Elements of science fiction…
Isaac Asimov made androids and robots famous long before the Star Wars movies did. He took some ideas from Capek’s seminal play and created sci-fi tales that revolutionized the genre, even inventing the three laws that they had to follow so people could get past their Frankenstein complex. (Mary Shelley’s monster was neither an android nor a robot, of course; today it might be called a golem or zombie.) As a tween reading Asimov’s stories (in the early days of the computer age), I often wondered how those three laws could be programmed. I still do.
But I digress. Androids and robots are only some of the elements of sci-fi. Asimov didn’t have ETs in his stories, just humans and mechanical men. (I can’t ever remember an android or robot with female characteristics in his stories, so that last is politically correct.) My sci-fi stories have both but probably more ETs (even some with matriarchal societies).
And sometimes all the fancy technical stuff, once explained, is assumed. Castilblanco talks about NYPD-issued PDAs but really means smart phones, considering the timeline of the stories in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series. The implant in a person’s head that allows a direct link to the internet first appears in Survivors of the Chaos, the first novel of the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection,” but it’s taken for granted in later books. And FTL travel, once discovered in Sing a Zamba Galactica, the second novel of that trilogy, is rarely mentioned again. All that tech is still there, of course, but I don’t want to bore or distract readers by mentioning them over and over.
Androids and robots appear more sporadically than ETs or futuristic tech in my stories. In my “Future History” timeline (Chen and Castilblanco start that, and it continues through many stories, all the way to the Dr. Carlos tales), some cultures have them, others don’t. There are cyborgs too (although I call them MECHs, but the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” don’t fall on that extended timeline), as well as clones and mutants (the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” is on that timeline). The ultimate distillation of all those programmable beings is the disembodied AIs that play multiple roles, some that HAL could never imagine even in his wildest dreams.
Sometimes I mix up things in new ways. In A. B. Carolan’s Mind Games (that takes place on that timeline too), I, rather he, asked, “Could an android or robot be given ESP or psi powers?” Asimov didn’t consider that, as far as I know. I don’t think any sci-fi author had ever asked that question before. I won’t give away the answer here—you’ll have to read the novel.
So…what’s my point? I think old Isaac could have had a lot more fun with androids and robots than he did, by adding ETs and other sci-fi elements to his stories. I’m not being critical. He was a pioneer, after all. But modern sci-fi authors can be like fancy bartenders, mixing and matching these elements as if they were inventing new cocktails. I’d like to think that Isaac wouldn’t constrain himself now; he’d be doing just that. Maybe he’d even be writing a few British-style mysteries too! He loved the mystery genre, even though he had very few sci-fi mysteries. (All of A. B. Carolan’s books can be considered sci-fi mysteries.)
Combining the mystery, thriller, and sci-fi genres with all their different elements is a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed doing that.
***
Comments are always welcome.
The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. This bargain bundle of three epic sci-fi novels should provide many hours of entertainment for any reader interested in sci-fi. Survivors of the Chaos starts in dystopia with multinational corporations dominating both the Earth and the solar system, maintaining order with their corporate militias. First contact occurs in Sing a Zamba Galactica as friendly ETs are discovered on the third planet colonized by human beings; a further contact with more ETs is not so lucky, and some collective intelligences out there in intergalactic near-Earth space just might blow your mind. Finally, if the first two novels represent my First and Second Foundations, Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! features my Mule, an autocratic psychopath who is out to control near-Earth space with psi armies. This bundle is a bargain you can find wherever quality ebooks are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
