Reasoning, one of the basic forms of thinking in logic, is the process of deriving new judgments (conclusions) from one or more known judgments (premises).
Speculative fiction, theoretically the closest literary form to mathematical beauty, is built into the liberal arts. But throughout the history of speculative fiction, the winner or loser of speculative fiction often lies at the level of fiction.
Conan Doyle created the classic image of Holmes and sparked "Fuxue", Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist in the history of reasoning, and the highlight of her works is often the excavation of human nature.
In Japan, whether it is Kiyoharu Matsumoto or Keigo Higashino, the most powerful weapon of these national-level mystery writers is also social issues and the love-hate relationship of ordinary people. You know, Keigo Higashino is still from the department of electrical engineering, and is a real science man.
In this way, is the beauty of science knowledge and mathematics incompatible with speculative fiction? - Not really.
Today, we will talk about this "science reasoning" writer, Sen Hiroshi.
Written by 丨Lu Yehua (Member of Shanghai Writers Association)
01
"Scientific reasoning" became his unique label
Hiroshi Mori, born in 1957 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is 65 years old this year. In China, many readers who like him will call him "Sen Boss", but in fact, if you want to play the harmonic terrier, the more appropriate name is "Dr. Mori".
He graduated from Nagoya University and is a doctor of engineering. Probably because of his profession and the circle of contacts, most of his characters are scientific researchers, mathematicians, and professors. Of course, there are also many technical houses — just like himself — and he likes models of railways, and it is said that there is a very large model of railways in the courtyard of the house.
Born in Aichi Prefecture at about the same time, there is also a celebrity, the author of Dragon Ball and Aralei, manga artist Akira Toriyama.
Akira Toriyama was born in 1955, only two years older than Hiroshi Mori.
"Toriyama Akira Collection", [Japanese] Toriyama Akira, translated by Liang Xiaoyan, China Children's Publishing House, November 2013.
Why specifically mention Akira Toriyama? Because there is a very interesting phenomenon: in Akira Toriyama's manga, there are a large number of industrial instruments that are depicted very realistically, in detail, and have solid theoretical knowledge at first glance. For example, the motorcycles, cars, etc. he draws, the sense of reality is not something that ordinary cartoonists can draw. This is the same as Mori Hiroshi, although he writes a popular entertainment type of speculative fiction, but the strong scientific research atmosphere and real experimental data in the work are not ordinary speculative writers can write.
It can be said that the two are detail-controlled, science and technology demons, the reason for this "coincidence" is actually very simple, in addition to their own professionals in this area, another reason is that Aichi Prefecture is a rare industrial town in Japan, Toyota Motor is Aichi Prefecture, so the environment in which they grew up has more or less affected their interests and styles.
There are many series of works, such as the "S&M series", "V series", "Air Knight" series, etc., for each series of works, Sen Bosi is carefully polished, not to write a book, and even some of the series will wait until a few years later to reveal the truth, which is very in line with his rigorous scholarly atmosphere. The "S&M Series" and the "V Series" are no more and no less, each is ten copies, and form a perfect closed loop, as if from the time he began to write the first book in the series, Mori Hiroshi had already thought of all the future series plans.
Each of Mori's works has some small highlights, and it is not realistic to introduce them all, but his works have a very unique label: "science reasoning", and this style also makes his works present a relative unity, and today we will talk about this rare style through several novels in the "S&M series".
02
How advanced is the information technology in "All For F"?
At present, the only complete works published in the mainland are the "S&M series", which is also his most well-known work, in 2014, the Japanese drama "All Becomes F" starring Takei and Ayano Tsuyoshi was a hit, and the following year, the animated version of "All BecomeS F" was also broadcast on Fuji Tv in Japan. These stories are adapted from the series.
Stills from the Japanese drama "All Becomes F" (2014).
The series title " S&M " is derived from two protagonists , university professor Sohei Saikawa and his student Nishinoen Moe-e.
1996's All For F is Hiroshi Mori's debut and most influential work, for which he won the first Mephistophele Award. "Mephistopheles" is the name of the devil in Goethe's Faust, and unlike the popular Japanese prizes for speculative fiction such as the Edogawa Rambling Prize and the Yokomizu Masashi Prize, it encourages unexpected newcomers to write new works.
