SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Members' Chat
>
Things that scifi writers do that you hate?
You posted this at the right time. I just finished a book by a first time author and I found every one of your listed peeves in this book...plus maybe a few more. I guess this is the first read ever for me that is so bad.
I have not even rated it as I just can't bring myself to do it as I can barely give it a one star rating and that would be for the subject matter.
I thought I might contact the author first and explain to him why I would be giving such a low rating but have not do so and just thinking I may not even summit a review.
But thanks for posting your pet peeves...
I have not even rated it as I just can't bring myself to do it as I can barely give it a one star rating and that would be for the subject matter.
I thought I might contact the author first and explain to him why I would be giving such a low rating but have not do so and just thinking I may not even summit a review.
But thanks for posting your pet peeves...
Long, unpronounceable names (unless being used in a comedic way). Keep it simple!
Danny wrote: "You posted this at the right time. I just finished a book by a first time author and I found every one of your listed peeves in this book...plus maybe a few more. I guess this is the first read ev..."As an author I love it when I get sincere criticism. You learn the most from them, and it helps you improve.
Although I have to be honest and say that I hope I wasn't that author. :)
F-bombing. Not necessary, and a sign of weak or lazy writing.
These problems are by no means limited to F or SF. The specific problems that the genre is subject to include:Handwavium (no explanation, the magic or the star drive just works)
Idiotic explanation (can you say mitichlorian? I knew you could!) -- between the two handwavium is better
Data dump (too much explanation of star drive, magic, etc.)
Ah I forgot one:- Language Dissonance.
Where everyone speaks legible English until it's time to introduce themselves etc. A-la "I am Skrangnathar of the Volkenmolarchs. We hail from the Doorshkail Blems of Vishnarkla! I like pop tarts, slurpees, and long walks on the beach in the rain."
Internal inconsistency. I see that a lot. If your world has rules, no matter how ridiculous, STICK WITH THEM. Don't just throw them out when it becomes convenient.
And that is allied to the idiot plot. In which the story can only work if some of the characters suddenly are afflicted with idiocy.
All of the above. You guys covered a bunch of stuff already.The alien-name thing and "Language Dissonance" are especially huge peeves of mine. Completely inconsistent with realism.
Also, the Internal Consistency one. That goes without saying in any SF or Fantasy story. DO. NOT. BREAK. YOUR. RULES. No character can break the rules. Even special circumstances must conform to the way you built your world, or it's a deus ex machina and it is just bad writing. This frequently coincides with jumping the shark.
Bad logic is another one. "John thought, oh yeah, if I just hold onto this strap like in that Alien movie, the bad guys will get sucked out into the vacuum but I'll live even without a pressurized suit." Really? No, you're dead. Or, "My spaceship works the same in an atmosphere!" No, it does not, unless you're going to explain how. Gravity breaks heavy things. Suddenly aerodynamics matter.
"Everyone in the galaxy speaks some universal language and it's pretty damn close to English." I've stopped reading your book by now.
"Earth has a unified government." These are riffs on the same implausible theme.
The Wayne's World payoff. This is what I call it anyway, where those guys keep walking back and forth with a plate glass window and Wayne remarks "I guess this'll pay off maybe later in the movie?" Later on, they smash through it in a wild chase. This is really common in SF's weaker offerings. Some magical gizmo gets discovered, tossed in a pile, and becomes the ONE THING that saves the world at the end when the hero remembers to use it.
Tied to that one, is the way that you can have chance encounters among all the important 10 characters throughout the book in such a way that the plot is served, but plausibility is not.
Doc wrote: "F-bombing. Not necessary, and a sign of weak or lazy writing."Funny you should say that Doc. I have an 11 year old girl as a main character in my book, who curses like a sailor (Wow, I just realized that her last name is Saylor. LOL). But I did it on purpose. You'd probably curse like her too if you went through what she does.
Short excerpt:
(Jessica Saylor at 30, discussing when she was in a terrorist attack at the age of 11. WARNING - Blunt discussion of catastrophic injuries.)
"So when I crawled out of the back of van, I was covered in my mom and dad’s blood, and brains, and... and all sorts of pieces of God knows what. My left leg was compound fractured with both bones sticking out and my right hand got ripped off too. That was a bitch cause I had to pull myself out with that arm on account of my other one looking like a pretzel. Funny thing was that my broken arm and leg were agony, but my right leg and hand didn't hurt at all.
Probably because I left them in the van.
