One conversation with my neighbor about sci-fi totally changed how I read the genre now

I ran into my neighbor Dave while I was out watering my front lawn last week. He's this older guy, retired engineer, always out tinkering with his old truck. I mentioned I was reading a new sci-fi book for my club and he said 'You know, most sci-fi writers today don't understand how actual technology fails.' Then he went into this whole thing about how real systems break in boring ways like gaskets wearing out or wires corroding, not dramatic explosions. I've been thinking about that nonstop. It made me realize so many books jump to the big crisis but skip the slow, realistic breakdown. Has anyone else had a random conversation that totally flipped your opinion on a whole genre?

2 comments

2 Comments

patricia_schmidt1429d ago

Read an interview with an old NASA engineer who said the same thing. He talked about how Apollo 13 was basically a series of small, boring failures that added up. Gaskets, insulation flakes, a wire shorting out. Made me realize most disaster movies skip the part where someone just didn't tighten a bolt right.

rileyp4929d ago

One time my dad fixed a helicopter engine with a paperclip.