Science-Fictional Shibboleths (antipope.org) 508
An anonymous reader writes: SF author Charlie Stross has put together a short list of what he considers to be shibboleths for implausible science fiction. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, read the Wikipedia entry first.) So, what tops his list? "Asteroidal gravel banging against the hull of a spaceship. Alternatively: spaceships sheltering from detection behind an asteroid, or dodging asteroids, or pretty much anything else involving asteroids that don't look like [a pock-marked potato]." Another big red flag for Stross is when authors fail to appreciate Newton's second law, having their characters undergo impacts or accelerations that would turn them into a thin, reddish paste on their starship's hull. Some interesting examples from commenters include: futuristic yet manually-aimed weapons, technobabble as a plot device, and science officers with Ph.D. levels of expertise in dozens of fields. One of mine: entire races or planets full of people who behave the same, often based on some keyword. What are yours? Stross's focus is on books, but feel free to bring up movies and TV shows as well.
BLANK noun. (Score:5, Insightful)
Earthican ale. Yeah it sounds cute but Earth does not produce just one type of ale.
Earthican coffee. See Earthican ale.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't matter how many styles of ale a planet has if one type is considered prototypical or is the only one that gets marketed on other planets. Columbian coffee. Canadian bacon. Irish whiskey. And Fosters: Australian for Beer.
Improbable assumptions don't really bother me too much in science fiction, especially if they are only serving as background to whatever the story is focusing on. Tropes are running shoes: use them to go someplace interesting. What gets me is internal inconsistency (if you're going to dream up a puzzle, make sure the pieces actually fit together) and bland assumptions. If the author's answer to "what if ...?" is "the same old tired shit as the last 30 people who wrote a space opera" the result might have some merit, but it won't be from being fascinating, thought provoking, or amazing.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Interesting)
> Columbian coffee. Canadian bacon. Irish whiskey.
I think you really nail it here. Canadian bacon is the best example: it's not bacon, and it's not from Canada, but the name sticks. I think the problem is when people hang out *with Romulans* and talk about "Romulan ale"- the Romulans would, of course, know better, as would some ale aficionado. But in the general case, it's very safe to say "Earth Sugardrink" when talking about whatever the most popular human soda is. Sure, *we'd* know better, but the aliens might not, etc.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:4, Funny)
"Earth Sugardrink" when talking about whatever the most popular human soda is.
I'm adopting this expression. Hell, we should all adopt this expression, so maybe we'll drink less of it and actually enjoy it more when we do have it...
Re: (Score:2)
Except a lot of 'em don't have sugar - at least ehre in the US, high fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar in a lot of the sodas. Which of course means the imported Coke from Mexico or the "kosher for Passover" bottling now has a market, since it is still made with sugar. And of course, the marketing folks get a kick, as evidenced by the "throw back" versions of Pepsi products...
Re: (Score:3)
at least ehre in the US, ... ... high fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar
At least in Europe
Is still called what it is: sugar.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, high fructose corn syrup != sugar.
You need to learn simple chemistry to understand that fact.
Umm... no. Just no.
High fructose corn syrup contains (in addition to water) fructose ("fruit sugar") and glucose ("grape sugar"). Both are "sugar".
They aren't sucrose, but that is not the only sugar.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, high fructose corn syrup != sugar.
You need to learn simple chemistry to understand that fact.
CAP === 'subparts'
Hello,
PhD in chem here. HFCS is ~75% sugar, the rest is pretty much water. It's not cane or beet sugar (almost pure sucrose) though.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's a different type of Earthican sugardrink. You probably never heard of it. I get it imported from a small distributor.
- Klingon Hipster
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:4, Informative)
Foster's is Australian for "that kangaroo piss we sell to Yanks who don't know any better". Discerning Aussies drink Toohey's. Less discerning Aussies drink VB.
*prepares for flames from fans of Victoria Bitter*
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Discerning Australians drink beer from New Zealand because it's a hell of a lot better.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but any given region or, in this case planet, may be known for a particular brand/blend/variety of a product that is superior to the other varieties, or at least better known. It happens here on earth all the time (Egyptian cotton, Arabian coffee, Spanish rice).