Not every newcomer writer has enough pen power to explore social issues or depict a variety of things, on the contrary, under the influence of Shoji Shimada and others, more writers in the new Benge period are more imaginative, and dare to put this imagination that breaks the mold and subverts the tradition into the pen, and the establishment of the Mephistophele Prize is tailored to this group of people.
It is conceivable that "All Becomes F", which won the first Mephistopheles Award, is a new work.
"All BecomeS", by Hiroshi Sen, translated by Wuke, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, May 2010.
Analyzed from the level of speculative fiction, the book contains two classic elements, one is the Chamber of Secrets and the other is the Death Message. Both are "unique" in their presentation.
In particular, the core "Secret Room Trick", the genius girl was imprisoned in the research institute on the isolated island, and never stepped out of the research institute for fifteen years, but when Xi Chuan and Moe E came to the island, she was dismembered in the secret room that absolutely could not be freely entered, and left a mysterious death message in the computer that "all became F".
The mystery of this chamber of secrets is very exaggerated, for a long time, the chambers we see in the work are formed in a short period of time, which means that "decryption" is more or less organic, but the secret chamber of this book has been formed for fifteen years, and the 14-year-old girl has grown up to 29 years old in this room, what has she experienced, because of what was killed, and how was she killed? These suspense is constantly intertwined.
As we said in a previous column, "Chamber of Secrets Reasoning" is the crown of speculative fiction, almost all speculative writers are proud to write an original Chamber of Secrets Trick, especially speculative fiction has developed for so many years, as early as a hundred years ago, "King of Secret Rooms" John Dixon Carr has been in the classic "Three Coffins" with a whole chapter of the "Chamber of Secrets Lecture Notes", later generations of speculative writers, want to find a new Chamber of Secrets tricks outside of this lecture, it is as difficult as ascending to the sky.
And that's what "All For F" does, a room trick that's very creative and uncomplicated, so simple that it can be explained in one sentence. But such a "simple" trick, so many mystery writers before, none of them have thought of it.
Another innovation of the book is that 1996 is not too early for the history of speculative fiction, but for the development of society as a whole, information technology has not yet been popularized. Not to mention programmers, families with computers were rare, but "All Becomes F" is full of code, systems, binary, sound recognition, virtual reality, and even the most important death message, which is written in the computer. Today, these concepts are not so foreign, but more than twenty years ago, they were very advanced. And these advanced technologies and concepts, in the whole book, not only do not give people a feeling of dropping the bag or boring, but they are self-contained.
The close integration of traditional crime with scientific progress, which in turn sublimates into metaphysical philosophical thinking, is the most unique highlight of Morihiko's work.
As a modern person living in the online world, when you see what "all become F" means, you will also feel quite novel, then, for readers 20 years ago, this shocking experience, only the Mephistopheles Award can match.
03
After The Mathematician Who Won't Laugh, he found his way
After the publication of "All BecomeS", Mori Hiroshi quickly opened up the situation in the powerful Japanese reasoning circle, and in the same year, "Cold Chambers and Doctors" was published while it was hot.
In fact, this book has long been written by Mori Hiroshi. Although it is classified as the second game in the "S&M series", it is the true debut of MoriHiroshi.
"The Cold Secret Room and the Doctors", by Hiroshi Sen, translated by Wuke, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, June 2010.
Not only that, but long before "All Becomes F", Mori had already created three mystery novels featuring Shohei Saikawa and Nishinoen Moe, namely "The Cold Chamber and the Doctors", "The Mathematician Who Can't Laugh", and "Poetic Killing Intention". He submitted these three works to Kodansha, and after the editor read them, he felt that the writer had great potential and his work was unique enough, but it might not be enough to make a splash. So the editor asked Mori Hiroshi what the idea of the next novel was, and Mori Hiroshi said that it was a secret room murder that occurred on an isolated island.
The editor immediately decided: Write that book first, let's come out first, and now we will popularize this.
It turns out that the editor is indeed professional enough, and "All Becomes F", which tells about the murder in the secret room on the isolated island, has a strong new label, and as for the quality of the trick, it is obviously the highest of all Moriboji's works.
