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Things that scifi writers do that you hate?
Brenda wrote: "It was "The Cold Equations," a famous story."Thanks Brenda! Found it. by Tom Godwin, written in 1954, three years before Yuri Gagarin made it into space. It was criticised as 'bad engineering' by not having sufficient fuel reserves on the craft to deal with emergencies. However, even today the fuel reserve taken into space are absolutely minimal - then, everything was calculated to the last ounce.
Pete wrote: "I read a poignant short story many years ago of a young girl..."That was an Asimov short story.
Later... maybe not. I know it, and have it somewhere in my library. Will seek it out.
Still later : The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.
Pete wrote: "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...."
I'm not sure, but I think you're talking about "Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin.
I'm not sure, but I think you're talking about "Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin.
Brenda wrote: "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 extra..."Sorry, Brenda, false reasoning. If you look again at your door you will see that if you were to utilise the space where the door swings you would not be able to access the door (it's a common misconception). A sliding door is useful only when a hinged door blocks access to something else when open.
Ken wrote: "Pete wrote: "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...."I'm not sure, but I think you're talking about "Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin. "
Thanks Ken - you're quite right, only Brenda found it first. I must have read it in the 60's, and it's stuck with me ever since.
I also recall another amusing tale from the same era, based on the concept of mismatched psychologies: this spaceman got captured by aliens, who were trying to extract information so they could invade earth, or some such. He had no chance of escape and no weapons. All he had was a paper clip. Without creating a spoiler, all I will say is: that was all he needed. Anyone remember that one?
Perhaps we should have a 'Does anyone remember...' thread.
Brenda wrote: "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 extra..."This one doesn't bug me at all. Every spaceship and space station we've ever made has hinged doors. That will likely persist for some time as it's the simplest design. I also think that by the time we get to Star Trek levels of interstellar spaceshippery, automatic doors will be so reliable you won't need hinges, but by the same token, interior space won't be at a premium.
If you use the typical Superscience of Trek or Star Wars or Niven's Known Space, where things don't break and the power never goes out, you don't need to manually open a door. But even the Enterprise had a secondary system of moving around that was basically ladders and hinged doors, the Jeffries Tubes. That kind of design makes sense to me, for those Worst Case Scenarios.
If this link works, it should be at 17:00, where Spock is using the Jeffries tubes to get to the engine room in Wrath of Khan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zDexd...
Pete wrote: "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.)"That's the classic short story "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin. It's been made into a movie and used for episodes of various TV shows.
Here's the entire story in PDF form: http://photos.state.gov/libraries/hoc...
All of you guys posted while I was looking for photos of Jeffries tubes and the text of the Godwin story.
Kenneth wrote: "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 expla..."The point I think he's trying to make is that the readers doesn't care how it works. The author can't build one, nor can anyone on Earth today, so why would he want to wade through the BS explanation?
Perhaps a part malfunctioned and it was sabotage? Then the "part" might need to be named by the investigator and the method of sabotage explained before it's sent to the crime lab???
"Someone shorted the power feed to the output leg of the framus, causing a cascade failure to the entire drive." That's as far as I'd take it.
And that's as far as you'd want to, really. I suppose I was just saying that if you suspect something needs a little support to avoid handwavium, that's a way to do it without turning it into an infodump.
Brenda wrote: "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..."Well put. Exactly what I was trying to say.
Kenneth wrote: "And that's as far as you'd want to, really. I suppose I was just saying that if you suspect something needs a little support to avoid handwavium, that's a way to do it without turning it into an in..."Eggg-zaktly! ;-)
Trike wrote: "Brenda wrote: "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 spac...""Spaceshippery." A lovely word. Maybe the OED will sit up and take notice. I think the main purpose of ST's sliding doors was to be futuristic. Hinged doors are so prosaic. Besides, the sliding doors made that satisfying whooshing sound.
Doc wrote: "I think the main purpose of ST's sliding doors was to be futuristic. Hinged doors are so prosaic. Besides, the sliding doors made that satisfying whooshing sound..."
