Science Fiction - A Rant

I do some reviewing for Night Owl Reviews and I used to edit for several publishers. I've been a life-long science fiction and romance reader. And I'm seeing something that bugs the heck out of me. I'm seeing stories where the authors are combining science fiction and romance. That isn't what has been bugging me though, I love the combination, I even write it myself.

The thing that bugs me is the number of books I see billed as science fiction romance where the author has made the assumption that calling a car a transport or having a character zip around in a flitter and talk to an intelligent cat with six legs makes the story science fiction. Sorry but it doesn't. Neither does copying things like warp drive, light swords, pointed ears and strange colored skin. Or setting the story on a space station or a planet with five moons and a green sky. I've seen books by authors who use the terms planet, galaxy, and solar system interchangeably, not having a clue concerning the difference between these things. They plug in a few spacey sounding terms and make the hero blue skinned and telepathic and bingo, they think they have science fiction. Um...No.

I have a suggestion for all the authors who want to write science fiction because they've seen all the Star Wars movies and every episode of Star Trek ever made. Read some science fiction. Read Heinlein, Niven, Asimov, Herbert, Bova, and Blish. Also Cherryh, Lichtenberg, Duane, Bradley, Tiptree, and LeGuin. There are thousands of great books out there. Hundreds of great authors. Read and pay attention to the world building, the aliens they describe, the culture the humans live in. Don't just copy a few terms you liked from the Matrix movies and rewrite Biff falls in love with Muffy. (Mary Sue / Gary Stu is a whole other rant.)

You want to write about people on a world with a green sky? Fine, take a minute and find out what would make that sky green, and would the people be able to breathe it or would they have to wear some kind of environment suit? Would they need air locks on their homes? What other problems would they have? Carnivorous grass maybe, who knows, the possibilities are endless. Research it; your story will be better for it. With Google and the internet these days research doesn't take much time at all.

Alright, rant over. For now. So, just in case you're wondering what I've read myself and personally recommend here's a short list.

H Beam Piper – Little Fuzzy (available on Kindle for free.)

James H Schmitz – Agent of Vega, the Telzey and Trigger stories (available online from Baen Books.)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg – Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends, plus the Sime-Gen books.

Marion Zimmer Bradley – Colors of Space as well as the Darkover series.

Frank Herbert – the first four in the Dune series.

Robert Heinlein – All of them, particularly Red Planet and Orphans of the Sky.

C J Cherryh – the Chanur books, Cuckoo's Egg, Cyteen, the Foriegner series, and Wave Without a Shore if you can find it.

Alan Dean Foster - The Flinx and Pip series.

And there are dozens of others. Go on, be brave, extend your horizons. It doesn't hurt a bit.