Whence Quantum Fiction?
For twenty years I have been writing strange, inexplicable stories. I have emulated a long-dead short story writer called R.A. Lafferty. Of him it has been said:
“Lafferty’s writing, it must be said, does have a kind of mad-drunk clarity to it. This is not to say he wrote under the influence; apparently he never did. But there’s a moment before incapacitation, but after considerable consumption, where a drinker’s thoughts seem to sharpen, heighten, and laser in, and that’s the state Lafferty sustains, somewhat impossibly, in his prose.” (1)
My early fascination with Lafferty was inherited from my father, and, by extension, Damon Knight, who championed his work. My father found his work “disturbing but thoughtful,” but for me, there was something more: Lafferty touched on something impossible: He expressed the inexpressible. This is something I have long since tried to achieve in my short stories, but (IMHO) I fell short of expectations.
At about the same time that Lafferty was in his heyday, there were short stories in Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction labeled “New Wave Science Fiction.” (J.G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock were early supporters of this style.) I can remember my father saying, “These are stupid stories; stories where nothing happens.” Now, I can recognize why he said that: He was politically conservative, so he could not appreciate the sensitivities of this new writing to broad social issues of the 1960s, such as protests against the war in Vietnam. At the time, all he saw were these stories (almost all short stories; it was difficult to sustain the style in a book-length project), which were almost devoid of characters, dialogue, plot, setting, and development in a traditional sense. As he said, “stories where nothing happens.”
Science Fiction Envisioning
In the early 1970s there were public announcements (in Analog, as I recall) regarding such frightening but interesting things as the Big Bang, black holes, quarks, and quasars. These new cosmological marvels ignited the public’s imagination, and writers responded, even though these things had been imagined in science fiction since the 1930s. By the time Star Wars was released, each of these had entered mainstream science fiction, and fans had a good understanding of each of these theoretical objects.
This “sciencey-fiction” did a great service towards “expressing the (heretofore) inexpressible. Now, 50 years into the project, science still can’t describe exactly what occurs inside a black hole, and it may stumble in describing the precise mechanism of the first few nanoseconds of cosmic inflation, but every 13-year-old has a clear vision of what these things are, thanks to films and books.
This was not always the case, and partly because the underlying theories and mathematics which support these theoretical cosmological phenomena flew in the face of traditional, established physics, and partly because the theories could not be proven by scientific methods (until the Eclipse of 1919; the subject of an entire essay if I included it here), few people understood or accepted Einstein’s Theory of Relativity when it was first introduced. (At one time, it is said, less than three people had read and understood Einstein’s book – 2.) The triumph of Einstein (in 1919) no doubt contributed to the newly-discovered cosmology we saw seep into science fiction of the 1930s, and development of the Standard Model and contributions by Stephen Hawking fueled its resurgence in the 1970s.
String Theory
Various models were proposed in an attempt to “unify” physics into a “grand theory” which reconciled Relativity with quantum physics. Quantum physics was not new. It had been developing all through the 20th century after Einstein’s discovery of the “photoelectric effect” (in 1905). Experiments showed that electrons (and photons) tended to be generated as discrete packets of energy (called “quanta”). And also that they could be observed either as particles or as waves. The difficulty was that theories could not explain the precise mechanism for these observations.
Various theories were put forward to try and explain observations. This was a general reversal of the path which Relativity had taken of theory -> experimental observation. (Or perhaps, the general pattern was observation -> theory -> observation to test theory -> back to the drawing board.) Currently (2025) most widely accepted theoretical explorations treat gravity as a fundamental force on par with the other forces which are described in the Standard Model (the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force). This is why scientists are trying to detect gravitational waves which might be generated as space-time is dragged around the accretion disc of a supermassive black hole. But fifty years ago, gravity was not considered a force, but something due to the curvature of space-time. So, attempts to reconcile Relativity and the growing field of quantum mechanics took strange and varied routes.
One of the more fascinating forays in this regard was String Theory, which began development in the late 1960s, but which culminated in the “first superstring revolution” in 1984. By the 1990s string theory approaches dominated theoretical physics.
The problems with string theory which led to its gradual abandonment are too varied to discuss here, but most basically was its reliance on purely mathematical models which had no physical component we could experimentally observe. The very ideas of “branes” and “higher dimensions,” and that all particles are actually tiny vibrating strings could not be verified. Nevertheless, the whole idea of “strings” and the fact that this research model had become ubiquitous helped vault the theory into public consciousness.
The public could envision “strings” being at the center of the smallest dimensions and making up everything, much more readily than it could envision particles that could become waves, or particles existing in two places at once, or particles always having precisely the same amount of energy “just because”—things which quantum mechanics had long since postulated but which flew in the face of common sense.