One thing else about sliding doors vs hinged doors: sliding doors are more complicated to make airtight, while hinged doors need only a simple ring seal around the edge. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the better one, even in the far future.
One thing else about sliding doors vs hinged doors: sliding doors are more complicated to make airtight, while hinged doors need only a simple ring seal around the edge. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the better one, even in the far future.
Jason wrote: "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, ..."
Its a thing of mine. I started reading SF long before writers could use that sort of thing, and I still prefer my SF that way. I also stand by my conviction that most occurrences are unnecessary. Too many writers use F-bombs as a cheap and easy way to try to add power and "coolness" to their writing. Doesn't work--and the more they do it, the less it works.
If writers feel the need to F-bomb, they should do it as David Weber does (and as you appear to have done), sparingly and at moments of great crisis or tension, for extreme emphasis.
Here's the great irony of the trend to use more F-bombs. They are becoming common. Scorcese's latest film scored a new record, with more than 580 of them. At that rate, F-bombs will soon lose all their power, their ability to shock. English will have to invent or at least designante a new shock word--maybe "frak" or "felgacarp" or "pudgel."
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..."I don't have a problem with Marines carrying a 9mm sidearm. It's almost as good as a 10mm, and ammo is easier to find.
I take your point about not maneuvering the ship just to aim the weapons--but if the weapon is static along the axis of the ship, or even has a field of fire confined to one side of the ship . . .
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. I don't care how unbeli..."Amen to that.
Kenneth wrote: "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 y..."Docking-system interactions suffer in the ever-present desire (one hopes) to move the plot along. This is the reason the ST transporter is so very convenient. It avoids all that taking off and landing or docking stuff.
Having all aliens speak English is the prime example of this. Translating everything would be too tedious. (Hence the Babel fish and the universal translator.)
Al wrote: "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. ..."
I can, of course, only speak of my own tastes and my own decisions about what I buy and read. I wish a genre I have always enjoyed didn't include f-bombing--but it does, and that is that. I just try to confine my personal choices to books (and movies) that use them sparingly if at all.
I know the reality argument (I worked construction for a few years, so I have been witness to f-bomb carpet bombing). Reality is a slippery thing in books, and more so in movies. They compress and expand time. They gives us looks into people's thoughts and into points of view that are impossible in real reality.
People who go to a war movie, for example, are not interested in reality. They are not interested in going to war, not interested in experiencing the cold or the heat, the dirt, the terror, the real gore and stench of it. They don't want to get PTSD. They want to be entertained for a few minutes with a reasonably believable, bearable semblance of a fictionalized, entirely safe, odorless version of it, and then go home and have a snack.
The reality argument has a chicken-and-egg, circular feedback element to it. More f-bombing in movies, books, and action games means kids and others are more likely to f-bomb, which justifies more f-bombing, ad nauseum.
Besides, real reality for most of us is often tedious. Following me around for a day--or a year--might yield something real, but it wouldn't be entertaining.
Brenda wrote: "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..."I agree about the Gor books. Norman's very non-PC views on women got to be quite tedious. I once found a nonfiction book he wrote on sex. I opened it at random and the first thing I clapped eyes to said something like: "Imagine you are a pirate and that your wife is your helpless slave."
Hmm.
Doc wrote: "I don't have a problem with Marines carrying a 9mm sidearm. It's almost as good as a 10mm, and ammo is easier to find......."Not only that but it might be that in the sort of environments marines work (perhaps inside the ship) a 9mm lowish velocity soft nosed projectile is going to do less damage to fixtures and fittings than great blasts of energy or something more high velocity :-)
It is a balancing act: to tell enough about the lasers or the time travel machine or the Elvish lore, but not too much. You can point at authors who do more of this, or less, and it is a matter of taste. (Tell the truth, did you skip all the poems in LOTR?) And the various genres have different standards; you're going to find a ton more description of gowns and hats in a Regency bodice ripper than a space opera.
it seems to me that sometimes the writer stretches to make an ending go to a non-organic place.
I skipped the poems and song when I read LOTR's as a kid on reread I skipped nothing.