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but in an interstellar community you would still call the variety of coffee available from Earth as Earthiness Coffee. Either because it is all very similar, or because it is the most popular quintessential Earthiness coffee. More than one drink is produced in champagne, France; But many of them are grouped together and called champagne.
Re: (Score:2)
Earth coffee is somewhat plausible, in that it could apply to all coffees that originate from Earth. There might be similar drinks derived from similar plants and processes from other planets.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but this trope is modelling the outside view, where earth is just one of many origins.
Of course there are a million flavors of ale/coffee on earth, but ask a random alien on the other side of the galaxy, they only know the one kind that earth is famous for (because of best marketing?).
It's a trope based on real life. Just replace earth with *exotic country*.
Re:BLANK noun. (Score:5, Interesting)
In contrast, consider (from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe):
It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian "chinanto/mnigs" which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan "tzjin-anthony-ks" which kills cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.
What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.
Re: (Score:2)
You are aware that there are several species of coffee plant with differing characteristics, aren't you?
Re: (Score:3)
You're almost as bad as the parent. First, every BBQ style of the South. Cajun stuff. American-style Chinese which is nothing like actual Chinese food. That also has its own individuality between the east and west coasts. New York deli food. Various pizza styles. Most of the best American food has some ethnicity associated with it, but it's often not found in the country of origin with which it's associated. Thus, it's American food. "Mexican" which really isn't Mexican. Tex-Mex! That's just off
Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm looking at you, Star Wars.
Your human target is 50 feet away and barely moving and yet SOMEHOW all of your crack Stormtroopers miss with a weapon that shoots at the speed of light.
A gigantic weapons platform (the Deathstar) with virtually NO point defense, virtually NO fighter screen, and practically no close-in, anti-attacker weapon mount points. WTF??
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
With Darth Vader, why would you need much of a fighter screen?
Only a young Jedi using the force could successfully mount an attack against a Death Star ...
Re: (Score:2)
It's a terror weapon. And it mainly depends on traveling at light speed to render it immune from counter attack.
Re:Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
I see. You seem to be under the impression that Star Wars is science fiction.
Re: (Score:3)
I see. You seem to be under the impression that Star Wars is science fiction.
Nice one.
Signed,
A Star Trek fan.
Re:Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:5, Informative)
Your human target is 50 feet away and barely moving and yet SOMEHOW all of your crack Stormtroopers miss with a weapon that shoots at the speed of light.
Those are blasters, not lasers. If you can see a discreet glob of energy fly fast through the air, it's not made of photons, it's giving off photons as a side-effect.
Re: Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:2)
Which are slower than ballistic ammo and are stopped by bulkheads and doors. Also, no blaster grenades?
Re: (Score:3)
They are slower than ballistic ammo, but they seem to explode a lot of things that they hit. Perhaps not the interior of some military installations. They also don't seem to follow a ballistic arc, and they are vastly more deadly than bullets- anyone hit with a blaster is pretty much fucked, it seems. There is also the apparent ease of recharge- we don't know how the blasters are recharged, but we definitely don't see everyone lugging around a hundred pounds of ammo or battery in most cases.
Re: (Score:2)
In real life a bullet is also pretty much one-and-done. It's almost always one and mission-killed. Particularly since modern firearms, military spec or not, have such a high rate of fire that if they hit you it's 2-3 times. Sometimes small-caliber weapons with extremely high-velocity armor-piercing rounds fail to stick around a human body long enough to do a bunch of damage, and if you have a medical corps as quick as America's you will typically be treated before you can bleed out. But if you get hit by an
Re: (Score:2)
> In real life a bullet is also pretty much one-and-done.
This is definitely not true. Assuming we are talking about rounds like you might see from a battle rifle, there's still plenty of survivors, and even in the case of burst fire, it's entirely possible to be struck by one, but not the others, or for the bullets to strike you somewhere that injures or maims but does not kill. If we are talking about other types of firearms, the odds go way up.
Bullets are nowhere close to a one shot kill, and even wh
Re: Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
anyone hit with a blaster is pretty much fucked, it seems.
