Speaking of Arthur C. Clarke, another of his achievements was to live a long life without making a complete ass of himself. A goal we should all emulate, but one that’s eluded too many other SF writers.
For example! Take Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, who, having ceased putting any mental effort into their writing at least 25 years ago, now have the free time, in their dotage, to advise top government officials on national security issues … in their own inimitable way:
Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference. Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven [...]
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants. “The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said. *
[Emphasis mine.] Hmm; this plan wouldn’t by chance require a huge reprint run of a Spanish edition of The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, to be distributed free at taquerias, would it?
[Disclaimer: I used to love Niven’s books, reading and re-reading Ringworld with slack-jawed amazement. But that was when I was a kid, in that distant era we call “The Seventies”, before he devolved into the Rush Limbaugh of the spaceways. Speaking of which…]
The 45-minute panel discussion quickly deteriorated as federal, local and state homeland security officials, and at least one congressional aide, attempted to ask questions, which were largely ignored. Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space.
You have to read the whole thing! Jerry Pournelle goes out on a limb with some far-future speculation that — if portable tele-phone receivers with cameras in them became prevalent — people might use them to take photographs of illegal activities, eliminating the need for professional law enforcement officers! David Brin rants about militias and bangs his shoe on the table!
These people clearly have some brilliant ideas, and should be immediately whisked to an impregnable high-tech Undisclosed Location deep beneath the Rocky Mountains where they can work full time on the long-term project of transforming their thrilling inventions into reality, in time to save the world from terrorists, Communists, fluoridation and injured Mexicans. As a side effect, the quality of SF writing would leap upwards.
