Author Habits That Annoy You

[Greg Cox]

I do find Farscape intriguing. Just haven't had a chance to tune in (and I don't even know who carries it -- maybe Cartoon Network?) And I bought used DVDs (out of Alibris) of the Guardians movies, and so yes, I do like them.

The Guardians movies owe a lot to Farscape. James Gunn has freely admitted to being a fan of the show.

There's a reason Ben Browder (from FS) has a cameo in the second Guardians movie.

(Full disclosure: I coedited the FS novels back in the day, and wrote for the official FS magazine.)

 

[Cicero]

New Frontier is Star Trek as Marvel superhero comic.

Maybe I didn't read far enough, but I think it would be better to describe it as "a Peter David comic." Traditionally, the successful Marvel comics had a point to make about the way that one should live. For all of his flair, I don't think David ever really captured that aspect of the Marvel "house style," aside from the abortion issue of X-Factor.

He was a great comic writer, though. His "Dear Tricia" (The Incredible Hulk #82), with Jae Lee and June Chung, was so good that I bought the battered copy I was reading at my local Borders (as a college student, it was the comic or lunch).

The Guardians movies owe a lot to Farscape. James Gunn has freely admitted to being a fan of the show.

The movie was actually structured by Nicole Perelman, who picked Guardians as her spec project when in the Marvel Writer's Program. She chose it because she's a big sci-fi fan, though, so it might still have had Farscape influence.

 

[JD]

I do find Farscape intriguing. Just haven't had a chance to tune in (and I don't even know who carries it -- maybe Cartoon Network?) And I bought used DVDs (out of Alibris) of the Guardians movies, and so yes, I do like them.

It's never been shown on Cartoon Network, it's way to adult.
In the US it originally aired on Syfy, and the most recent network to air it was Comet. As for streaming, it's on Roku, Pluto TV, and the first three seasons are streaming for free, but you have to pay for the fourth season, and the Peacekeep Wars is streaming on all three for free.
I cannot overstate how much I absolutely love Farscape, it's one of my absolutely favorite shows ever.
I'm a huge fan of the Hensons, and it is by far the best thing they've done since Jim died.

 

[bdub76]

It's never been shown on Cartoon Network, it's way to adult.
In the US it originally aired on Syfy, and the most recent network to air it was Comet. As for streaming, it's on Roku, Pluto TV, and the first three seasons are streaming for free, but you have to pay for the fourth season, and the Peacekeep Wars is streaming on all three for free.
I cannot overstate how much I absolutely love Farscape, it's one of my absolutely favorite shows ever.
I'm a huge fan of the Hensons, and it is by far the best thing they've done since Jim died.

I've seen it on Kanopy off and on too.

 

[Greg Cox]

The movie was actually structured by Nicole Perelman, who picked Guardians as her spec project when in the Marvel Writer's Program. She chose it because she's a big sci-fi fan, though, so it might still have had Farscape influence.

The whole star-crossed romance between Peter Quill and Gamora in the Marvel movies feels very much like the star-crossed romance of John Crichton and Aeryn Sun in FS. Same basic dynamic.

Goofy, wise-cracking, pop-culture quoting Earthman-in-exile gradually wins over hard-as-nails alien killing machine who has never known anything but combat and violence. Complications ensue.

 

[Cicero]

The whole star-crossed romance between Peter Quill and Gamora in the Marvel movies feels very much like the star-crossed romance of John Crichton and Aeryn Sun in FS. Same basic dynamic.

Goofy, wise-cracking, pop-culture quoting Earthman-in-exile gradually wins over hard-as-nails alien killing machine who has never known anything but combat and violence. Complications ensue.

It's mostly a distillation of Abnett and Lanning's comics from the late 2000s, specifically of Gamora's relationship with Nova (who sadly doesn't appear in the MCU) and Star Lord's romantic undertones with Mantis in the revamped Guardians of the Galaxy.

Before the comic was relaunched in 2007, it had been set in the far future with a completely different cast (they became Yondu's Ravager compatriots in the second film).

 

[Greg Cox]

Before the comic was relaunched in 2007, it had been set in the far future with a completely different cast (they became Yondu's Ravager compatriots in the second film).

That's the version I read, back in the seventies. Vance Astro, Martinex, Yondu, Charlie-27, Nikki, and Starhawk/Aleta. "I am the One Who Knows."

Loved the issues by Steve Gerber & Al Migrom, back in the day.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No bears in Africa, either. <Sulu>Oh, my!</Sulu>

(If I can quote movies I've never seen, I can certainly allude to a certain 1939 movie that I've seen, and intensely dislike!)

I'll be that guy. There is the Atlas Bear that went extinct sometime in the 19th Century. No idea when your disliked movie takes place, though. But fictional Africa is full of supposedly extinct species and civilizations.

 

[Ceridwen]

No idea when your disliked movie takes place, though.

Just a guess based on context: It takes place in a land called Oz.

 

[Set Harth]

all growing out of The Tar-Aiym Krang

Now that's a name I haven't heard in... a long time.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

That's the version I read, back in the seventies. Vance Astro, Martinex, Yondu, Charlie-27, Nikki, and Starhawk/Aleta. "I am the One Who Knows."

