Geofiction
Wednesday November 19, 2008
Jessica Ball, better known online as Tuff Cookie, reviewed some geology-oriented fiction the other day on her Magma Cum Laude blog including Jules Verne's ur-classic Voyage au centre de le Terre—I use the French because she favors the original for its nuances so often lost in translation. She has high praise for Tamora Pierce's new Melting Stones, a fantasy about how a woman whose magical abilities arise from the rocks has to deal with an upset volcano. She especially liked "the way Tamora Pierce describes the forces at work within a volcano as if they were sentient beings." The author herself pops up in the comments, grateful that the geo-geeks among us gave her a passing grade. Not that we ever test fiction authors . . . no we don't. It's character and plot and beautiful sentences that make us shudder with pleasure, not whether they call a schist a gneiss.
I don't have a lot of experience with geology-spiced fiction—there seems to be a fair share of fiction in the scientific literature! But I did very much enjoy the Em Hansen mystery Earth Colors. And who could forget the incomparable Sherlock Holmes, patron saint of forensic geologists?
Comments
I watched and enjoyed the new Journey to the Center of the Earth last weekend with my boys and had to laugh at everything that was geologically (or scientifically in general) WRONG with it. It was fun hearing the main character say geo words like “feldspar”, “schist”, and “muscovite” and to hear him talk about plate tectonics and geysers. But I found so much to criticize (not aloud, of course). Science fiction is always fun to watch or read as long as I don’t expect a whole lot.