So, when "All Becomes F" went viral, it was a matter of course to publish these old works. Just by listening to the name, "Cold Chamber of Secrets and Doctors" is another work that focuses on the Chamber of Secrets, and the story still takes place in the institute, which has a large number of researchers and experimental content. Looking at the essence of the appearance, the whole book is actually a very pure classical benguet speculative novel, but it is just cloaked in the cloak of modern science, and the combination between the two is not as close as "All Becomes F", the trick and the stage are completely separated, and the scientific knowledge described in the book is too far away from ordinary people. The concept is not attractive, the plot and rhythm are relatively dull, the characters are homogenized, they are all scientists, and the final trick will not make people feel like a head stick, plus the debut work, the writing level is still childish, so the overall quality of the book is average.
In addition to the above basic disk problems, the difference between "Cold Chamber of Secrets and Doctors" and "All BecomeS F" is a character called Magata Shiki. In the latter, although Dr. Four Seasons is the victim, the legendary experience coupled with the unique charm of the person makes his presence even surpass the male and female protagonists. Mori may be aware of this, so in later works, Dr. Four Seasons will appear in the story in a variety of different ways.
Of course, with the cold background, it shows the magnificence of "All BecomeS F" in all aspects.
Another book, The Mathematician Who Can't Laugh, which was written long ago, was also published in 1996. In his first year of debut, Mori Hiroshi took out three works, which is also quite rare among mystery writers.
"The Mathematician Who Can't Laugh", by Hiroshi Sen, translated by Wuke, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2010.
Compared to "Cold Chamber of Secrets and the Doctors", "The Mathematician Who Can't Laugh" is already moving closer to the new bengue in terms of setting. For example, the stage of the story takes place in the common and wonderful building of the new Benge, and there is also a gorgeous mystery of the disappearance of the huge building in the puzzle, and with the murder in the secret room, the readability has been much higher.
However, if you and other new writers who are good at writing the "Strange Pavilion" style, it is obviously not the specialty of Engineering Doctor Hiroshi, so this setting is just a setting, and the mystery is also an old terrier, what he does in this book is to turn these attractive things into candy packaging, and when you open it, you will see that the kernel is actually based on the philosophical thinking derived from the interaction of engineering, mathematics, and sociology.
That is to say, in fact, from this book, Mori Hiroshi found the real path of his own and the content he wanted to express, and the subsequent works were all the formal inheritance, or evolution, of the book. The terrible thing is that this is actually only the second novel he wrote, and sure enough, the learning ability of xueba is different from ordinary people.
Personally, I like this book very much because its personal style is extremely distinct, giving people a feeling of edutainment and teaching in class by a teacher who is very knowledgeable and has personal thinking.
The readers who followed along the way were also, before opening the book "Mathematician Who Can't Laugh", they wanted to see what kind of murder case Nishikawa and Moe had encountered this time? What is the ruse? But when you close the book, you will find that the ruse, who the murderer is, what the murder tells is actually not important, what is important is to get some new knowledge and thinking.
04
"Science reasoning" is the art of thinking that combines simplicity and complexity
A year later, in 1997, Poetic Killing Was published.
The book is less inconspicuous throughout the series, and its aspects are very mediocre at first glance, and there are no amazing bridges. Many readers have begun to read Mori Hiroshi's other books because of "All BecomeS", but when it comes to this one, readers should be relieved, "All BecomeS F", which has both a strong personal style and such a brilliant novel in trickery, is really the only one. Trickery does not seem to be Senboji's forte.
The question then becomes: What else can we see in Senboji's book, despite the ruse?
"Poetic Killing Intention", by Hiroshi Sen, translated by Wuke, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, July 2010.
Poetic Killing is a good example of a "mediocre" mystery novel like this that abounds in subsequent series. We must realize that Hiroshi Mori's strength is not in writing whimsical plots and gorgeous mysteries, nor in the stable output of high-quality tricks, which are just his packaging. Peeling off the packaging, we can see that the seemingly cold scientists in his story also have a cute side, and we can also see some of his thoughts on life and science.
In the face of such a relatively uneventful plot, the interaction between the two protagonists of Xichuan and Menghua is highlighted, and the ambiguous relationship between the two in their previous works is finally one step closer in this book.
Those supporting characters also began to show their personalities and attitudes, such as the assistant professor Kunieda who married in this book, before that we had a stereotype of this character, and this stereotype was even written directly by the author into "All BecomeS F", as a reverse baggage, but in this book, we feel the temperature of her.
