I’ve recently finished Charles Stross’s Glasshouse, which is in many ways an admirable novel and possesses all of its author’s trademark manic invention and humour. I enjoyed it.

Except…

Glasshouse, like a lot other sf books I’ve read recently (including Adam Robert’s Gradasil and Roger Levy’s Icarus to take just two examples) features one of those revolutions that science fiction authors are so fond of – clean, neat, rational and over in a flash. From Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings to Heinlein’s Revolt in 2010 to Herbert’s Dune, the sf revolution has a long tradition and shows no sign of fading away.

Here then is a crude spotter’s guide to the typical elements of an sf revolution:

The charismatic leader: One man, possessed of the truth or at least an inkling of it, will lead the revolution and will inspire others to follow them. An interesting point about Glasshouse is that the “leader” is not the protagonist of the story and doesn’t reveal themselves until quite late in the book, but nonetheless she inspires a following with zealot’s fervour. Dune is the most obvious, but even sf’s traditional stock hero – the omni-competent engineer who ends up leading the revolution just because he can no longer stomach the damned incompetence of all those corrupt politicians and their lackies – tends to possess characteristics that make him irresistible to his comrades.

The miniscule cadre: The Bolshevik model of the elite cadre of full-time activists plotting the overthrow of the state has nothing on the typical sf revolution. Sometimes, as in Glasshouse, the revolution will be conducted by just a handful of people. In Icarus and Gradasil, though we get a sense that there are forces at work outside the narrative, but really the revolution is enacted through the organisation, planning and genius of just one person.

The revealed truth: Of course every revolutionary (Christ, Marx, Pol Pot…) believes that they are bringing “the truth” to the masses – but sf revolutions frequently back their “truth” up with appeals to rationality and the scientific method. Whether it’s that what we think of as reality is a fraud and we all exist in a giant simulation or that our leaders are alien robots harvesting our brains for catfood, sf revolutionaries almost always have access to irrefutable proof of the rightness of their cause. Which is useful, as it neatly justifies any action in pursuit of their revolution and removes any messy questions about ends and means.

The rational turn: One outcome of sf revolution’s claim to ownership of the “truth” is the ability of the revolutionaries argument to be wholly convincing to all those who hear it – excluding, of course, the out-and-out bad guys. This is otherwise known as the “why didn’t I think of that” moment and is remarkably rare in the real world of politics.

The absence of debate: One result of the rational turn is the absence of debate in an sf revolution. If a national government tries to do something faintly radical, say they decide to abolish the use of poisonous dye in children’s toys, the policy wouldn’t just happen. There’d be a long and probably bitter argument. There’d be Daily Mail columnists decrying the extension of the nanny state (“if I want my baby to suck on poison then it’s jolly well my choice…”), there’d be industry lobbyists funding Astroturf grassroots campaigns (“our families have worked in’t poison dye mines for generations, what will happen t’brass bands now?”) and there’d be representatives from Think About The Children! on Radio 4 demanding not just that these poisonous dyes be removed but that, as a precautionary measure, the government should ban every hue in the spectrum and turn the world entirely monochrome because we just don’t know what damage colours do in the long term. Are they really safe? Are they? Really?

Of course, in an sf revolution, none of that happens.

The announced revolution: Given the combination of the sf revolutionary possessing the revealed truth and therefore creating a rational turn in a society marked by the absence of debate sf revolutionaries are often in the unique position of not actually having to conduct a revolution – with it’s messy street to street fighting and propensity to turn into vicious civil war – they simply have to announce it and the deed is done – usually off-screen with, very occasionally, a nod to “mopping-up” the recalcitrant.

The instantaneous change:Even in sf that obeys the laws of physics and outlaws FTL there’s always one thing that travels faster than light, revolution. Nevermind the vast amounts of time and money it takes in the real world to make things even incrementally better – in sf the mere action of announcing the revolution is often enough to have the peasants dressing better, eating better and quoting Shakespeare.

Now of course this is a crude simplification – most sf revolutions don’t have all of these features and a few have none at all. And in a way it’s understandable – most sf isn’t interested in the process of revolution or even the reality of it – the revolution is intended to be symbolic.

Nor are sf writers alone in their revolutionary fantasies.

The sf revolution in the modern era (there being few unreconstructed Marxist-Leninists left in sf or anywhere else) is mostly a product of libertarianism either in its right wing form (mostly American, often harking back to their own “revolution” and spending a lot of time talking about the calibre of specific weapons) or the (most oxymoronically named political movement in history) “anarcho-capitalists” (left-libertarianism). Both sides have neat lines in transformative, relatively painless revolutions that will sweep away corrupt old orders and neither worry too much about the fact that real revolutions are vicious, bloody and drawn out affairs.

But hey, it’s only science fiction…