No, blaster shots only kill you if you're wearing full body armor like a stormtrooper. If the blaster shot hits bare skin -- say Princess Leia's arm on Endor -- you'll wince in pain but shake it off and be back to full health within a few seconds.
Re: (Score:3)
> . If the blaster shot hits bare skin -- say Princess Leia's arm on Endor
I always saw that as the blaster hitting the metal, and she is injured by the force of the near miss. You did make me go check frame by frame, and I'll still stand by that interpretation- I see the blaster bolt special effect in one frame as flying at the space where her arm is adjacent to the metal wall, and the next frame has the spark explosion thing with an apparent center point that looks, to me, to originate from the door.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, that scene is what led to modern special effects from ILM.
If you check, you'll see that one "Carrie Fisher" was admitted at that time to the emergency room for plasma burns, not heat reflection. As a consequence, the Screen Actor's Guild insisted that no more live blasters be used, even if the stuntman was capable of missing.
hawk
Blaster shot was deflected by midichlorians (Score:3)
If the blaster shot hits bare skin -- say Princess Leia's arm on Endor -- you'll wince in pain but shake it off and be back to full health within a few seconds.
Obviously the blaster shot was deflected by the midichlorians in the bare skin. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
To claim that, means claiming a plasma in slow motion, also not realistic. About the slowest thing you could fire which could delivery energy at the other end electrically, would be capacitors. Charged as they are accelerated and developing an energy field in transit to maintain a higher speed and even allow trajectory alternation.
One thing they get immediately wrong of course is asteroid fields, sorry bubbala, to much flat earther thinking ie stagnant over time. Depending when, the asteroid field was cr
Re: (Score:3)
Those are blasters, not lasers. If you can see a discreet glob of energy fly fast through the air, it's not made of photons, it's giving off photons as a side-effect.
So this advanced energy weapon fires a "discreet glob of energy" that moves slower than a 20th-century handgun bullet?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. (Who said it was advanced? This was 'a long time ago,' remember?)
Re: (Score:2)
all of your crack Stormtroopers miss
If your Stormtroopers been smokin' crack, they ain't gonna hit jack shit.
Your weed Stormtroopers won't do any better.
Booze and beer Stormtroopers? Forget it.
And your LSD Stormtroopers? They will hit all kinds of flying dragons, before quickly destroying your Death Star.
I may seem old fashioned, but I would prefer to have a group of clean Stormtroopers. Hey, they can all take turns and switch groups when they want, but it would be a good idea to have at least one group of clean Stormtroopers to suppor
Re: (Score:2)
Just have your stormtroopers use meth, Hitler did nothing wrong!
Re: (Score:3)
Your human target is 50 feet away and barely moving and yet SOMEHOW all of your crack Stormtroopers miss with a weapon that shoots at the speed of light.
In the real 3 movies, this is actually explained quite well. (Inability of the armor to protect against teddy bears is another story). It canon that Storm Troopers are good shots: "these blast points are too accurate to be Sand People". So why do they miss so consistently in certain scenes in SW and ESB? Because they've been ordered to let the prisoners escape / capture them alive.
Think about it: the times in the first movie when Storm Troopers can't hit anything are during the rescue of Princess Leia a
Re: (Score:2)
Your human target is 50 feet away and barely moving and yet SOMEHOW all of your crack Stormtroopers miss with a weapon that shoots at the speed of light.
I think the Mythbusters did some measurements on an episode and determined that blasters fire travels slower than light. And they tried to dodge it.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the Mythbusters did some measurements on an episode and determined that blasters fire travels slower than light. And they tried to dodge it.
So....it's an energy weapon that fires a payload that moves slower than a 20th century handgun bullet?
Re: (Score:2)
Lasers in sci-fi often don't behave like lasers, more like plasma weapons of some kind. But yeah, how can you miss with a beam or dodge light? When they hit things they rarely behave like lasers either, and the energy density required to power them from a hand weapon is also kinda implausible.
