kate_nepveu: Law and SF

Kate (

kate_nepveu) wrote,
@ 2006-01-03 21:21:00

Entry tags:

books, law, sff

Law and SF

Quite a while ago, Chad and I were talking and noted the apparent lack of law in science fiction. There's technothrillers, and military sf, and even some medical sf (though not much these days? I'm only interested in the subgenre insofar as the Sector General stories fall in it, so I don't keep track), but there doesn't seem to an equivalent to the legal thriller, Grisham and Turow and such. The only books I'm aware of are John G. Hemry's lawyer-in-spaaaace books (A Just Determination, Burden of Proof, Rule of Evidence), and even those appear to be as much military sf as anything. (I haven't read them; I'm not much interested in military sf. A couple of people have said good things about them, though.)

I'm not really wanting to read legal thrillers in sf settings, mind, for much the same reason that I don't like watching Law and Order—too much like work. But their absence struck me as possibly interesting. Any thoughts on why the legal thriller isn't found in sf settings? (Or fantasy ones, for that matter.)

Minor disclaimer: If interesting things are said, I may suggest this as a panel topic for Boskone.

(Post a new comment)

	thomasyan 2006-01-04 02:37 am UTC (link)
	Hm, I wonder if Frank Herbert's BuSab / Xorj McKie books count as having law. Certainly, The Dosadi Experiment has a trial that takes place over a number of chapters. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 02:38 am UTC (link)
	Courtroom dramas! I knew I was forgetting something. I've never heard of those, so I can't really comment. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dsgood 2006-01-04 02:38 am UTC (link)
	Try Jerry Pournelle's High Justice, Barry Longyear's Kill All the Lawyers and Keep the Law, Virginia Kidd's "Kangaroo Court". Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel has our species put on trial. Fantasy: Mary Gentle's Rats and Gargoyles begins with the execution of a pig. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 02:40 am UTC (link)
	What are the Pournelle and Longyears about, or rather what's their form? It's less the presence of legal stuff than the form of the legal thriller or courtroom drama that I was trying to get at--since obviously fantasy in particularly has a tendency toward inheritance disputes and such. (Reply to this) (Parent)

mmcirvin
2006-01-04 03:21 am UTC (link)

"Human species placed on trial by the Galactic Elders" became something of a cliche for a while, especially in Twilight Zone-ish TV SF and short fiction.

It's usually with some hapless abducted person standing as a proxy for the species. Stanislaw Lem once wrote an Ijon Tichy story with that premise, in which humanity's public defender managed to redirect blame to the irresponsible parties who created life on Earth by littering.

The various Star Trek shows also had an occasional fondness for courtroom dramas. I think they're relatively cheap to produce.

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hhw, 2006-01-04 03:27 am UTC (Expand)

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corruptedjasper, 2006-01-06 11:50 am UTC (Expand)

leighdb
2006-01-04 02:44 am UTC (link)

This isn't a book, but a while back there was a pilot being shopped around to the networks that was for a series that was, basically, L.A. Law in the future.

The hook was supposed to be (I don't remember the details, unfortunately)that as technology gets more advanced, it will create (well, already has created) some truly crazy legal tangles, and the legal system will eventually create some pretty crazy technology of its own in order to deal with it.

It didn't get picked up. Make of that what you will.

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	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 02:48 am UTC (link)
	I vaguely remember reading about that, possibly during the time when we had that free subscription to _Entertainment Weekly_. Possibly the market has finally hit saturation on legal dramas? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	megastoat 2006-01-04 03:44 am UTC (link)
	Sounds like Century City, which only lasted 4 episodes back in 2004. It tried to focus on the legal ramifications of scientific progress (like cloning, and bionic body parts for athletes), but sadly the show was pretty awful. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

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leighdb, 2006-01-04 06:29 pm UTC (Expand)

theweaselking
2006-01-04 02:46 am UTC (link)

Well, the point of a legal thriller is being constrained by the rules of the court and putting yourself into one or more of the positions of the cahracters involved.

It's a tad harder to do that when the law really is completely made up and any important rules of procedure or methods of gatehring evidence can simply be invented.