(In short, the reasons for these things became “inexpressible,” or at best expressed in the endless scrawl of mathematical formulae Professor Einstein was scrawling on a chalkboard.)
Finally, string theory succeeded (temporarily) where quantum mechanics had failed by catching the public’s imagination. The idea of “higher dimensions” and “everything vibrating” struck a chord with New Age aficionados and perhaps even with aging drug-culture survivors. By 1990, string theory had entered the public consciousness, at least at the fringes. And, by association, it dragged quantum mechanics along for the ride.
First Generation Quantum Fiction
The term Quantum Fiction was first coined by author Charles Platt in 1990 (3). He used this to describe stories in which strange events may occur. For example:
“A protagonist may find himself living out another person’s dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely.” (5)
This type of mind-flight is by no means unfamiliar to readers of fantasy. It is routine (even expected) that at some moment we may open a doorway and step into Oz, or Narnia. At the very least, we expect a magical reality. This is a description of mainstream fantasy. Likewise, a description of the work of R.A. Lafferty, as discussed in the first section. Except in that example, it is understood (at some point) that we have entered an alternative perception. In the R,A, Lafferty story Configuration of the North Shore, for example, a psychiatrist literally enters the dream of his patient to take the reader on a surreal adventure.
The difference between this fantastic and experimental literature and “Quantum Fiction” is that there is no “magic” (or, in the case of Lafferty, drugs) involved. The journey is not an aberration or an altered state of perception. This is the way the world truly is, if we look at it closely enough. And usually, once we see the world the way it truly is, unlike our trips to Oz or Narnia, things once seen cannot be unseen: There is no going back.
Quantum fiction is not a genre, per se, but a style of writing. The subject genre itself may be any genre, even (conceivably) non-fiction. Although taken as a whole, science fiction, poetry, literary fiction, and (perhaps) fantasy predominate. This is not “sciencey” writing, in the sense that “steampunk” is a combined genre of fantasy with steam-driven machines. We do not see (for example) a protagonist whip out his “quantum raygun” to blast an alien, or even someone using “quantum teleportation,” although when you say the words “quantum fiction” to someone they almost universally misunderstand the term in this way*.
*—An interesting anecdote: Recently, on Facebook, I posted several things to the effect that “I’m writing Quantum Fiction!” or “I’m delivering a paper on Quantum Fiction in Barcelona.” In every instance, at least two of my friends responded to the post with a .gif of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Backula) from the show “Quantum Leap,” surrounded by a blue glow. No, this show is not Quantum Fiction.
This improper assumption arises (no doubt) from the ignorance of the general public regarding what quantum mechanics is. In many examples (including the “Quantum Leap” example given above) it is presented as a “magical cure-all” to overcome all sorts of physical impossibilities, exactly as “atomic power” was presented in science fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A word about the ignorance of the general public regarding quantum mechanics: If you should peradventure to explain the fundamentals to anyone, even such things as the “two-slit experiment,” “collapse of a wave function,” or (a fan favorite) “quantum entanglement,” you should be prepared to exercise patience. These are not intuitive principles and are not easily grasped. (At best, you’ll produce a headache in your friend.)
This is precisely why I have chosen to write about Quantum Fiction. Because if you take any story you wish, with plot and characters and setting that people can easily recognize, and then suddenly twist that story in inexplicable ways, you can demonstrate a principle of quantum mechanics. You can perhaps even image this strange new world that science has already envisioned. You may help the common people around you—your readers—have just one glimpse of the way the world really operates.
It may be fantastic, it may be unbelievable. It may be frightening.
OK, Now What? Stayed Tuned For Part Two!!!
In the second part of this essay, presented as my first blog post in February, I will explore the development of art and literature as a response to theoretical physics. I believe that the canonical development of “Quantum Fiction” on the heels of String Theory was not coincidental, any more than modern art’s development after Relativity. This was a necessary expression, a way to come to terms with advances in theoretical physics, and of “expressing the inexpressible.” I will conclude with Quantum Fiction’s next anticipated development, following the alleged experimental proof of the Penrose-Hameroff theory of Consciousness (2024) and cultural pressure on literature due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
1 – Kehe, Jason, “Who is R.A. Lafferty? And Is He the Best Sci-Fi Writer Ever?”, Wired, 2021, Mar. 3.
2—Arthur Stanley Eddington: “Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: ‘Who’s the third?’” Recovered from goodreads.com/quotes/94126.
3—Platt, Charles, “Quantum Fiction: A Blueprint for Avoiding Literary Obsolescence”, Internet Speculative Fiction Database, Retrieved Jan. 24, 2025.
4—“Quantum Reality, Quantum Worlds: New Book Explores Quantum Foundations”, 2019, Sept. 14, PhysicsSaysWhat.com.