do you read SF novels?
If so, I have some questions for you about planets and the sci in the fi.
Namely, how much do you want to know about the planets in the story? Do you care what kind of star it orbits? How high or low the gravity is there? Whether the orbit is circular or elliptical? Basically, how important is planet detail to you? Is "forest world" (or simply a description of the area where the settlement is) sufficient, or do you really look for interesting and accurate scientific tidbits about the planets?
(Personally, I figure that's really important if it's a hard-SF story or if the story is about the planet itself, like Ringworld. Otherwise, IDK, but it always seems kind of gimmicky to me, to figure out that because it's a dwarf star instead of a red star and the planet has a greater tilt than Earth does, here's all this stuff about weather and how big the rabbits grow and how high people can jump. Some detail is good, but too much and it starts to bog down the story for me. (Book I'm reading about how to write SF, for instance, thinks all this stuff is crucially important, and did a sample paragraph showing how to dump all this detail and still keep it within character voice. I got bored after the second sentence and wanted them to stop with the travel brochure and just make with the point already. I'm not interested in stories about stuff, I'm interested in stories about people. If it's hugely important to have space fantasy at least know detail about the planets, I'll research it, but I can't say it's anything that's interesting, and I don't want to sacrifice the social information for planet trivia.)
The other thing is the science in general. How much do you care if the FTL drives are fueled by, as TV Tropes calls it, "unobtanium"? If you see a domed starport on a non-life-supporting planet, do you care where they get their water and nitrogen from? Did the "I can do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, kid" comment make you irritated because a parsec is a unit of distance, not time, or didn't you notice that?
A thread on the NaNo boards has the perfect name for what I'm trying to work on, called it "sword and planet books". I've had a lot of "could this work as fantasy" discussions with myself in my head, and I think I need a galactic scale for this to work. I need entire peoples to get lost, and their cities to not be findable by some dude on a horse simply riding far enough or some sailing ship getting blown off course. The corporation run by one by the descendants of one of the survivors of a genocidal purge needs to be very low-key, and that's greatly helped by the fact that it, and the planet it runs, are just one of thousands. Notable for the product they put out (mercenary and bounty hunting services), but nobody notices that they're rather xenophobic-- if you can transact business on the Imperial capital planet, why would anyone trundle out to the backwater world where their business is headquartered? The standard medieval fantasy is simply too claustrophobic to get the scale I need without going into magical devices that can transport someone to a different pocket world or something like that-- and that would be completely rethinking the kind of magic this universe has.
Too bad, fantasy would work better in a bunch of ways, not least because it's more in my comfort zone of what I know and what I know how to research. Medieval research is interesting, reading about how planet tilt affects seasons isn't interesting. Space fantasy gets a pass on the screen, because we're used to it, but I'm not sure how well it gets a pass on the page. OTOH, there's not a ton of sci in the Vorkosigan Saga, at least not the first two books in it (which I read). Some, perhaps more than I feel able to pull off, but Barrayar is very earthlike.
Thoughts?
Namely, how much do you want to know about the planets in the story? Do you care what kind of star it orbits? How high or low the gravity is there? Whether the orbit is circular or elliptical? Basically, how important is planet detail to you? Is "forest world" (or simply a description of the area where the settlement is) sufficient, or do you really look for interesting and accurate scientific tidbits about the planets?
(Personally, I figure that's really important if it's a hard-SF story or if the story is about the planet itself, like Ringworld. Otherwise, IDK, but it always seems kind of gimmicky to me, to figure out that because it's a dwarf star instead of a red star and the planet has a greater tilt than Earth does, here's all this stuff about weather and how big the rabbits grow and how high people can jump. Some detail is good, but too much and it starts to bog down the story for me. (Book I'm reading about how to write SF, for instance, thinks all this stuff is crucially important, and did a sample paragraph showing how to dump all this detail and still keep it within character voice. I got bored after the second sentence and wanted them to stop with the travel brochure and just make with the point already. I'm not interested in stories about stuff, I'm interested in stories about people. If it's hugely important to have space fantasy at least know detail about the planets, I'll research it, but I can't say it's anything that's interesting, and I don't want to sacrifice the social information for planet trivia.)
The other thing is the science in general. How much do you care if the FTL drives are fueled by, as TV Tropes calls it, "unobtanium"? If you see a domed starport on a non-life-supporting planet, do you care where they get their water and nitrogen from? Did the "I can do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, kid" comment make you irritated because a parsec is a unit of distance, not time, or didn't you notice that?
A thread on the NaNo boards has the perfect name for what I'm trying to work on, called it "sword and planet books". I've had a lot of "could this work as fantasy" discussions with myself in my head, and I think I need a galactic scale for this to work. I need entire peoples to get lost, and their cities to not be findable by some dude on a horse simply riding far enough or some sailing ship getting blown off course. The corporation run by one by the descendants of one of the survivors of a genocidal purge needs to be very low-key, and that's greatly helped by the fact that it, and the planet it runs, are just one of thousands. Notable for the product they put out (mercenary and bounty hunting services), but nobody notices that they're rather xenophobic-- if you can transact business on the Imperial capital planet, why would anyone trundle out to the backwater world where their business is headquartered? The standard medieval fantasy is simply too claustrophobic to get the scale I need without going into magical devices that can transport someone to a different pocket world or something like that-- and that would be completely rethinking the kind of magic this universe has.
Too bad, fantasy would work better in a bunch of ways, not least because it's more in my comfort zone of what I know and what I know how to research. Medieval research is interesting, reading about how planet tilt affects seasons isn't interesting. Space fantasy gets a pass on the screen, because we're used to it, but I'm not sure how well it gets a pass on the page. OTOH, there's not a ton of sci in the Vorkosigan Saga, at least not the first two books in it (which I read). Some, perhaps more than I feel able to pull off, but Barrayar is very earthlike.
Thoughts?