That being said, I've seen a few courtroom dramas done as part of a longer series, but they're usually a culmination of a longer story, not a story in and of themselves.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

kate_nepveu
2006-01-04 02:53 am UTC (link)

Hmmm, my recollection of _The Firm_ and _The Pelican Brief_ was that they were more conspiracy-theory type stories than, say, _Presumed Innocent_ (which is a courtroom drama, and so I didn't forget them after all, hah). Also, my impression was that most readers rely on the author's exposition of the legal system in reading legal thrillers/courtroom dramas, so the constraints are somewhat artifical anyway.

Maybe people just don't want to go to the trouble of making up a legal system. Which is certainly understandable.

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theweaselking, 2006-01-04 03:26 am UTC (Expand)

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:29 pm UTC (Expand)

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corruptedjasper, 2006-01-06 11:53 am UTC (Expand)

	montoya 2006-01-04 02:46 am UTC (link)
	There's that stupid Rob Sawyer OJ Simpson book. Not the most auspicious example of legal SF. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 02:48 am UTC (link)
	Um, what? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

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montoya, 2006-01-04 02:59 am UTC (Expand)

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:32 pm UTC (Expand)

	mmcirvin 2006-01-04 03:10 am UTC (link)
	I never read it, but apparently Lisa Mason's Arachne was a lawyers-of-the-future novel. (Reply to this)

hhw
2006-01-04 03:13 am UTC (link)

There was a Farscape episode that featured a planet where almost everyone was a lawyer.

There's a good chunk of constitution-building and other political/legal discourse in KSR's Mars books, and more political intrigue in his current series (I don't know if it has a series title), Forty Signs of Rain and Fifty Degrees Below, which are primarily set in Washington, DC.

I keep thinking I've read at least one fantasy series that had a plot point about what kinds of magic were allowed by law, but I can't come up with any specifics.

not really what you're talking about, but there's a subgenre of feminist distopias based on the legal status of women (Handmaid's Tale and the Native Tongue trilogy, for example).

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	corruptedjasper 2006-01-06 11:54 am UTC (link)
	Fire is banned!, by any chance? (Reply to this) (Parent)

ellarien
2006-01-04 03:17 am UTC (link)

I seem to remember that you've read and disliked Diane Duane's Stealing the Elf-King's Roses. There's also the forensic fencing in the first volume of K. J. Parker's Fencer trilogy, Colours in the Steel.

On the SF side, the only thing that comes to mind is Kristine Smith's series, starting with Code of Conduct, where the protagonist deals with 'paper' that seems to serve a legal function. They're good books, too.

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	kgbooklog 2006-01-04 03:38 am UTC (link)
	Kristine Smith's series While the legal stuff is important, we never see the inside of a courtroom. But they're still enjoyable. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:33 pm UTC (Expand)

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:34 pm UTC (Expand)

stakebait
2006-01-04 03:39 am UTC (link)

Interesting question!

I have no answer, just nattering. A legal thriller, like a sports movie, strikes me as a having something in common with comedy and/or fantasy of manners, which is to say, the immoveable structure, only instead of the implicit code of How Things Are Done, the code/rules one must work within, and which create conflict/tragedy/farce, are explicit -- the law. Existing law already has that gravitas. Fantastic law would require you to create a different legal code, explain why it's different, and still have readers care enough to want to catch the lawbreakers. (I say it needs to be different because otherwise it's not a very SFnal or fantastic legal thriller so much as a regular one with SFnal trappings. Which could be good too, but is IMO less interesting/ambitious.)

I don't think it couldn't be done, but I can see why it would add steps.

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montoya
2006-01-04 04:16 am UTC (link)

In principle, it's totally workable, though. Just like the Gadget Story takes existing science, adds one exception, then explores the consequences, the SF Legal Story could take existing law, add an exception, and explore the consequences.

Probably more physicists than lawyers in the SF reading and writing world, despite the balance in Kate's household, though.