The docs said they were "clean amputations" and acted all happy about it, like "Hey, looks like you just got the most extreme manni-pedi in history, and that tennis career is probably out of the question. But at least it's a clean amputation!
Fuckers.
That leg and hand were just gone. They never found them in the river or anything, so I guess they're fish poop now"
I'm not fond of Asspulls, the Deus Ex Machina, and Lampshade Hanging, all fitting into the Handwave Territory/Handwavium idea that you don't somehow need to explain something really, really important and that it's okay to use a cheap explanation to a problem, as though readers cannot be sensitive or intelligent enough to catch it.
Oh man, all of that stuff happens in Mutated by Joe McKinney. That book actually pissed me off by assuming I was an idiot. I honestly think it was written by someone else, because none of McKinney's previous books were that moronic. They even attempted lampshading breaking their rules and the asspulls simply compounded the problem. (Link warning: that goes to TV Tropes, which may suck you in for hours.)The latest Godzilla both breaks its internal consistency and just does stuff for plot convenience, two things that I think we all agree is retarded. Stick with your premise! How is that difficult?
Argh.
Not breaking your rules I feel a bit odd about. Because whenever there is any sort of AND YOU JUST CAN'T DO X THING BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS. Whether it's man's rule or the rule of the universe that means it's gonna be broken and it's awesome when you do this. The problem is when it comes off as an asspull or it's a oops I forgot about that rather then a you wrote this rule so it would be more awesome and dramatic when they break it.@Data Dumps
I always envisioned if David Weber's series ever got Tv shows they would have special episodes done to emulate modern marvels and the like as much as possible that would just be one hour infodumps.
Maybe I'm being a little to over board on this one but for me its a bog down when someone who is in a man-made structure..with a man-made floor and they lay something on the GROUND....is that acceptable?
And why does the captain of a FTL starship have a wooden desk and file cabinets in his office???
Why would said FTL starship have hinged doors?
Why does said FTL starship have MARINES that carry 9MM side arms?
And god forbid...why does said FTL starship have to maneuver the ship to fire on its target rather than the weapon system itself being able to follow and target?
Why does a captain or communications officer have to KEY the MIKE to communicate....haha...I mean come on...its like 10-4 good buddy..catch ya on the flip side..and then I fought with the stupid coil of wire and hung my CB mike on the dash and boogied on down the road!! Or I see that Ham radio operator setting out in his man cave shack out back of the house and chatting away....really!!
And why does the captain of a FTL starship have a wooden desk and file cabinets in his office???
Why would said FTL starship have hinged doors?
Why does said FTL starship have MARINES that carry 9MM side arms?
And god forbid...why does said FTL starship have to maneuver the ship to fire on its target rather than the weapon system itself being able to follow and target?
Why does a captain or communications officer have to KEY the MIKE to communicate....haha...I mean come on...its like 10-4 good buddy..catch ya on the flip side..and then I fought with the stupid coil of wire and hung my CB mike on the dash and boogied on down the road!! Or I see that Ham radio operator setting out in his man cave shack out back of the house and chatting away....really!!
Danny wrote: "Maybe I'm being a little to over board on this one but for me its a bog down when someone who is in a man-made structure..with a man-made floor and they lay something on the GROUND....is that accep..."OK, I have to ask because space operas are not my forte. Why are hinged doors on an FTL ship such a sin? I'm not disagreeing, just curious.
Maybe they have hinges because hinges are way cheaper and easier to fix? Just because we have awesome technology doesn't mean all Iron Age technology goes out the door.And as for the wood furnishings, a future civilization that has taken to living among the stars has probably done serious ecological damage to their home world. Wood furniture would be priceless in its rarity alone, not to mention the fact that wooden stuff is just cool.
I think my biggest issue is when the author gets so tied up in the cool sci-fi elements of the story that they forget about writing interesting characters and their stories. I don't care how unbelievably cool your starship is, if there's nobody on it that I care about then I'm just not going to be interested in finishing the book.
Anthony wrote: "I think my biggest issue is when the author gets so tied up in the cool sci-fi elements of the story that they forget about writing interesting characters and their stories...."Thank you Anthony. Make me care about the characters and I will forgive a lot of other problems.
Oh just be Amy Sterling Casil. LOL forgive me ...
Characters first, yes Anthony!As for "Don't break the rules." No, don't break the rules. Period. But go right ahead and break the "rules" that some characters think they know. If ever something is stated in a factual, non-opinion way - don't break that rule.