LOTR's is an example of an organic ending. the ringbearers at the end were still damaged people and went into the care of the elves. it left good questions.
unexplained FTL drive, I want some suggestions about the how
Regency bodice ripper... is that a genre?
Don wrote: "unexplained FTL drive, I want some suggestions about the how"When I'm writing, I don't explain how a car works, nor how a FTL-driven space ship works. I don't know how FTL works, nor does anyone else on this planet (that I'm aware of). I might push it into a "worm hole" or "hyper-space" to justify the FTL part. In one book I wrote, I had to explain how "hyper space" worked like a one-way mirror to justify some of the action, but that's about it. (BTW, I have NO idea if hyper-space really exists let alone how it would really work).
All that being said, I'm happy to read a book with FTL flight in it and allow the author to skip the explanation.
I guess that's why some people buy one book while other prefer another. We're all different. Ain't it wonderful?
I loved the poems in LOTR. It's a shame they didn't put more of the songs in the films.
It's "Cold Equations."Sloppy setup, actually. It's insane to think that if stowaways are that dangerous that you didn't have enough precautions to prevent this girl -- who could have been stopped by a single guard or by a pre-flight vehicle inspection.
You need to know how something works if it matters for the plot like it's important to understand how the magic of a world works if the main character is a mage and exploring new bounderies of magic. It's important to know how the spaceships move in space if a character is an admiral commanding a large army in fleet tactics, especially if you want to show them off as a smart leader. Now if it's more of a sci-fi adventure then yeah you don't need stuff explained except for maybe a quick line to explain the basic function of the device if they can't pick it up from context clues.For more annoyances. I'm reading the
The Quantum Thief
I'm not super far yet, but it's driving me a bit nuts. It constantly brings up new cybery terms that you have to figure out though context clues which I'm okay with. But then someone walks in the room and it gives a detailed description then two full absurd metaphors describing their walking. Like if you are going for a no data dump world please stop trying to describe to me the way the chandelier hangs in the room looks when it has absolutely no relationship to the plot. Now maybe the chandelier matters later but it has done this for so many things at this point I kind of doubt that's the case and he is just overly stressing what the world needs to look like instead of letting my imagination fill it in. It just feels weird to explain none of the tech, often not even explaining what it does you have to figure it out in context then it overly describes exactly what the scene looks like. This books plot better get awesome or else I'm going to be a very unhappy reader.
Angela wrote: "Excessive rehash. Sure it may have been awhile since the book before was read,..."Triple-Like! I just finished writing my third book and I wanted potential new readers to know that it was a sequel and I wasn't going to rehash the first novel just so they could understand the second. I ended up deleting that portion of my introduction before I published because I didn't want to sound too harsh. Now I think that maybe I should have left it in. Here's what I took out:
One thing I hate about science fiction novels is how they tend to repeat themselves throughout a series or even within the same book.
For instance, I love the extended universe of a certain set of Stars that are at War, pretty much constantly. I have almost every book and have read them multiple times, so make no mistake about my critique of them; I am certainly not bashing the stories I care about. I’m just making an observation that if you are reading the extended series, you already know who the princess is and that her home planet was blown up and who her brother is; so it is completely unnecessary to set up these characters and their backgrounds multiple times in the same series, let alone the same book in order to bring the reader to a certain place of understanding that they were already at. WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE!
Don wrote: "Regency bodice ripper... is that a genre?"Not really. More of a extreme level of sub-categorization.
Romance is a genre, "regency" is a sub-genre of Romance. "Bodice-Ripper" is more of a description but it can also be used as a sub-genre.
I never used to hate this element but now I do: Transporters. I really like the two newest Star Trek movies but you can't use transporters as your get-around-every-problem solution. No piece of tech should ever be the always go-to solution.
Best way to handle a rehash is to have a large character list in the back, see David Weber's Safehold series that currently has thousands of names in the back so if you hit a name and go wait who was this flips to back.
