts of healthy blood in him, and a working heart, lungs and liver and kidneys, the same holds true for a political dissident, or a thief, or for a man who gets caught running six red traffic lights within the s.p.a.ce of two years. You can go too far with this!
I wrote "The Jigsaw Man" two years before the first successful heart transplant. It seemed to me that n.o.body else had seen the problem, n.o.body else was worrying about it, and I had to sound off. Then came the heart transplant in South Africa, and suddenly a dozen doctors" ,groups were studying the ethics of the situation.
Maybe I was worried needlessly. We could have been executing criminals by exsanguination for these past ninety years, and we haven"t done it. I"ve had to find other things to worry about, and when I find them, I sound off.
Nuclear power plants! Do they scare you? Are you afraid they"re shooting out atoms at you? Do they scare you? Are you afraid they"re shooting out atoms at you?
Look: I write books with a man who is afraid of heights. Jerry Poumelle can tough it out if he knows what"s coming. I"ve followed him along a ledge no wider than our feet, with fifteen Boy Scouts following me, and our backpacks unbalancing us toward a twenty-foot drop.
I asked him afterward, How? He said, "You just do it."
But . . . . . . Bob Gleason took us to the top of the World Trade Center for a drink. Self-involved, I didn"t notice Jerry"s unnatural silence in the wavering elevator. We got to the top, got out, and moved down some shallow steps toward floor-to-ceiling picture windows. I turned from admiring the magnificent view to see Jerry frozen in place. Bob Gleason took us to the top of the World Trade Center for a drink. Self-involved, I didn"t notice Jerry"s unnatural silence in the wavering elevator. We got to the top, got out, and moved down some shallow steps toward floor-to-ceiling picture windows. I turned from admiring the magnificent view to see Jerry frozen in place.
"Go ahead," he said, "I"ll be right with you."
He joined us in a few minutes. He said, "I remember being at the top of the Statue of Liberty, and being terrified. Now there I was looking down on the Statue of Liberty like a toy!"
I have never once heard Jerry suggest that people should be forced to stop building skysc.r.a.pers.
Nuclear is the safest power source we"ve got-with two exceptions, neither of which is being built. If some folk are terrified of unseen death by radiation, then let "em deal with their own neuroses, instead of forcing us to stop building the atomic plants.
Hence the nuclear plant in LUCIFER"S HAMMER, defended by the heroes and attacked by environmentalists who have turned cannibal. We"ve been accused of preaching preaching in that book. I"m shocked, in that book. I"m shocked, shocked, shocked, that you would accuse us of such a thing. that you would accuse us of such a thing.
We preach for a viable s.p.a.ce program, too. Of all the excellent reasons why we should be going into s.p.a.ce, the danger of a Lucifer"s Hammer is not even the best. But-When I was growing up, the mystery of the dinosaurs had everybody"s everybody"s imagination. They had ruled the Earth for about thirty times as long as mankind. Then, imagination. They had ruled the Earth for about thirty times as long as mankind. Then, poof. poof. I remember a certain contempt on the part of the popularizers. The dinosaurs couldn"t hack it. Something changed, and they lay down and died. I remember a certain contempt on the part of the popularizers. The dinosaurs couldn"t hack it. Something changed, and they lay down and died.
Okay, they lay down and died. But what hit them, apparently, was a medium-sized asteroid, a nickel-iron mountain nine kilometers across or else a much larger comet nucleus, mostly ice, carrying the same tonnage of nickel and iron and rock. Picture Lucifer"s Hammer, only big.
What have we got that the dinosaurs didn"t? We"ve got telescopes to see it coming. We have the potential to control the solar system, to push the dinosaur-killer out of our path. And we"ve got William Proxmire, and NASA.
Then again . . . . . . now and again, I could be wrong. It"s one reason I wouldn"t tell-for example-Ralph Nader to shut up, even if I could make it stick. It takes a lot of people to hold civilization together; some of us are only here to ask the right questions. now and again, I could be wrong. It"s one reason I wouldn"t tell-for example-Ralph Nader to shut up, even if I could make it stick. It takes a lot of people to hold civilization together; some of us are only here to ask the right questions.
