May 9, 2013
Unlikely Events
This is the column where I predict how American democracy ends.
No, no, it's just a silly thought experiment! I'm not serious about this! Nobody can predict the
future! It's just a game. The game of Unlikely Events.
It isn't my work as a writer of science fiction and fantasy that prepares me to write about
unlikely events. My job in writing sci-fi is to make impossible events seem not just possible but
likely. Inevitable.
That's because the reader enters a work of fiction knowing that it didn't happen. So the writer's
made-up characters and events must seem truthful. We must pass the plausibility test.
History, now -- we expect history to be true, and therefore, instead of plausibility, we depend on
evidence. While many participants in real events might be working as hard as possible to
conceal the truth, the historian must ferret out whatever documents and testimony can lead us to
discover what actually happened.
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