Science fiction is a tricky animal. If an author writes "high" sci-fi, he will utilize technologies and materials that are far flung and imaginative, so far outside the scope of our world that we find it to be more of a fantasy world than one grounded in our universe. It's something we can aspire to, for sure, but not something that we will ever see in our lifetimes. Star Trek is a great example of this, where we see amazing starships and warp drive, phasers and terraforming, and we accept it all as possible, but not probable. The concepts are very high minded, the technology just a tool for fantastic storytelling, whipping the crew of the Enterprise (whichever your flavor) from fantastic planet to remote space station, all in the blink of an eye. It's a future that gleams brightly, all polished, perfect, and prim, of high morals and the conundrums that follow. This type of science fiction, however, seems to have fallen out of favor, the Star Trek films being repackaged into action flicks, with flawed characters and shiny graphics, the better to ship the franchise overseas and make more money. The future was so far out there that many people stopped chasing it, the horizon forever distant, never approachable.
The flip side of the coin is "low" science fiction, where cyberpunk dwells. The "high tech and low life," where advancements in science and engineering are integral to the story, driving forward the plot and melding with characters, forming people like Johnny Mnemonic or Molly Millions (Gibson is fantastic at finding ways to blend characters with their devices so that the two become one element in the story). The tech here is one step ahead of the bleeding edge concepts that are only now being explored in reality, just that tiny bit ahead, the "what if?" of emerging trends and developments. It's urgent and harsh and risky, and it comes with a grit and darkness that makes the worlds portrayed glamorous in their danger, a certain sexiness in the risqué, the kind of universe where readers can directly insert themselves and convince their own minds that they would be able to survive in such a hostile environment. There is a certain pleasure in the mental exercise of putting oneself in an adverse condition, this being in part the reason why the zombie crazy caught on so fiercely. The problem with low sci-fi, though, is how far out do you go? Anyone who has played the Cyberpunk RPG knows that much of the tech, considered futuristic in the '80s, is now laughably antiquated. Personally I love '80s stylings, and find enjoyment playing in that universe, but in many cases I have no choice but to upgrade the "cellular mini-phone" into a flexible screen smart phone with a hex-core processor, because who wants to play a technology based game that was hip in 1989? Aside from me, of course.
I feel it's always been a challenge to find the right balance, placing the slider of advancement where it should be so that the technology in the novel is relatable, but won't be displaced quickly, nor will it turn out to be wildly inaccurate and far flung. Writing a greater amount of technology focused sci-fi, I've discovered myself spending more time researching emerging technologies, dedicating precious hours to reading IEEE articles and following tech blogs, looking for the next bit thing that I can adapt and morph, establishing a new baseline atop which new technologies in my universe can sprout from. As the march of technological progress accelerates, drawing closer to an all out sprint, we have to consider where we are and where we are going, whether things will change or slow down, whether we will leap ahead to the oft mentioned "singularity" of human evolution. I have a bit of a luxury in my first book, whereby a terrorist attack causes an EMP blast to knock out most of the United States, turning back the clock on technology and making the novel resist attempts to sound dated. My third book, "The Long Night," however, takes place just before the attack, and will be a much larger challenge in writing from a technological perspective. I've been drooling at the prospect, wanting to sink my teeth into that fringe between high- and low-tech, but there's a long path to travel down before I get there.
Overall I find the discussion stimulating, with everyone taking wild guesses as to the future of our species. When it comes to sci-fi it seems the question has become less "what if? and more "when?" The questions I ask other authors is as I titled this entry: can you keep up? There are many ways to go wrong, but I think it's stimulating getting there.
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