Aaron wrote: "Best way to handle a rehash is to have a large character list in the back, see David Weber's Safehold series that currently has thousands of names in the back so if you hit a name and go wait who w..."I did that for my sequel! As part of my first book I had 12 character biographies strewn throughout the novel. These short stories give the reader a more in depth look into the characters. I put these in the back of the sequel with links to the characters' names as they appeared in the story. Then you can click to go back after you're done reading the biography.
I've read a few of Weber's Honor Harrington books; they were pretty good.
I think he is talking about explaining the same thing over and over again. YES YOU HAVE ALREADY EXPLAINED THAT PIECE OF INFORMATION 4 TIMES ALREADY GET ON WITH IT ARGHHHHH!!!
Tannera wrote: "Jay, you wrote, 'One thing I hate about science fiction novels is how they tend to repeat themselves throughout a series or even within the same book.'Do you refer to story arcs, the main plot, o..."
All of the above :)
A lot of the Star Wars books talk about Alderaan being blown up but in a way that seems like we don't already know this. As though it's a new piece of information that Leia is from there and it was destroyed. Or mentioning that Luke is her brother. We know these things.
As for plot devices, B.V. Larson's Star Force series is filled with repeated information. I really like the series and look forward to the next installment. But, we know that the dude is "nanotized" and so the injury he sustained wasn't life threatening but would have been otherwise, please don't repeat that 30+ times in the same book and god-knows how many times throughout the series.
Jason wrote: "As a long time reader of scifi I have a few pet peeves that can put me off of an author or series.- Formulaic plot
- "Cheesy" plots
- Shark jumping
- Plot holes (I can forgive a little, but I've ..."
Can I second the two dimensional characters peeve please?
Al wrote: "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. ..."
Hey Al
Particularly with you on the info dump. Scifi authors love explaining stuff, as though their characters are deeply intrigued by what happens every time they press the pedal down in their speeder. Do they have these thoughts every time they drive anywhere? They must get very bored...
Kenneth wrote: "I loved the poems in LOTR. It's a shame they didn't put more of the songs in the films."True for the Hobbit poems.
As a composer/arranger, trying to rise to the level LOTR ascribes to elvensong would be a trifle daunting.
Tannera wrote: "Thank you for the response Jay.Al, I decided against using f-bombs in novels. They aren't necessary to tell a story.
Michael, I feel an author should explain technical information once in a seri..."
Too right. All the great f-bombless stories written before the past few decades, from "Beowolf" to "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Red Storm Rising," prove that beyond question.
Thomas wrote: "I got frustrated with them and ended up replying, "I don't write for tourists." ..."
Great line.
Great line.
Michael wrote: "Particularly with you on the info dump. Scifi authors love explaining stuff, as though their characters are deeply intrigued by what happens every time they press the pedal down in their speeder. Do they have these thoughts every time they drive anywhere? They must get very bored... I agree, except with a lightsaber. I would be TOTALLY amazed every time I turned one of those babies on! I'd be like, "Whoa!, Oh, you want to fight? Right, fighting, that's why I turned this thing on. Ready."
The first time Luke turned his father's lightsaber on, he just kind of went, "Oh, okay, let me turn this thing back off and put it down." What?!?!
F-Bombing: I have a few swear words in my novels but two are about special forces space marines. There has to be one or two in there.
Handwavium: I have on a couple of occasions had the really smart tech guy start to get into something only to realize he's losing his audience so he just says, "Okay, it doesn't really matter why or how it works, just trust me when I tell you it will. Here's the important part..."
We don't need to understand FTL in Star Wars to still love the story and I really don't want Wedge droning on about how it works.
Handwavium is only bad when you use it describe something completely implausible as well as impossible compounded with improbable. i.e. "Trust me, when I throw this ordinary pebble into the pond the ripple effect will cause a butterfly on a distant world to flap his wings in a certain way as to start the sun in our enemy's galaxy to go supernova. You don't need to understand the science behind this, because without this, my story can't have a good ending because I have written myself into a corner that is deeper than the Maw Cluster..."