Weapons in sci-fi in general tend to be a bit off. To pick up your Death Star example, any civilization with FTL and other advanced tech could just fling large rocks at it. Solo even comments about the danger of hittin
Re:Missing a target with a laser weapon (Score:4, Insightful)
>Did the Death Star even have an FTL drive? If it did, why didn't it use it to escape attack?
Because one must assume that the smaller ships near it would be in an inertial damping field. It simply has to exist because a light speed jump would mean every person inside a ship would hit the back wall with a few petajoules of energy otherwise. So, ok, there is a 'Mass Effect' field that occurs on the ships, then once a small ship is inside that bubble running away doesn't do any good, much like speeding a plane up to 400Mph to run from a terrorist bomber if the bomber is seating in isle 3A.
Most of the issues with the death star on ones of hubris, it would have never ran anyway, it thought it was undefeatable.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a IMHO good scene in either "The Mote in God's Eye" or the sequel where the protagonists are fleeing a pursuer, who is firing a laser at them. It's at a great distance, so the beam has spread, and IIRC there's insufficient fuel to dodge it, so they would be "bathed in that green glare for hours". The laser was causing the ship to heat up, with some device working hard to dump the heat, and a brief respite where they are able to hide in shadow for a while. I like it because it uses a simple limit (no
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with using a laser weapon to heat up someone else is that you are likely to need much more cooling at the weapon end than at the target end. Getting 50%+ efficiency out of a laser while dumping 100% of the laser energy into the target is challenging.
"This will hurt me more than it will hurt you" will finally be true...
Re: (Score:2)
But not affected by gravity as they fly in perfectly straight lines! :-)
Re: (Score:3)
It is not quite that bad as other Known Space (and Pournelle's Empire of Man) stories illustrate. If the laser is light-minutes away, then you perform evasive maneuvers and dodge before it gets to you even though you do not know where it will be aimed.
With you on themed planets (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to define an entire race or culture or planet with a 3 word phrase is asinine. Doing that for every race or culture or planet in a galaxy just makes me cringe. I can't read or watch it.
Re:With you on themed planets (Score:4, Funny)
And those "aliens" always have the weirdest MANDATORY rituals.
Like when the Earthican science officer has to travel home so he can celebrate Chr'istm;as with his family or else he will experience a drop in honour and require an increased h;oul'y pAy''ra'te for those days.
It was bad enough when he had us all sitting around the rec deck cutting Chr'istm;as kh'ah'rdd=s out of pAy''pur so we could exchange them with each other for kh'ah'rdd=s that we had just cut out.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you mean "Terran"?
Re: (Score:2)
Live long and prosper!
taH pagh taHbe!
Gangster Planet.
Amerind planet.
Hippie World...oh wait, most of them died. THANK GOD!
Re: With you on themed planets (Score:3)
They're not supposed to be realistic - the stories are allegories and the themed races represent one subset of humanity, represented as one subset of the races in the galaxy in the science fiction stories. From there the allegory procedes.
Deep meaning. As in puddles. (Score:2)
As someone who is directly in the publishing chain specifically for science fiction (SF-specialized literary agency), I can tell you authoritatively that this level of meaning does not always flow from the creative's pen, keyboard or storyboard.
For example, various facets of Terry Pratchett's Discworld
Re:Deep meaning. As in puddles. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming that just because the author didn't consciously intend to include a theme that it's not there. Other's aren't restricted by that assumption, myself included. I believe that many artists that won't answer questions about their intent basically agree--they are not the authority on the subtext of their work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The whole idea of themed planets or themed races largely turned me off of reading SF, and one of the reasons I won't go near StarWars with a 10 foot pole.
Trying to define an entire race or culture or planet with a 3 word phrase is asinine. Doing that for every race or culture or planet in a galaxy just makes me cringe. I can't read or watch it.
"Spaceballs."One word says it all.
As in "Spaceballs! Oh sh*t, there goes the planet."
shibboleth (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:shibboleth (Score:5, Insightful)
Came here to say that. Extra stupid considering TFS contains that suggestion to read the Wikipedia article first, 'if unfamiliar with the term'.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the article here is using "shibboleth" to mean not just a tired cliche or trope, but "a cliche or trope that, when used, distinguishes that author from 'real' sci-fi authors," which is sort of in line with the literal definition of the term.
