On Science Fiction
Can a science fiction mystery be fair?
Judge fair play in storytelling.
Can a science fiction mystery be fair to the reader? Campbell thought not: the writer might simply change the rules halfway through the story, inventing a new ray or machine to solve the crime.
Asimov parodies this with Sherlock Holmes suddenly explaining the crime by mysterious 'Q-rays'. He adds that even Holmes's expert knowledge of tobacco ash leans a little towards unfairness, since the reader could never know it.
Using real science is fair. But writers who know no science make bloopers: John Dickson Carr confused carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide; Dorothy Sayers made hormones act impossibly fast.
A science fiction mystery is harder to write, since the writer must know science and extend it rationally. But it is not impossible.
The writer must set out the limits of the imagined society clearly at the start, and show the reader every clue. Asimov's own detective novels of the 1950s, such as 'The Caves of Steel', prove it can be done. Fix the rules, show the clues.
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