Hanging Around on Quora
Recently, I spent some time answering questions on Quora. I was curious about how it worked, what sort of questions got asked, how people were asked the questions and more.
I found that the most distracting thing for me was that people would hunt down those with ratings in certain categories and then send them random questions. It meant I would get sent questions I would have no time to answer like What are you favorite Science Fiction books of all time?
I messed about with the settings, attempting to get the system to deliver questions that didn’t already have an answer easily discoverable via Google, before giving up.
Fun, if you have plenty of time and just want to answer basic questions like a primary school teacher. Otherwise, it can rob you of your writing time. Best taken in small doses. So, I’m just going to visit once a week. (Hmm, says the voice in my head, I’ve heard that before.)
So, here are some answers I posted on Quora.
What sound does an alien make?
If the universe is teeming with life, then any vibration imaginable on any wavelength is possible. Just look at how all the life in our world communicates. Plants communicate through electrical signals, releasing scents, and some even move to signal others nearby. Bacteria communicates with chemical signal molecules. Fish mainly use body language. Ants communicate with pheromones. The possibilities are endless, though I believe most advanced aliens would be communicating telepathically.
If you’re wanting to work out how a grey alien might sound if they attempt to speak, think about how much sound and flexibility that tiny mouth and jaw could make. I doubt even a tongue could fit in there, so it’s unlikely you’ll get more than a few bleats or basic words. Probably no English words containing ‘th’ or ‘l’ sounds.
What happened to three body dot net?
An archive of http://3body.net from 2015 can be found at Archive dot org: the most best selling science fiction in China
According to Whois, the site is still owned by HiChina Zhicheng Technology Ltd Registry Expiry Date: 2020-11-12T06:07:07Z which also owns 3body.com,
I guess they kept it to promote the movie in English on it, but since the movie has been postponed indefinitely, so has everything else.
Do the writers represent themselves in their story or they create an imaginary character of imaginary personality?
One of my goals is to write convincing non-anthropomorphic characters, and I need to figure out how they think and communicate first, before creating scenarios for them.
For that I usually have to also create the worlds they come from and their backstory, and work out their customs, how they move, even how slowly or quickly they react, depending on the gravity they grew up in (if they did, in fact, grow.) An alien that uses its mouth a lot would probably have things in it when it is speaking. An alien with two brains and twelve eyes would be processing many more things at the same time, while it is working on a singular reply to another alien. Getting those thought processes as alien as possible is crucial to a believable alien character. So, in that sense, most of my characters are completely imaginary.
However, after creating a character from scratch, eventually that character is going to have to have a conversation with another character to move the story forward. And unless I’m wanting to alienate all my readers, I’m going to have to use some of my own human 21st century personality to be able to communicate their conversation in standard English.
Why is English (language) described as “primitive” in sci-fi movies?
It’s mainly a trope to describe anything humanity-based as primitive in SF. Language, culture, customs, religions etc. All are primitive in comparison to a more advanced alien race.
Of course, from another perspective, why aren’t we all using telepathy (or telempathy) yet? This would be the natural progression of any species. In that sense, using any part of your physical body to communicate is primitive.
If you want to know specifically why English might be considered primitive, check out the movie Arrival. English is trapped in a linear progression and can’t override the timeline it’s expressed in.
Hope this helps.
Professor Orson Scott Card kindly commented on my post, and you can read it here.
My reply was: True! Unless the story is written by a linguist who uses the concept of aliens thinking English is primitive to prove to them that it is not. I personally doubt any alien race we meet will have a disparaging or condescending tone about human languages. I’m sure they’ll all be so far advanced that they’ll love everything about us, and be fascinated by the way we’ve evolved this complicated method of communication.
Is a life form in gaseous state possible?
Videos of lower Earth orbit astronauts encountering weird white blobs or globes floating near them, and an upper atmosphere experiment that brought back a flattened version of one of them, seems to suggest we have gaseous state biological organisms, with a thin bacteriological film holding them together, floating in Earth’s atmosphere.
On a more esoteric note, it is believed by some religions that everything is conscious – levels of visible awareness being identified through physical conduits capable of projecting the consciousness in an interactive form.
So, while a knife and fork could be conscious, they have no way of expressing it, whereas, a gas could potentially shape itself into a communicative form. And with the plethora of strange sea creatures still being discovered, I would suggest that no matter what form you can imagine, it’s probably a life form to some degree.
How does modern Chinese science fiction compare with the recent English science fiction?
At the risk of using a standard cliche, ‘this is a difficult question to answer.’ You’re basically looking for someone who has recently, and extensively, read Chinese and English science fiction stories. That suggests they need to be bilingual. Unfortunately, I have only read Chinese science fiction in English so I would assume a lot is lost in translation.
Having said that, The Three Body Problem is an amazing piece of work, but I doubt it is representative of Chinese science fiction writing. (It won where others did not.) I would hazard a guess that Cixin Liu won the Hugo for his impressive science, and emotive history, as well as his engaging storytelling. Other science fiction stories from Chinese writers that I have encountered seem to be bogged down in fantasy, or human stories with just a futuristic background. To me, science fiction must feature a high tech or hard science element, with limited emotional or romantic connection between the characters, and at least one alien protagonist or antagonist. Sadly, this is not that common in science fiction these days.
Unfortunately, this means Chinese science fiction has a lot of similarities with English science fiction of present. Science fiction and fantasy mixed together, no real research done to confirm legitimate science, and no detailed, well-defined aliens. I’m eager to stand corrected, and would love to read a story by a Chinese author who has written detailed alien life and worlds with as much, if not more science than The Three Bodies problem, so please list some stories in the comments.
I haven’t found any other high tech SF from China yet, but I’m sure this will change. Even so, in this day and age, we’re going through the painful period of romantic human fantasy stories disguised as science fiction. The whole world is guilty of this thanks to publishers realizing that’s what sells in that genre. I look forward to more non-anthropomorphic aliens not having romantic relationships with human starship crews in the near future, and look to China and their teams of translators to release these kinds of stories for future generations.
Why is science fiction so popular?
Sadly, it’s not true. Science Fiction is ranked as the lowest selling genre on Amazon. Publishers consider it to be the most expensive genre to produce (highest page count for lowest profit) TV channels, live streaming organisations and local community productions know it costs a huge amount of money to make, with limited advertising opportunities. (Sponsorship is available for products similar to the show that is being screened. When it comes to science fiction, what are you going to sell?)
And, yet, there are still small groups of people around the world that love the stuff, which is why, considering all these ‘facts’ I still write it.
So, yes, it is popular in certain small areas. But in comparison to the interests of over 7 billion people, it is quite a tiny area of passion. Perhaps your question would be best put as ‘Why is Science Fiction so loved?’ In which case, I will direct you to the answers of other Quorans.