The comet"s nucieus is bathed in light. The tail and coma trap sunlight throughout a tremendous volume and reflect it, some to Earth, some to s.p.a.ce, some to the nucleus itself.
The comet has suffered. Explosions in the head have torn it into mountainous chunks. Megatons of volatile chemicals have boiled away. The large ma.s.ses in the head are crusted with icy mud from which most of the water ice has boiled away.
Yet the crusts r.e.t.a.r.d further evaporation. Other comets have survived many such pa.s.sages through the maelstrom. Much ma.s.s has been lost, poured into the tail; but much of the coma could freeze again, and the rocky chunks could merge; and crystals of strange ices could plate themselves across a growing comet, out there in the dark and the cold, over the millions of years ... if only Hamner-Brown could return to the cometary halo.
But there appears to be something in its path.
LUCIFER"S HAMMER, 1977 1977 .
From WORLD OF PTAVVS.
This was my first novella and and my first novel. The first few thousand words were written in longhand during a trip through Europe. I took my time over it. When I thought it was ready I sent the novella to Fred Pohl, who had already bought t my first novel. The first few thousand words were written in longhand during a trip through Europe. I took my time over it. When I thought it was ready I sent the novella to Fred Pohl, who had already bought two stories from me. stories from me.
Fred chose the t.i.tle. My choice was "A Relic of Empire." I liked it well enough to recycle, hanging it on a short story. Jack Gaughan sketched various of the alien life-forms in "Ptavvs," and I first felt the terrific ego-kick of seeing something from my own mind rendered visible.
Fred used the novella to get the attention of Belly Ballantine at Ballantine Books. On the strength of that Belly sent me a contract for a novel. I would not have thought of that. I was a poor businessperson in those days, but I recognized an opportunity when Fred hit me in the face with it.
WORLD OF PTAVVS established some patterns that have persisted throughout my career, more or less. Optimism. Logic problems. Bizarre technology derived from esoteric physics. Aliens with depth to them. (Algis Budrys, writing as a critic, said that telepathy in most current novels felt like something from Ma Bell; that in PTAVVS, it didn"t.) In particular, I taught myself to enjoy playing games with astrophysics.
I played such games throughout PTAWS and many that followed. The excerpt is from near The end, as Kzanol and Larry Greenberg (carrying Kzanol"s memories) are about to land a fusion s.p.a.cecraft on Pluto. I would hate today to defend the thesis that the planet Pluto can catch fire, but it made some great scenes.
Kzanol/Greenberg swallowed, swallowed again. The low acceleration bothered him. He blamed it on his human body. He sat in a window seat with the crash web tightly fastened, looking out and down.
There was little to see. The ship had circled half the world, falling ever lower, but the only feature on an unchanging cue-ball surface had been the slow creep of the planetary shadow. Now the ship flew over the night side, and the only light was the dim light of the drive, dim at least when reflected from this height. And there was nothing to see at all.
Until now.
Something was rising on the eastern horizon, something a shade lighter than the black plain. An irregular line against the stars. Kzanol/Greenberg leaned forward as he began to realize just how big the range was, for it couldn"t be anything but a mountain range. "What"s that?" he wondered aloud.
"One hundredth diltun." Kzanol probed the pilot"s mind. The pilot said, "Cott"s Crescent. Frozen hydrogen piled up along the dawn side of the planet. As it rotates into daylight the hydrogen boils off and then refreezes on the night side. Eventually it rotates back to here."
"Oh. Thanks."
Evanescent mountains of hydrogen snow, smooth and low, like a tray of differently sized s...o...b..a.l.l.s dropped from a height. They rose gently before the slowing ship, rank behind rank, showing the tremendous breadth of the range. But they couldn"t show its length. Kzanol/Greenberg could see only that the mountains stretched half around the horizon; but he could imagine them marching from pole to pole around the curve of the world. As they must. As they did.
The ship was almost down, hovering motionless a few miles west of the beginning rise of the Crescent. A pillar of fire licked a mile down to touch the surface. Where it touched, the surface disappeared. A channel like the bed of a river followed below the ship, fading into the darkness beyond the reach of the light.
