O_o

[feuervogel]

Note to future self:

Never send someone who doesn't read outside a very narrow section of SF (hard SF, mostly) your space opera novel to beta read. The resulting commentary full of insults that you don't know how to write and that stories that don't focus on the technology aren't "really SF" is not only not helpful but rage-making, and you will have to figure out the most polite way to say, "You have no idea what you're talking about" without coming across as That Writer saying "You just doooon't understaaaaaaand my viiiiiision."

picardrikerdoublefacepalm.jpg

Comments

[picklish]

Ugh. SF doesn't have to be technology/science/robot porn in order to be SF.

[feuervogel]

Indeed. The genre of science fiction has expanded beyond the whiz-bang, high-tech, 2D characters and flimsy plots of the "golden age" and is a fairly inclusive genre, not exclusive. My book would be filed next to CJ Cherryh (approximately) in the SFF ghetto at a bookstore.

He pretty much excluded about half of what's been published as science fiction over the last twenty years.

[ranyart]

That seems pretty ridiculous.

Also, have you read Cyteen by Cherryh? I just started it and was not at all expecting the contents of the first part of the book.

[feuervogel]

I read it, but a really long time ago, so I'm not sure I remember what exactly happened at the beginning, other than Ari I was assassinated. The azi I'd encountered in a couple other Alliance-Union books (40000 in Gehenna, for sure).

She really likes psychological themes.

[ranyart]

I was just NOT prepared for the blackmail sexual assault. That was a bit of a shock. I'm not much past Ari's assassination but I'm kind of glad it happened because I was so creeped out by that plot point.

[feuervogel]

Ari I was ... not a nice person. Consent issues, as well as nature vs nurture, seem to be a theme in that book.