Kenneth wrote: "Characters first, yes Anthony!As for "Don't break the rules." No, don't break the rules. Period. But go right ahead and break the "rules" that some characters think they know. If ever something i..."
I agree. I think it's more important in sci-fi than any other genre to be internally conststant. I'll forgive the bending or breaking of the laws of physics (ftl), but if a rule is established in the narrative and then broken I start to lose interest. I'll notice if a rule is established and then not taken to a logical conclusion.
Failure to think it through leads to failure of logic. It is particularly easy to find these in movies. If in PHANTOM MENACE they can apparently get from one planet to another in an afternoon, why is it so impressive that the Millennium Falcon can do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs (or whatever erroneous unit of measure it was)? And we are so not going to talk about the mines of Moria in the Hobbit movies.In a book, in theory, you have time to consider all these things. And you ought to. Asspulls can be fixed in the rewrite.
Oh, and as to hinged doors -- look at the door in the room you are sitting in now. I assume it is hinged. Notice how you have to leave space for the door to swing open. Space on spaceships is extraordinarily valuable. You would not waste it on door allowances; you would have all the doors be pocket doors, like on the ENTERPRISE.
Brenda, that's actually an excellent point. I didn't even consider the value of space in such a confined area. How do you feel about the wood furniture, though? I don't think it would be everywhere, but a captain might enjoy some teak in his private quarters.
I think wood is fine. Except in cases where you're an exile fleet with no world to go to. Where'd you get the wood from? Wood is also heavy. That's why it isn't used on airplanes. Not a factor if you stay in space, but if you enter an atmosphere, the additional weight will tax your propulsion system if you hope to get back in orbit. Universal docking systems. Really? Are all the aliens and all the different kinds of humans doing the exact same airlock shapes? No, rewrite.
I had to look up hinges on the ISS. Of course they do research into even simple stuff:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sta...
This thread is a lot like a "Pet Peeves" thread I started a while back. I'll reiterate my two biggest ones:1) Spacefaring aliens with physiology that makes no evolutionary sense, or at least that is unexplained.
How does a creature that evolved in an ocean develop spaceships? How did they develop metal working technology? How did they develop electricity, computer systems, etc.? How does a swimming fish with no arms fly a spaceship?
How does a single celled alien that's as big as a swamp do all that? And how do they become the uber-bullies who rule a bunch of other alien races?
Those are all actual aliens I've run into in books. I don't buy it. You either need to provide aliens that can reasonably be expected to develop space technology, or do some heavy explaining of how they got space technology
2) Space names, especially alien race names. Toss in a few X's, a couple of Z's, some double K's or a few double vowels (u's are good) and boom, you got a new alien race. Because, of course alien races are going to have names that sound alien. Except they don't, they just sound like the author threw something seemingly exotic together.
Look, I get it, names are hard. But when it comes to aliens, I doubt we'll be understanding their languges enough to transliterate their names into human speech. So what would really happen is that alien races would get some scientific name. Then everyone would ignore that and just use whatever slang name gets popularly adopted.
You might have small luxury items made out of wood -- a paperweight, a pendant. But in the ENTERPRISE I would hope that the walls would be programmable. You could make the wall holos show you wood, or wallpaper, or the view of the Grand Tetons.
Kenneth: Then you have some fuss about an adaptor and they are taking time to ready it which is just enough time for the anatonists to plant a trap.
Kenneth wrote: "I think wood is fine. Except in cases where you're an exile fleet with no world to go to..."Yep. That one's very situational. I mean, there are SF stories all over the place from the "every gram of mass must be justified" stories, which would be most Hard SF stories, all the way to the post-scarcity stories where you can grow, print or manufacture at the atomic level anything you want kind of stories. They are already doing experimental 3D printing of wood components, and vat-grown wood is possible if you've mastered nanotech. Trees could be grown off-world in artificial structures (the movie Silent Running, for example)...so wood need not be scarce. And even if it is, it can be used as a luxury or status item (didn't the BSG series have that in it?).
*antagonistsNo idea why goodreads isn't letting me edit my comments today.
Kenneth wrote: "Universal docking systems. Really? Are all the aliens and all the different kinds of humans doing the exact same airlock shapes? No, rewrite. ..."
I'll have to disagree with you on that one. Even today we could come up with a soft but strong material that could be used as a sort of "tunnel" docking device with a mating collar that could conform to any shape, make a seal, and possibly even pressurize. This might require some few words of explanation if it's used in a story--such as why a universal docking system is needed--but the technology shouldn't be that difficult.