Except that's actually the OPPOSITE of the meaning of the term. A Shibboleth is used to identify members who belong to a group. (In the original story, those who weren't group members said "sibboleth" instead, because their language didn't have an "sh" sound.)
It also has come to mean a cliche associated with the members of a group or even a meaningless cliche in general.
But this guy is trying to use it to mean a cliche that says you are NOT part of the desired group. Maybe he should have called them
single-climate planets (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that the latest astronomical surveys have shown that about half of all exoplanets are indeed entirely covered with a uniform mixture of playground sand and polystyrene boulders, with a calm, clear purple-tinged atmosphere. The other half of exoplanets all seem bear a striking resemblance to the Mojave Desert.
Re: (Score:2)
You are leaving out the many jungle planets which all have the same type of vegetation as Kauai.
Re: single-climate planets (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For practical purposes, all of Earth has a neutral nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere between 0 and 50 degrees Celsius, with precipitation of water, and winds generally under 15m/s.
If you're planning a pit stop in this solar system, and your choices are between the acid atmosphere of Venus, the hull-threatening storms of Jupiter, or Earth, you probably don't care about such small variations.
If your species routinely makes such stops, you're probably either biologically or technologically capable of handling a w
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno... I could easily see where entire planets, if not races adapted to primarily serve one industry -- when we're talking about a galactic economy. I mean, West Virginia is responsible for about 16% of the USA's fossil fuels and WV is heavily dependent on that industry. Other states in the past were heavily dependent on the production of a single crop or resource.
As for the ST universe, even races that were primarily known for one industry still had scientists working in other areas outside of the
Re: (Score:2)
Every planet we know of is significantly larger than a state. Let's cut our world population down by one hundredth. That's still 72.3M. You honestly believe that number would have basically one industry? Credulity is stretched.
Re: (Score:2)
Happens in real life all the time. Bordeaux does a lot more then wine, Vegas does a lot more then gambling, Colorado has many people who are not currently high, etc. Even for entire countries: many Japanese are not robots, the Swiss aren't all bankers, etc. Hell multinational regions. The southern bits of the Arabian peninsula are known for fabulously wealthy men with multiple wives and expensive falconry hobbies, paid for by the energy industry, but they've got a lot more going on than that.
The thing you h
Two of those actually seem reasonable... (Score:4, Interesting)
Two of those actually seem reasonable...
(1) The manually aimed weapons.
Especially in the event that there is some probability effect that the gunner is able to take advantage from, which a computer can not; for example: the gunner may be a main character, in which case, they can't die, which means if a preternatural aim is necessary to their survival, they will of necessity have a preternatural aim. But there's actually no reason to step past the fourth wall in this case, if we posit psychic capabilities, or very long distances relative to the speed of light vs. the speed of the craft: you will need to shoot where the enemy will be when the weapon passes through their location, rather than where the enemy currently is, and you can't depend on them to not be taking bridge-lurching evasive maneuvers.
(2) Science officers with Ph.D. levels of expertise in dozens of fields.
This isn't that unbelievable, although most of the people I know in the "science officer" range tend to be struggling somewhere early in their second dozen...
Re: (Score:2)
2) Is interesting in Star Trek. Spock was the science officer with a wide breadth of knowledge. Vulcans also had a long lifespan.
In TNG, was an android, with different set of rules around learning information, so again a reasonable explanation for the accumulation of knowledge.
Even in Enterprise, they had a guiding Vulcan presence, with the same longevity benefit.
Voyager didn't have an apparent person in this role until 7 of 9, at which point one could say being part of the collective gave her a way to kn
Re: (Score:2)
> (2) Science officers with Ph.D. levels of expertise in dozens of fields.
This is actually pretty reasonable in most presentations. The big name here is Star Trek, though much sci fi has this trope.
The thing is, how many giant space ships are there, relative to population? And is it considered a noble calling, etc.? The Starfleet officers generally are of the opinion that there's nothing better than Starfleet, and they all struggle mightily to be the best. How many Federation spaceships are there, re
Anthropomorphic Aliens (Score:3)
Before someone mentions it, I know they did try to resolve the parallel problem in TNG.
