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jackhttp://www.tor.com/stories/2013/02/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?
no subject
Date: 2014-07-10 03:56 pm (UTC)I agree, and I think people would learn, partly, to cope with awkward truths in place of white lies, and partly, when to deliberately extend and accept ambiguity by allowing hedged answers.
But it still seems like, everyone would prefer politicians who make SOME bold claims unhedged.
has this watery effect always existed, or has it come into existence only recently
Fairly recently, but not immediately. I got the impression of a couple of months to a couple of years. Enough that everyone knows how it works, but little enough that people have roughly the same instincts they do now -- we haven't had a whole generation grow up without knowing what a lie is.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-10 04:02 pm (UTC)I'm sure that, other things being equal, they would. But at what cost, if other things are not equal? It might very easily turn out that the kind of people who could hand-on-heart swear to all sorts of awesome-sounding manifesto promises and remain completely dry were strongly correlated to the kind of people who wouldn't be all that competent at putting it all into practice once in power, and/or who had overlooked some really important undesirable consequences of their idealistic promises. So after a while you'd learn to prefer politicians who made less outstanding claims and hedged a bit more, as the best balance between having good intentions and actually delivering what they intended...
no subject
Date: 2014-07-11 09:38 am (UTC)Something like "I may have to make compromises, but I genuinely care about getting what benefits I can for people in situation X." That's fine.
But I think many politicians have to promise things which they'd like to do if they had infinite money, but they know that they're pretty much going to have to renege on. If every party says "we'll cut taxes and raise spending and reduce the deficit" it ought to be obvious they're all lying, but it's useful to know which parts they're genuinely committed to..?