Thomas wrote: "Since the viewpoint character saw nothing unusual about being on a space station, it made no sense to me to have him think, 'Oh, wow -- I'm on a space station! And now I must contemplate what keeps this station in orbit. And how the air is recycled. And what kind of fuel was used for the shuttle that got me here. And what would happen if we were suddenly visited by aliens who didn't use the same kind of shuttle fuel.' No more than it would make sense to have a character in a contemporary story to think, 'Oh, wow -- I'm on a bus! Now I must spend several minutes contemplating how its internal combustion engine works, and the history of buses, and why they are made out of metal instead of wood...' "My super-agreeance with this goes to 11.
A really cheap trick many writers pull (and we see this in movies a lot) is the newbie character who has to have everything explained to them. Or the boss who inevitably says, "Explain it me like I'm 7, please."
The only time I've ever seen that done well is in Ghostbusters.
"Don't cross the streams. That would be bad."
"I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What does you mean?"
"Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."
"Okay, that's bad. Good safety tip, thanks."
Unless you're Harold Ramis, don't try that sort of thing.
Thomas wrote: "Since the viewpoint character saw nothing unusual about being on a space station, it made no sense to me to have him think, 'Oh, wow -- I'm on a space station! And now I must contemplate what keeps this station in orbit. And how the air is recycled. And what kind of fuel was used for the shuttle that got me here. And what would happen if we were suddenly visited by aliens who didn't use the same kind of shuttle fuel.' No more than it would make sense to have a character in a contemporary story to think, 'Oh, wow -- I'm on a bus! Now I must spend several minutes contemplating how its internal combustion engine works, and the history of buses, and why they are made out of metal instead of wood...' "My super-agreeance with this goes to 11.
A really cheap trick many writers pull (and we see this in movies a lot) is the newbie character who has to have everything explained to them. Or the boss who inevitably says, "Explain it me like I'm 7, please."
The only time I've ever seen that done well is in Ghostbusters.
"Don't cross the streams. That would be bad."
"I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What does you mean?"
"Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."
"Okay, that's bad. Good safety tip, thanks."
Unless you're Harold Ramis, don't try that sort of thing.
The technical term for this is 'as you know, Bob.' As in, "As you know, Bob, the carpets in this hallway are made of the byproducts of the petroleum industry." A blatant 'as you know Bob' is a sign of bad writing. The deft SF writer can slip it in so neat and sweet you do not notice the information being conveyed to you. Robert Heinlein was a master at this.
Brenda wrote: "The technical term for this is 'as you know, Bob.' As in, "As you know, Bob, the carpets in this hallway are made of the byproducts of the petroleum industry." A blatant 'as you know Bob' is a sign..."I used that very example in another thread (except I used "John" and "giant ants"). The modern versions are just dumb variations on that old gambit.
I am totally going to use the line, "Explain it to me like I'm 7," followed by, "As you know, Bob, the sky is really high in the air, and that's where birds live. So this spaceship is like a dead bird falling way, way down to the ground from way, way high in the air."
Trike wrote: "don't cross the streams"Just to make my earlier point punctuated, by the end of the movie they did indeed cross the streams and it was awesome.
I still maintain that it is important in a series with lots of dueling mages or when a new tech for the universe is being introduced.
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)
One of the reasons I enjoyed Star Wars when it first came out was that you were transported into a highly technical society and everything you saw just worked. No explanation other than civilisation was very advanced. You accepted it without question - almost. (I still can't work out how space fighters can perform gradual turns.) Compare that to Batman of the same era. Stupid signs everywhere : 'Batcave' 'Batmobile' etc. Even kids found that stupid.
You do not need data dumps in scenarios where the story is a distant time from our present. You have to take the author's word for it that the thingumajig works. After all, you don't go up to a friend and say 'Nice phone - how does it work?' You just know it does without a lecture on computers, radio waves, relay stations and such.
But if the story is contemporary, and a character 'invents' something, then a BRIEF explanation of the principal whereby it ought to work is necessary if the story is not to be classed as fantasy.
That's my view anyway, which seems to accord with the general consensus!