In addition, Hiroshi Sen also explains to us in this book what kind of people he sees as professors, researchers in his eyes, and geniuses in his eyes. Similarly analogous to Keigo Higashino's Yukawa Gaku, the kind of genius that is elegant, charismatic, even charming, is a natural protagonist, a lighthouse-like existence. The geniuses in Morihiro's writings are lonely, alienated, and intentionally maintain a safe distance from social relationships and interpersonal interactions.
So when the reader sees Shoji Shimada's genius Mitsuru wash rejecting the goddess's confession, I will be puzzled and regretful. And when I see Hiroshi Mori's Rhinokawa so cold to Moe-e, I will try to understand him, which is a conclusion after the operation, not a subconscious resistance.
If "Poetic Killing Intention" has begun to show the elegance of Senboji Riko, then "Seal Again", published in the same year, is even more aesthetic, and science is an art that combines simplicity and complexity.
Judging from the plot packaging, "Seal Again" is a bit like the style of Masashi Yokogou, the protagonist breaks into a family in the countryside, and there are two treasures in the family, called "Scoop of Heaven and Earth" and "Box of No Self". The Box of No Self is a locked box, and the key is in the Scoop of Heaven and Earth, but the key is much larger than the mouth of the bottle and cannot be taken out. So these two treasures are a set of matryoshka-style intelligence games.
These two things run through the plot of the book, the movements of the characters, and the killings.
"Seal Again", by Hiroshi Sen, translated by Maltose, Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House, December 2010.
In this book, Hiroshi Mori once again shows the reader the ability to construct tricks that he occasionally bursts out, and the mystery seems to be very complex, and there are three main mysteries that are split down, corresponding to three main tricks: the mystery of the toy, the mystery of the chamber, and the mystery of the witness. But this seemingly complex structure is connected by a wonderful reel, so the final cracking gives people a very smooth look, there is an almost unsolvable event, is split one by one, and it is all split in a very simple way.
However, unlike the cheerful traditional puzzle solving method of "All Becomes F", after reading this book, many readers will have an illusion, the answer is so simple? It seems like it's not too addictive. However, if you carefully analyze the solution ideas of these puzzles, you will find that in the process of verification and cracking, the detective uses very scientific thinking methods such as reverse thinking, hypothesis verification, and switching angles to simplify complex problems, which is actually very beautiful.
The so-called "science reasoning" is not to calculate a formula when solving the case, using some scientific principles or biochemical cold knowledge, etc., "science" is a kind of thinking. This "Seal Again" is a model of this thinking.
Secondly, the structure, Mori Hirose layout is quite elaborate, including the chapter titles he takes. The chapter titles of each book in the entire "S&M series" are very interesting, both closely related to the plot of that chapter, and like poetry, they are quite philosophical when viewed together. Seal Again has a total of ten chapters, Chinese edition has ten chapter titles, the first chapter is "The key is in the clay pot", the second chapter is "The clay pot is in the secret room"... All the way up to the last chapter, "The Truth is in the Key."
The end-to-end model of The Ouroboros, the beginning is the end, the end is the origin, and the plot of the whole book and the final theme also echo. The original chapter title is more Zen, quoted from the General Generation's Zen poem scroll "Ten Bull Diagram", compared with the Chinese translation, it has a little more magic.
In addition, the famous mystery writer Kyogoku Natsuhiko's "The Threshold of the Iron Rat" also quotes the "Ten Bull Diagram". Like Hiroshi Mori's work, it is a very Zen novel.
From 1996 to 1997, in just two years, Mori Published five speculative novels in one go, and the quality of these five novels was uneven from the perspective of reasoning interest, but in the process, Mori Hirose's writing, thought, and "science reasoning" style had gained a foothold in Japanese reasoning circles, and his popularity was certainly not as good as those of full-name writers, but readers who liked him were ten minutes.
The favor of these readers was also rewarded in subsequent works, and in the subsequent series, Mori Hirose's scientific and philosophical worldview grew larger and larger, but the style positioning of the work, including the relationship between the characters, became more and more fanatical. The series he has created constitute a complete universe, and perhaps no other book of Mori has achieved the full range of "All Becomes F", but in his universe, you will have a different understanding of truth, reason, scientists, and reasoning itself.