The ship rode with nose tilted high; the fusion flame reached slightly forward. Gently, gently, one mile up, the Golden Circle Golden Circle slowed and stopped. slowed and stopped.
Where the flame touched, the surface disappeared. A wide, shallow crater formed below the descending ship. It deepened rapidly. A ring of fog formed, soft and white and opaque, thickening in the cold and the dark, closing in on the ship. Then there was nothing but the lighted fog and the crater and the licking fusion fire.
This was the most alien place. He had been wasting his life searching out the inhabited worlds of the galaxy; for never had they given him such a flavor of strangehess as came from this icy world, colder than. . . . . than the bottom of Dante"s h.e.l.l. than the bottom of Dante"s h.e.l.l.
"We"ll be landing on the water ice layer," the pilot explained, just as if he"d been asked. He had. "The gas layers wouldn"t hold us. But first we have to dig down."
Had he he been searching for strangeness? Wasn"t that a Greenberg thought slipping into his conscious mind? Yes. This soul-satisfaction was the old Greenberg starl.u.s.t; he had searched for wealth, only wealth. been searching for strangeness? Wasn"t that a Greenberg thought slipping into his conscious mind? Yes. This soul-satisfaction was the old Greenberg starl.u.s.t; he had searched for wealth, only wealth.
The crater looked like an open pit mine now, with a sloping ring wall and then an almost flat rim and then another, deeper ring wall and Kzanol/Greenberg looked down, grinning and squinting against the glare, trying to guess which layer was which gas. They had been drilling through a very thick blanket of ice, hundreds or thousands of feet thick. Perhaps it was nitrogen? Then the next layer, appearing now, would be oxygen. The plain and the s.p.a.ce above it exploded in flame.
"She blows!" Lew crowed, like a felon reprieved. A towering, twisting pillar of yellow and blue flame roared straight up out of the telescope, out of the pale plain where there had been the small white star of the Golden Circle. Golden Circle. For a moment the star shone brightly through the flames. Then it was swamped, and the whole scope was fire. Lew dropped the magnification by a ten-factor to watch the fire spread. Then he had to drop it again. And again. For a moment the star shone brightly through the flames. Then it was swamped, and the whole scope was fire. Lew dropped the magnification by a ten-factor to watch the fire spread. Then he had to drop it again. And again.
Pluto was on fire. For billions of years a thick blanket of relatively inert nitrogen ice had protected the highly reactive layers below. Meteors, as scarce out here as sperm whales in a goldfish bowl, inevitably buried themselves in the nitrogen layer. There had been no combustion on Pluto since Kzanol"s s.p.a.ceship smashed down from the stars. But now hydrogen vapor mixed with oxygen vapor, and they burned. Other elements burned too.
The fire spread outward in a circle. A strong, hot wind blew out and up into vacuum, fanning great sheets of flame over the boiling ices until raw oxygen was exposed. Then the fire dug deeper. There were raw metals below the thin sheet of water ice; and it was thin, nonexistent in places, for it had all formed when the s.p.a.ceship struck, untold eons ago, when food yeast still ruled Earth. Sodium and calcium veins; even iron b.u.ms furiously in the presence of enough oxygen and enough heat. Or chlorine, or fluorine; both halogens were present, blowing off the top of Pluto"s frozen atmosphere, some burning with hydrogen in the first sheets of flame. Raise the temperature enough and even oxygen and nitrogen will unite.
Lew watched his screen in single-minded concentration. He thought of his future great-great-grandchildren and wondered how he could possibly make them see this as he saw it now. Old and leathery and hairless and sedentary, he would tell those children: "I saw a world burning when I was young. . . ." . . ." He would never see anything as strange. He would never see anything as strange.
Pluto was a black disc almost covering his scope screen, with a cold highlight near the sunward arm. In that disc the broad ring of fire had almost become a great circle, with one arc crawling over the edge of the world. When it contracted on the other side of the world there would be an explosion such as could only be imagined. But in the center the ring was darkening to black, its fuel nearly burned out.
The coldest spot within the ring was the point where the fire had started.