Re: (Score:2)
The "goodies" among them have exactly the same ethical views as the "good" Earthlings too - a fallacy shared (more seriously) by those among us who see no harm in establishing communication with any real alien intelligent life that we may detect.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with alternatives to humanoids is how the fuck do you film them?
Even assuming you can figure out how to get the expressive bits of a 40 ft dinosouroid, a 5 ft 6 in human woman, and a 2 ft froggish-type-thing in the same frame, how can you get the audience to understand the dinosouroid is scared of something the froggish thing has in it's mid-limbs and the human is trying to smooth it over?
You really see the problem in Star Wars. Most of their aliens only look a little less human then the ones on
Wikipedia (Score:2, Informative)
For those that cant be bothered to click the wikipedia link, a shibboleth is a mythical creature, like the minotaur or the shakira.
Future Guns (Score:2)
In the future, everyone will carry personal defense weapons that look approximately the size and shape of 20th century guns. They'll have starships and nanotechnology, and robots, but they'll still need to have holsters and ammo belts. So basically, everything is American, except the villain will speak with a Shakespearean accent and the alien love interest will look just like a 20th century supermodel, except with an interesting glowing tattoo and/or clever contact lenses, so you know she's an alien.
The
Re: (Score:2)
In 2015, people will carry personal defence weapons that look approximately the same size and shape as a small flintlock pistol. They'll have space vessels, thinking machines, and automatons, but they'll still need to have holsters and bullets.
Surface Gravity (Score:2)
Ever notice how whenever there's a Star Trek away mission, if it's not on a planet with fiberglass rocks it's on a planet that looks like Southern California? If you know anything about natural history, you not only can identify the plants in the scene as specific Earth plants, but you can place the site within a distinctive band of montane chaparral about 250 miles long by 50 miles wide running along the Transverse Range north of LA, and nowhere else on Earth.
That's understandable, since a TV show needs a
Re: (Score:2)
And while we're at it, where does Iron Man store the reaction mass for his boot jets?
Or the tiny wires that connect to the Arc reactor in his chest. How big would those wires have to be to carry all that current w/o significant heating?
Re: (Score:2)
Size changes (Score:4, Informative)
My biggest cringe is when something changes size - like when Dracula changes to a bat or someone (as for instance Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing) changes into a werewolf of 2x volume. (Or Odo changing into a mouse, or when his full human size fits in a bucket.)
My second biggest is when the bullets hit everything except the person - such as running along a waist-high cast iron fence and the bullets hit the vertical bars but not the person. (I don't so much mind the "spark" that a bullet makes when it hits concrete in the movies - that's a good visual cue.) Also, someone outrunning the swept arc of machine gun bullets. Also, someone behind a couch being shielded from bullets.
My third biggest cringe is people hanging on by their hands for more than 30 seconds. People in *really* good shape can hold on for 60 seconds (try it some time), but unless you are an elite climber you won't get past the minute mark. Viz: the scientists in the 1997 movie "Batman and Robin".
Re: (Score:3)
My third biggest cringe is people hanging on by their hands for more than 30 seconds.
Getting a bit off topic, but even worse, they hang on by one hand only. In fact deliberately let go with the other hand and wave it around pointlessly.
Killjoy (Score:2, Informative)
Dear Mr. Stross,
Your little tirade there was only a little less annoying than an argument about whether an Imperial Star Destroyer could beat the Enterprise-D in battle. I imagine building a time machine into a DeLorean is impossible. I know that an X-Wing banking into a turn makes no sense in terms of real space flight. But these thing can be enormous fun. I've often found that books with similarly ridiculous scenarios are quite a bit of fun to read; that is to say, I enjoy them whether you do or not.
