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.
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5 comments:
Love it and totally agree. Off to reread Little Fuzzy now. Other suggested readings: Any of Heinlein's juvi fiction. High adventure, romance, and less hard scifi for the scifi impaired. Great kick start for the neophytes.
You have a bunch of very good points here that can fit for other genres as well. Some people who try genres at random seem to pick out the generic or stereotypical elements that they assume is what makes a book fall in that genre without doing their research.
I'm writing a mystery and while the first draft is getting down without research, I would never dream of submitting it that way. I plan to do the work to understand the genre and proper procedure required for the rewrite.
With science fiction, I took a sci-fi lit class in college. Have books on my to read list as well as the science research to back up what I write. I love science and want to have that basis for the differences in the book and not just go by "well, it's sci-fi so it works because I say so".
Great post/rant!
You're absolutely right! Great post, and excellent reading list! :)
Great article. I'm a SFR writer who's on the "put the science in science fiction romance" bandwagon.
I get disgruntled with books that are tagged as science fiction romance that turn out to be fantasy on another planet (or on a starship).
And that's a great list of SF/SFR authors, but I'd also like to nominate John Scalzi to the list.
Thanks for the great comments everyone. I knew there were more people out there who were irritated by this than just me.
Yes, absolutely, everyone should read Heinlein's juvi fiction, My personal favorites are Farmer in the Sky, Time for the Stars, and Citizen of the Galaxy. Little Fuzzy is a classic science fiction, in the top 5 of my top 10 books.
If I had a dime for every time I read a romance set in the 1800's and encounter a heroine or hero who uses modern day slang... This is very similar to how I write, I put down an idea and then research the details to make sure the action can happen the way I want it to. In Pale Fire I even spoke to actual abductees and UFO researchers, everything in the book is based on things in the real UFO phenomenon/culture. I try to write in the genres I love, of course I love pretty much all of them though lol.
If you call your book science fiction I want to see some sort of science, whether hard physical science or one of the social sciences. I want to see an actual known scientific theory or event taken to the next step or even next several steps, not space opera. Although I do like good space opera too. I'll be checking out John Scalzi's books, always looking for new authors to add to the reading list.
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