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:37 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2006-01-06 04:29 pm UTC (Expand)

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:36 pm UTC (Expand)

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kgbooklog, 2006-01-04 10:21 pm UTC (Expand)

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stakebait, 2006-01-05 12:26 am UTC (Expand)

merlinpole
2006-01-04 05:47 am UTC (link)

I think that at least one Charles Harness sf novel or story deal with legal stuff. There was that Ethical Absolutes story in one of the Groff Conklin anthologies long long ago. One of Simak's novels I think had a lawyer as protagonist, wherein the protagonist would up practicing law for different species....

Don't forget Judge Dredd [running!!!]...

Hmm, I am getting some -very- vague memories now of a book or series by a female author about a judge in space or some such? about 15 years ago or so, and not remembering much else... author first name beginning with an M.. Melinda? Melissa? Melissa Snodgras, maybe?

There are novels in both fantasy and fiction that have law enforcement personnel as protagonists--the Hawk and Fisher novels by Simon Green (though not what turns about to be the first book about the pair of characters, who are quite different in that book and have different names, than in the Hawk and Fisher novels), Dragon Precinct by Keith DeCandido, the Points of... books by Lisa Barnett and Melissa Scott.

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orangemike
2006-01-04 06:59 pm UTC (link)

Melinda M. Snodgrass did a series of "circuit court judge with jurisdiction over space colonists" novels, with a side of Moon Is A Harsh Mistress thrown in as the series developed. I recall that they had a blatant, indeed obnoxious, libertarian propagandistic tinge to them; "the high frontier of justice where free men live by their own rules" says one eBay listing. The first one was nominated for the Prometheus Award. (According to the reviews, they're incredibly weak on sciences.)

Circuit Berkley, 1986
Circuit Breaker Berkley, 1987
Final Circuit Ace, 1988

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kate_nepveu, 2006-01-04 07:40 pm UTC (Expand)

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merlinpole, 2006-01-04 11:08 pm UTC (Expand)

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merlinpole, 2006-01-05 06:25 am UTC (Expand)

ex_ajhalluk585
2006-01-04 08:47 am UTC (link)

I think it's one of those things like why there are comparatively few sf detective stories. The difficulty is how do you create the right "enclosed" set out (classic detective stories are very enclosed, and so of course are coutrroom dramas) when by the nature of things sf is an "opening up" sort of genre. If, in each case, the reader can't rely on a defined body of that which he or she already knows to be true (or at least, constant for the purposes of the story) the interest is dissipated. For example, when I was acting as Judge in the trial of Snape at Accio one of the key difficulties was how we defined wizarding law. There is a strong inference in the book that if Snape kills Dumbledore at all (that is, if his AK spell really constitutes a novus actus interveniens and Dumbledore is not already dead or practically beyond mortal aid when it hits) then he does so at Dumbledore's instigation by prior arrangement. But does that make it assisted suicide or euthanasia (b oth illegal under English muggle law, but query their status under Wizarding law) or ruse de guerre (allowing Snape to maintain his cover and withdraw the assault troop without causing additional damage) which may or may not be legal under muggle law because it would depend on the conflict concerned being recognised by that law.

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kate_nepveu
2006-01-04 07:47 pm UTC (link)

Did you post anywhere, or is there an account available, about the Accio trial? Sounds fascinating.

The shape-of-story idea is interesting--I'm biased towards thinking of legal systems as just part of the worldbuilding, with examples like Bujold as you mention below, and with that kind of approach, well why not have that particular part of the worldbuilding be your focus? Especially when you can do puzzles and conspiracies and thrilling reversals and whatnot.

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ex_ajhalluk585, 2006-01-04 10:34 pm UTC (Expand)

khavrinen
2006-01-04 08:55 am UTC (link)

One that I thought was excellent ( standard YMMV disclaimer ) was Roger MacBride Allen's The Modular Man. It's about a roboticist who, after a car accident which leaves him in severe, chronic pain, "downloads" himself into his robotic vacuum cleaner ( sounds like it has comedic potential, but it's actually quite serious ). Because the "read" process destroys the brain, he has to set himself up on life support before he begins, and have the resultant robot/his "new self" pull the plug when it is done. For this act, the vacuum cleaner is then put on trial for murder by a certain political faction who expects his/its lawyer to simply seek to have the case dismissed based on the fact that a vacuum cleaner isn't a person, which they can then use as precedent for restricting the rights of people with prosthetics. ( It's more complicated than that, but it's been four or five years since I read it -- "So many books, so little time!" ) His wife, who is a lawyer, and was also severely disabled in the same accident, ends up having to block this precedent in her "defense" argument, by proving that the vacuum cleaner is responsible, though it should not be termed murder. I found it surprisingly touching for a courtroom drama, and it addressed a lot of interesting philosophical questions.