Turkey City sci-fi Lexicon (Score:2)
http://www.critters.org/turkey... [critters.org] - worth reading just for its hilarity (various versions abound, google the subject of this post) this is an invaluable read for any wannabe-writer not just in sci-fi, but the terms that are defined are a special warning-shot across the bows of anyone wishing to make the jump into the especially-discerning genre of science fiction.
many wanna-be science fiction writers forget that sci-fi readers are usually extremely well-read (i.e. extremely familiar with the genre), as well
Single biome ... Ice planets, forest planets etc. (Score:2)
a few (Score:2)
One is any sci-fi story set more than a few centuries in the future that doesn't have strong AI without a damned good political or technical explanation of why not.
Another is any interstellar economy where it makes sense to ship raw materials between stars. It is hard to imagine how you'd get a habitable planet without iron. In general, if you have enough heavy elements to make a decent planet in the first place nearly all of the useful ones would likely be more or less available. Unless your story line
Re:first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:first (Score:5, Insightful)
The GP is definitely an example of a shibboleth.
Given the summary, however, it appears that Charllie Stross doesn't know how to use the word "shibboleth" correctly.
In particular, a shibboleth is simply an expression or signal used by someone that helps other members of the in group recognize the signaler's (shibboleth user) membership in that in group. It's not used as a pejorative.
While certainly people (in or out) can react negatively to a shibboleth (like judging people who, for example, "high five" each other), shibboleths are not negative in and of themselves. Designating improbable science fictional mechanisms "shibboleths" really doesn't make sense.
At all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:first (Score:5, Informative)
And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
Charlie Stross meant to write about tell-tale signs for bad SF. And yes, the pronounciation of shibboleth was a tell-tale sign for being an Ephraimite instead of a Gileadite. But not every tell-tale sign is a shibboleth. For a shibboleth, you actually force the person in question to pronounce the word for you. But in bad SF, no one forced the author to put the tell-tale signs in there, he wrote them voluntarily, as he is a bad SF author.
Re: (Score:3)
And the elite all speak with British accents, so you know they're elite.
In my science fiction universe, everyone speaks with a working class Scottish accent. AHL TURN YER FOOKIN RINGPIECE INSIDE OOT YAH BUFTIE COONT.
Re:English (Score:4, Funny)
And the elite all speak with British accents, so you know they're elite.
A British accent is usually a sure sign that they are evil too. That and well groomed beards, favoured by bad guys everywhere. I guess they need something to stroke, and cats are never around when you need them.
In my science fiction universe, everyone speaks with a working class Scottish accent.
When the crew meets a new alien race for the first time and transmits a universal greeting in all known languages, does that include Welsh?
Re: (Score:2)
One thing that pisses me off is when a character is "such a genius" that they can do something like scientific testing in an absurdly short amount of time. Like doing something in five minutes which actually requires hours or days. If something relies on a chemical reaction that takes hours, you can't do it faster than that.
They were clearly trained by the forensics investigators from cop shows, who can also enlarge any photograph by a factor of 1000 with perfect detail.
Re:superhuman speed at mundane tasks (Score:4, Funny)
They were clearly trained by the forensics investigators from cop shows, who can also enlarge any photograph by a factor of 1000 with perfect detail.
"Hold on, go back to that photo they took with a point-and-shoot on the International Space Station.
Enlarge.
Enlarge.
Zoom in on that dot.
Magnify 1000x.... can you clean that up?"
[Exchanging knowing looks]
"We've got the son of a bitch now. Notice the rotation of the screws on the main shoulder plate? This is Iron Man right after he got clipped by a Navy fighter jet, clearly violating Newton's 2nd Law. He should have been turned into a reddish paste on the inside of that suit, but this photo clearly shows the only serious damage was to the realistic depiction of physics."
"And fachrissakes would someone tell me what the word 'shibboleth' means!?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Advanced civilizations that still have royal families.
Hives?
Re: (Score:2)
you always see the fights taking place between human/oid opponents manually aiming weapons at each other from less than one hundred feet apart
Aren't you exagerating the distance? I've only seen glimpses of Star Wars, but I seem to remember seeing guys in black leather gowns, toe-to-toe, whacking each other with pink flourescent light tubes. Looked a bit camp to me.
Re: (Score:3)
You don't need math to understand the problem with Gravity - you just need a Kerbal Space Program player in the room, who will inform you most loudly every time something ridiculous is achieved.