I'll have to disagree with you on that one. Even today we could come up with a soft but strong material that could be used as a sort of "tunnel" docking device with a mating collar that could conform to any shape, make a seal, and possibly even pressurize. This might require some few words of explanation if it's used in a story--such as why a universal docking system is needed--but the technology shouldn't be that difficult.
Alien races that supposedly possess an almost god-like level of intelligence and knowledge who then proceed to make ridiculous decision after ridiculous decision. As for universal docking systems, I don't find it unrealistic at all. If someone has developed inter-stellar travel, it's not unrealistic to have them develop a material that can change shape as required to form air-tight seals that are strong enough to withstand space. It might even have been created specifically because an exploration vessel or medical vessel might have to dock with numerous kinds of ships (of varying make, size, and purpose).
"Universal" docking is another situational thing. Depends on how much you know about the alien tech out there. If it's in a culture that has regular contact with aliens, or that docks regularly with alien space stations...I put that in quotes because there's universal, and then there's Universal. I can't believe in a one-size-fits-all solution (you're in a 2-person shuttle, but the alien docking system is a slot half a kilometer wide and one meter tall...let's see your "universal" solution handle that!), but one that works on all alien craft/stations in a well known region of space, then maybe.
Alongside everything that was listed above, a personal pet peeve of mine is aliens from a different galaxy that just *happened* to develop along the same exact evolutionary, cultural, etc. path as humans. I'm sorry, but the chances of someone who grew up in a different galaxy lightyears away from Earth being a blonde haired, blue eyed hunk who celebrates Christmas and cheers for the White Sox is just absurd. Sure, that might be an extreme example, but I've actually read a story in which humans and an alien race celebrated the same holiday with no explanation as to why this would be. If an author is going to give readers aliens that are essentially humans from a different planet, there better be a fair bit of explanation as to how this similarity came about or I'm out.
Doc wrote: "F-bombing. Not necessary, and a sign of weak or lazy writing."Listen. Listen to kids having arguments when they think no adults are around. Listen to construction workers on the job. Listen to the people around you.
The F-bomb is, sadly, everywhere. Don't blame the author for being realistic. Especially if they're writing "in the present". Hopefully, future generations will clean up their language -- but don't bet on it.
I prefer to avoid it as much as possible in my writing, but sometimes it's necessary to "jive" with a character (usually a "bad guy" or someone living a less than savory life).
I had a friend who could curse for an hour straight, without repeating himself OR using a bad word. But then, he had an IQ in the neighborhood of 170 (my estimate). I was in awe of him.
Things I hate to see in ANY writing (by no means a complete list):
-disembodied body parts: "His eyes fastened on her breasts" Now, wouldn't she look silly with this clown's eyes glued to her blouse? Even worse, him walking around, eyeless, trying to find them.
-Too much explanation (info-dumps). Spaceman Spiff jumps into his Intergalactic speeder, turns the key, mashes the accelerator to the floorboard, and blasts off in pursuit of the bad guy. He probably has NO idea how his speeder runs or exceed the speed of light any more than my daughter-in-law understands the workings of the internal combustion engine in her car. So, why does the reader have to be treated to a long, phony explanation of the science behind it?
-A travelogue with a thin plot. The author takes the reader on a tour of his "wonderful world" that he's created using a sparse plot with cardboard characters as the excuse. (Asimov was guilty of this in some cases).
-Too much description of absolutely everything in a scene, none of which is germane to the plot. If an author describes a fire poker next to the fireplace, it better be used to bash in the head of someone later in the book.
-Flowery prose better suited to 19th century stories. Especially if there's a ton of it. Only use this if it's being used by a character who's all "show" and no "go".
Enough for now.
If you want to explain how the speeder works, have Spiff crash it. Then he has to get it repaired. The repair guy might start telling him his gravity system is busted, or some other plausible explanation of the broken-ness that also serves to inform the reader how it works. Spiff of course will wave his hand at all that nonsense and just demand that it get fixed quick!
Back to that wooden desk--how about a plastic (or other synthetic material) desk that looked and felt like wood but was 10x lighter (and probably stronger as well)? I like science fiction that takes into account possibilities of technological advance but also concede that humans can be old-fashioned and nostalgic about weird things. Like Earl Grey tea.
I hate info-dumps and pseudo-science that completely breaks the known laws of physics. And I totally agree about the guy holding onto the strap who survives the decompression of a section of his ship blowing out. Or the one who survives even a minute in the vacuum of space. Is it possible? Eh, maybe. But not without some serious damage.
