Poll: Calling readers of Sci-Fi - A focus group exercise

[Hagi]

Personally I prefer sci-fi that doesn't explain anything, just write the book from the perspective of taking these technologies for granted, it feels much more natural.

When I talk about cars I don't explain how a combustion engine works, I just talk its speed, its cost, its fuel-use etc. When I talk about my computer outside of my study (which is ICT, so obviously I do go in-depth there) I don't really talk about the details of chips, algorithms and all that. I talk about the latest games, random stuff on the internet etc.

Of course, if you have a scientist as one of your character then you should explain a bit more, but even then there's certain things that such a character will take for granted as common knowledge and thus not feature in his thoughts.

To me it just seems weird when a character's internal monologue goes on to explain how certain things work (which seems the most common way of explaining technologies inside a narrative). It feels forced.

What I would do is, with every explanation you write, turn it into a current-time equivalent (interstellar travel becomes travelling between continents, starship engines become jet-engines, lasers become black-powder etc.) and see if you would still feel natural explaining the mechanics at work there. Most likely it won't feel natural, in which case you should leave it out.

 

[Da Orky Man]

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

Look at the link above. The kind of 'scientific' explanations Star Trek uses gets almost painful on occasional, and there is a rather blatant lack of hard science fiction.

 

[kickassfrog]

You should type out your understanding of the technology, and include it as a separate book.
Like Peter F Hamilton did with the federation handbook to the night's dawn series.

If you can include it without it slowing the plot, or work it into either the dialogue or exposition then so much the better.

 

[Tzekelkan]

You're trying to write a science fiction book... without having read more than one and a half science fiction books? That'll go down well.

I suggest you dive into some Asimov or Clarke first. That's some good sci-fi.

 

[Dragonclaw]

I don't need all the explanations, especially when it drags the story to a crawl.

 

[Sean Steele]

Different Genres require different levels of explination.

Space Operas you can pretty much use science when a fantasy writer would use magic, a plot device to put whatever the hell you want in there.

Speculative Fiction you better know what the hell your talking about.

Whatever you pick though incorrectly using science jargon, "Quick! Plug that Higgs Boson Amplifier into the Quantum Physics Interceptor so we can fire the Andromeda Laser Phaser!" Will get you universally mocked generally.

 

[Deadyawn]

My experience with sci-fi is pretty limited. Most of the stuff I've read has been quite soft although I've read some harder ones too. For me, a good sci-fi story is one that uses adavnced technology that could theoritically be possible to create interesting scenarios for interesting characters to interact with. So while on the one hand I don't like exposition to get in the way of the plot I also don't like it when the technology is simply handwaved and you're just supposed to accept it. So what I'm saying is a bit of balance is nice.

 

[BlindTom]

How do you feel the story would be best served? I personally like to read at least a little about the process the characters are supposedly using, but it's not necessary in every work.

This may help: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness

IS THAT A LINK TO TVTROPES? IS IT? DO YOU HAVE AY IDEA WHT YOU'VE DONE!?


I WAS GOING TO WORK TODAY

 

[Catfood220]

"Wankers derping around in space."

That is the best thing I have read all day, thank you.

 

[SciMal]

So, the boiled down point is, should I follow a more Star Wars-like approach where the setting is science fictiony, but the technology can run on fairy dust for all we know. Or try and go the more Star Trek style of having everything explained with long sciencey sounding words that may or may not work how I think they do. Or should I pack it in all together?

It depends on the audience you're writing for and your personal preferences.

If you're writing for a "Hard" sci-fi audience, or you know enough about the subject that you want to explore some of its finer points, then include more.

The more mainstream you go, (deeply unfortunately) the more you can get by with hand waiving and science-y terms. "Inspired by Science" as opposed to "Based on Science."

My personal preference is more towards the "Hard" Sci-Fi. Alistair Reynolds is a PhD Astronomer who turned to writing books, so when he talks about Lagrange points in a star's orbit and time-dilation, I know I'm reading something solidly based on actual research. It's more realistic to me, and inspires me to continue reading Sci-Fi since it's a more realistic path forward.

However, I've also read stuff like Dune - which is my favorite Sci-Fi series of all time, but not because of its piss-poor adhesion to science. It's a fucking fantastic, epic story that's set in a sci-fi setting that's internally consistent, and that's the big key.

No matter which one you choose, just be consistent. Most people know some of the more egregious errors these days - sound doesn't carry in a vacuum, you can't accelerate past the speed of light and still retain mass, etc. However, if you start to ignore some basic rules while following others, it just confuses the reader. It makes them question what Universe they're in - yours or theirs.

The more you contradict yourself, the better an explanation you better have for doing so. If your setting is setup so people can radically alter their genetic makeup at the drop of a hat, but there's still billions of people starving in the world - what the fuck? If your starships still rely on solid rocket fuel, but anti-gravity is ferrying people to work, what's up with that?

And, as already mentioned, the "harder" you go, the higher the chance gets that you'll run into a fanbase which simply knows more than you on a particular topic. Your average SyFy channel viewer doesn't care that you can't really splice genes with electricity to produce LIGHTNING SHARK - but if you catch the eyes of too many Biologists, you'll have a few issues to address.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Do what you feel you like.Thats what I am doing with my book project.