I agree with

montoya, one reason for the shortage of SF/legal stories may be that the SF demographic does tend to skew more toward physicists than lawyers. Despite SF's focus on the future, however, I suspect that another major reason that plots hinge more on technical innovations than legal ones is merely tradition; "it's just the way we do things 'round here." You're more than welcome to push the envelope, though, if you happen to feel inspired.

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	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 07:42 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks, but I know where my talents don't lie, and writing fiction falls firmly in that category! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ex_ajhalluk585 2006-01-04 11:33 am UTC (link)
	I forgot to mention that a number of Bujold's books have questions of family law - the legal status of a clone, for example - or of private rights (the legal system of Jackson's Whole) at the heart of them. (Reply to this) (Thread)

adrian_turtle
2006-01-04 10:14 pm UTC (link)

Most of the Bujold books are legal stories, I think. Miles is either a defendant, a detective, or some kind of special prosecutor, in most of the books where he appears. (Except _Barryar_, obviously.) Comparing the frame story of _Borders of Infinity_ with _The Reverse of the Medal_, it looks like a very similar legal story...but the legal part of the story fades so deep into the background nobody notices it. I don't think this is just because it's only a thin frame to justify putting 3 novellas between 2 covers. Nobody notices any of Barrayar's legalistic structure! It's more important to have political drama, or military drama, or social-history drama, because that's why Bujold is telling stories set on Barrayer in the first place.

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dlganger
2006-01-04 06:25 pm UTC (link)

The Hemry books are much less military sf than they are legal dramas. Hemry could easily have set them on a modern Navy vessel without sacrificing any of the story or character development whatsoever. Each book has one Captain's Mast and one court-martial in detail, so they're even somewhat formulaic. Happily it's a well-executed formula -- the Mast scene in _Rule of Evidence_ is extremely funny.

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	kate_nepveu 2006-01-04 07:51 pm UTC (link)
	Hemry could easily have set them on a modern Navy vessel without sacrificing any of the story or character development whatsoever. Hmmm, that makes me twitch slightly, honestly. But they weren't very high on my list to begin with. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	leighdb 2006-01-04 06:36 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, and: though this hardly counts, since I was thinking television instead of books, this whole thread reminded me that to this day, "Measure of a Man" (the one where they put Data on trial) is one of my favorite episodes of ST:TNG ever. (Reply to this)

	mikeda 2006-01-05 12:05 am UTC (link)
	Joseph H Delaney (not to be confused with Joseph Delaney) wrote a number of stories in which legal matters played an important (and sometimes central role). Here's his listing on isfdb. I haven't read anything of his past the mid 80's. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ch.cgi?Joseph_H._Delaney (Reply to this) (Thread)

khavrinen
2006-01-12 11:03 pm UTC (link)

You beat me to it. I came back to add another comment to this post because I just picked up the March issue of Analog, and Joseph H. Delaney is mentioned in the opening editorial, as having written that sort of SF. The fact that you "haven't read anything of his past the mid '80s" may be attributable to the fact that "he is no longer with us," although the editorial doesn't mention when he died.

I don't specifically remember reading any of his stories, but I'm afraid I tend to be pretty forgetful about author's names unless a story really makes an impression on me. In fact I picked up this issue because it features a novelette by Grey Rollins, who is one of those who has made such an impression, although this turned out not to be one of his best, IMO.

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	fitzcamel 2006-01-07 07:30 pm UTC (link)
	What about something like Melissa Scott's _The Kindly Ones_, where the plot turns at least in part on the legal status of a particular societal minority? (Reply to this)

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