I think we’re making too much of the concept of “rationalist fanfiction” altogether. A typical fan of MoR would presumably be interested in fiction delivering rationality-related ideas or emotional states; that might constitute (or at least overlap with) a genre, but it certainly doesn’t imply derivative work. Neither is the bare fact of setting a work in another writer’s world necessarily a genre label; about all you can reliably conclude from that is that the author wants to comment on the original’s themes, or to explore implications the original author didn’t. Fantasy stories are notoriously ripe with questionable implications, so we could expect the fanfic approach to produce some interesting-to-LW fruit, but it hardly seems like it should be promoted to a defining characteristic.
So, what does unify the set of stories we’re talking about? Seems to me that it’s their themes: empiricism, respect for the scientific method (as opposed to the trappings of science, Michael Crichton-style), and a belief in focused introspection. The use of an existing setting serves to play up the contrast between those themes and the assumptions of conventional genre literature, but it’s not necessary, and the themes could work just as well without it.
Observation seems to bear this out; MoR shares a lot more, structurally and thematically, with The Cambrist and Lord Iron, or with Eliezer’s earlier Sword of Good (both original works), than it does with, say, Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past. If we’re actually looking at a nascent genre here, it’s a subset of revisionist fantasy (other exemplars: Gaiman’s Problem of Susan; Mieville’s Bas-Lag books), not of fanfiction-as-genre—although I’m pretty sure fanfic-as-genre is a lot smaller than it’s usually given credit for, anyway.
(Granted, there might be a minority of potential readers who look at MoR or Luminosity’s fanfiction.net address and immediately fixate on that as definitive, but that’s not a rational response and I really doubt it’s something we want to emphasize.)
So, what does unify the set of stories we’re talking about? Seems to me that it’s their themes: empiricism, respect for the scientific method (as opposed to the trappings of science, Michael Crichton-style), and a belief in focused introspection. The use of an existing setting serves to play up the contrast between those themes and the assumptions of conventional genre literature, but it’s not necessary, and the themes could work just as well without it.
But a thing I think unifies much of it (given that my four closest friends are both rationalists and deveoping authors) is what I like to call “Teapot Smashing”:
Teapot Smasing: Activity. Using what you know to get what you want, with expreme prejudice. Comes from the proverb “Any fictional system of physics can be broken like a teapot.”
In most of Rationalist fiction, the recurring Ultimate Motivations of the characters is almost exclusively Anti-Deathism and Fun For Everyone. Thus many of the themes involve gaming estabilshed setting rules to enter a feedback loop leading to godhood.
The reason why Fanfic is popular here is that it spares you inventing your own universe to game.
Actually, that might point to a feature that is almost unique to fanfic: protagonists can’t deploy the full range of strong munchkin tactics in an original universe without coming off like they’ve benefited from a deus ex machina, but they can do that in a preestablished universe. Some munchkinry is legal either way, but there are strict limits: you can almost always get away with social, economic, or introspective hacks, for example, because you didn’t invent the rules for those. But you can’t abuse laws of magic or xenobiology or exotic physics that you invented yourself without threatening suspension of disbelief.
I don’t think that works well as a defining feature of rational!fic, though. Almost everything that Bella does in Luminosity would work just as well in a universe where she was, say, a were-badger; the specifics of the setting’s inventions don’t matter too much.
It’s also not strictly limited to fanfiction as such: genre conventions can generate a sort of implied metaphysics that you can then abuse. The Sword of Good works that way, and some of the Discworld books dabble in it too.
I think we’re making too much of the concept of “rationalist fanfiction” altogether. A typical fan of MoR would presumably be interested in fiction delivering rationality-related ideas or emotional states; that might constitute (or at least overlap with) a genre, but it certainly doesn’t imply derivative work. Neither is the bare fact of setting a work in another writer’s world necessarily a genre label; about all you can reliably conclude from that is that the author wants to comment on the original’s themes, or to explore implications the original author didn’t. Fantasy stories are notoriously ripe with questionable implications, so we could expect the fanfic approach to produce some interesting-to-LW fruit, but it hardly seems like it should be promoted to a defining characteristic.
So, what does unify the set of stories we’re talking about? Seems to me that it’s their themes: empiricism, respect for the scientific method (as opposed to the trappings of science, Michael Crichton-style), and a belief in focused introspection. The use of an existing setting serves to play up the contrast between those themes and the assumptions of conventional genre literature, but it’s not necessary, and the themes could work just as well without it.
Observation seems to bear this out; MoR shares a lot more, structurally and thematically, with The Cambrist and Lord Iron, or with Eliezer’s earlier Sword of Good (both original works), than it does with, say, Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past. If we’re actually looking at a nascent genre here, it’s a subset of revisionist fantasy (other exemplars: Gaiman’s Problem of Susan; Mieville’s Bas-Lag books), not of fanfiction-as-genre—although I’m pretty sure fanfic-as-genre is a lot smaller than it’s usually given credit for, anyway.
(Granted, there might be a minority of potential readers who look at MoR or Luminosity’s fanfiction.net address and immediately fixate on that as definitive, but that’s not a rational response and I really doubt it’s something we want to emphasize.)
I think you are right on with:
But a thing I think unifies much of it (given that my four closest friends are both rationalists and deveoping authors) is what I like to call “Teapot Smashing”:
Teapot Smasing: Activity. Using what you know to get what you want, with expreme prejudice. Comes from the proverb “Any fictional system of physics can be broken like a teapot.”
In most of Rationalist fiction, the recurring Ultimate Motivations of the characters is almost exclusively Anti-Deathism and Fun For Everyone. Thus many of the themes involve gaming estabilshed setting rules to enter a feedback loop leading to godhood.
The reason why Fanfic is popular here is that it spares you inventing your own universe to game.
Actually, that might point to a feature that is almost unique to fanfic: protagonists can’t deploy the full range of strong munchkin tactics in an original universe without coming off like they’ve benefited from a deus ex machina, but they can do that in a preestablished universe. Some munchkinry is legal either way, but there are strict limits: you can almost always get away with social, economic, or introspective hacks, for example, because you didn’t invent the rules for those. But you can’t abuse laws of magic or xenobiology or exotic physics that you invented yourself without threatening suspension of disbelief.
I don’t think that works well as a defining feature of rational!fic, though. Almost everything that Bella does in Luminosity would work just as well in a universe where she was, say, a were-badger; the specifics of the setting’s inventions don’t matter too much.
It’s also not strictly limited to fanfiction as such: genre conventions can generate a sort of implied metaphysics that you can then abuse. The Sword of Good works that way, and some of the Discworld books dabble in it too.
Spot on. Good observation.