I can't believe I forgot this one...THE AUTHOR UNNECESSARILY INJECTING THEIR POLITICS INTO THE STORY!
If it's part of the story fine. Otherwise shut up. I didn't buy your book sinuous can preach at me.
Judy wrote: "Or the one who survives even a minute in the vacuum of space."You could survive a minute in the vacuum of space. Radiation and holding your breath without having too much air in your lungs would be the main issues.
And having the bends from major differences in air pressure? Not to mention that all the gas in your body would want to rush out to the vacuum, so holding your breath probably wouldn't work--it would be sucked out. And then there's the temperature differences--I'd expect some tissue damage at the least.I'm not saying it's not possible. But I'd like to see consequences.
Jason, that is actually a subdivision of the larger flaw of Sermonizing. If you want to tell us about global warming, or the necessity of beating up women, fine. Built it into the root of your work; don't lade the sermon on top like chocolate sauce on a sundae. Do it right (DUNE is a great ecology novel, for example) and everyone will adore it. Be ham-handed about it (looking at -you-, John Norman and your Gor novels!) and lose your reader.
Condescension, over-explaining things like your reader is too stupid to infer anything. Excessive cussing.
Misogyny.
Excessive rehash. Sure it may have been awhile since the book before was read, but dang, keep it simple. People re-read series all the time and don't need half a book's worth of rehash.
Ham-handedness: Terry Goodkind.Excessive Rehash! Yes! Make that stop. I don't need 3 chapters re-introducing characters and their backstories. That's just... ugh.
Judy wrote: "And having the bends from major differences in air pressure? Not to mention that all the gas in your body would want to rush out to the vacuum, so holding your breath probably wouldn't work--it wo..."Bends I think that takes longer then a minute for it to be big enough here. You can't exactly "hold" your breath as it would rupture your lungs if you kept full pressure.
Tempurature does nothing though since there is very little matter that will take your heat so it leaks off very very slowly.
I looked it up more instead of just bullshitting and apperently, if you just open up and let your lungs dump out air you pass out in 15 seconds and you have about 15 more seconds of zero damage after that it gets worse until around 1.5-2minutes till it's your probably dead. Actually the more I google this it seems like NASA and the Russian's have already done all the work for you and experimented the crap out of it.
But heck just doing a quick 5-10minute google search to find basically everything you need and still we have stories where they explode or freeze then somehow magically revived looks really really stupid.
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/spac...According to that, a healthy person could live from about a minute to almost 2 minutes, depending on body size.
Another article about it that says "a couple of minutes"...but of course both don't advise it ;D
http://www.scientificamerican.com/art...
Oh...and holding your breath is a bad, bad idea.
Ohh here is one global warming/climate change completely ruined the world in <100 years. Like we destroyed it with chemical/nuclear weapons or nanobots or we ruined our crop supply those feel a lot more possible if you are trying to make a realisticish manmade disaster and want it in modernish times.
Kenneth wrote: "Wood is also heavy. That's why it isn't used on airplanes. Not a factor if you stay in space, but if you enter an atmosphere, the additional weight will tax your propulsion system if you hope to get back in orbit. "Weight = mass, and should be a factor even in space. It takes more energy to accelerate or slow down a greater mass. Therefore speed and acceleration are affected. In theory: if reaction type engines are used, like rockets. But with a super sprocket dongle wurbler, mass and space time are nullified, so the average SF writer can get away with it.
I read a poignant short story many years ago of a young girl who stowed away on a mail rocket, to see her brother on some far-flung outpost. The sole pilot found her, the culmination of which was that she had to visit the air-lock en-route, because her extra mass would have meant that the ship had insufficient fuel to be able to stop. I'd love to read it again, but can't remember who wrote it. Probably Sheckley or similar. (he didn't explain how the ship managed to compensate for the extra fuel used in acceleration because she was on board, but you can't have it all.)
It was "The Cold Equations," a famous story.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
On Basilisk Station (other topics)The Roads Must Roll (other topics)
The Quantum Thief (other topics)
Mutated (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
David Weber (other topics)Robert Jordan (other topics)
Tom Godwin (other topics)
- Formulaic plot
- "Cheesy" plots
- Shark jumping
- Plot holes (I can forgive a little, but I've seen a lot that were just from laziness and expecting readers to be too stupid to catch it)
- Talking down to the reader
- Bad grammar
- Two dimensional characters
What can you add to the list?