Loved the issues by Steve Gerber & Al Migrom, back in the day.

Somewhere in one of my boxes I have a torn and tattered copy of an early Marvel Two In One where Ben Grimm and Captain America are transported to the 31st Century where they help the Guardians free New York from the Badoon (sp).
At one point Vance Astro mentions that he saw Captain America fight someone when he was a teenager and Cap is confused because he's never fought that person before, and Vance says he comes from the 20th Century and for Cap, it hadn't happened yet, but to Vance, it was in his past.

 

[tenmei]

I still don't understand why the TNG relaunch was so scornful of its new characters. I didn't even like her, but I stopped reading the 24th Century novels entirely after Choudhury's pointless, mean-spirited death.

The first bunch - Leybenzon, Kadohata and the Vulcan Counselor were treated poorly which, quite frankly, proved their point in mutineering against Picard right. I didn't make it past Destiny (and mostly because of the Titan and DS9 Relaunch elements) and T'Ryssa taking centre stage at the expense of the others was frustrating.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

More of a TV thing, but when crossovers put dialogue in the mouth of the visiting characters that doesn't sound like them. For instance, when The Danny Thomas Show crossed over with The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, it was great. But when Lucy and Desi appeared on his show, they didn't sound like Lucy and Ricky anymore. Ricky's lines sounded more like Danny.

I suppose this happens less often in books; maybe in comics.

Also posting this here because it's sci fi:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

It doesn't have to be science fiction for the author to handwave things he/she doesn't want to talk about (or that would bore the readers to tears).

Hell, in my "Intertype Spiel" at the Printing Museum, I even lampshade a handwave, when I say that "Intertype already had a better magazine design than Mergenthaler Linotype, for reasons that would bore you to tears, . . . ." because unless you're a linecasting geek, the exact reasons would bore you to tears.

 

[Christopher]

It doesn't have to be science fiction for the author to handwave things he/she doesn't want to talk about (or that would bore the readers to tears).

It's like Roddenberry said to prospective Trek authors, something along the lines that Matt Dillon or Joe Friday doesn't stop to explain the workings of his sidearm to the audience, he just uses it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is it any different with a technology people are basically familiar with, or at least believe they are (e.g. a pistol), as opposed to sci fi tech that viewers of TOS in the 60s have never encountered or imagined yet (e.g. the transporter)?

Found on Facebook:

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'd say that Facebook, Twitter, and their ilk were cesspools, but then I'd be insulting literal cesspools.

In the aforementioned "Intertype spiel," after pointing out the practical value of the clear plastic top unique to Intertype magazines (when they jam, you can look straight at them, and see where the problem is), I then go on at some length about Mergenthaler Linotype having a much better, safer, and more reliable mechanism for ejecting the finished slugs after casting them, tell the visitors about how the ejector had jammed on me, putting the machine out of commission for two months, show them the ruined part (a tenth of an inch of solid steel, and it ripped), and show them how the fellow docent who'd finally cleared the jam and extracted the ruined part had asked me to sign it ("I wouldn't have batted an eye if he'd asked me to hang it 'round my neck like a dead, rotting albatross.")

Much more interesting than explaining the boring details of why Intertype had a better magazine design.

A little over a quarter of the way through Lloyd Douglass's The Robe, I was very quick to notice how he kept belaboring a detail of period costuming that even ADF, with his penchant for detail, probably would have mentioned once, maybe twice, and then figured the readers had gotten the point, and moved on.

 

[Christopher]

Is it any different with a technology people are basically familiar with, or at least believe they are (e.g. a pistol), as opposed to sci fi tech that viewers of TOS in the 60s have never encountered or imagined yet (e.g. the transporter)?

The point is that it's familiar to the characters. Kirk's phaser is as commonplace to him and his peers as Matt Dillon's pistol was to him. So it would be unrealistic writing to have the characters lecture each other on what they already know. Roddenberry was trying to teach TV writers that science fiction shouldn't be written any differently than any other drama, that the characters should be written naturalistically and behave in ways that were believable in context, rather than being written in an artificial or stilted way as was often done in SF/fantasy TV, movies, or comics at the time.

Yes, you do need to provide exposition for the audience, but the goal is to do it in a way that doesn't undermine the believability of the characters or the dialogue. In this case, it's simply the old rule "Show, don't tell." You don't need to have the characters explain what a transporter does, you just show them using it and the audience sees what it does.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Is it any different with a technology people are basically familiar with, or at least believe they are (e.g. a pistol), as opposed to sci fi tech that viewers of TOS in the 60s have never encountered or imagined yet (e.g. the transporter)?

Found on Facebook:

How much explanation did TOS provide outside of "it transports us down to the planet?"

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The point is that it's familiar to the characters. Kirk's phaser is as commonplace to him and his peers as Matt Dillon's pistol was to him. So it would be unrealistic writing to have the characters lecture each other on what they already know. Roddenberry was trying to teach TV writers that science fiction shouldn't be written any differently than any other drama, that the characters should be written naturalistically and behave in ways that were believable in context, rather than being written in an artificial or stilted way as was often done in SF/fantasy TV, movies, or comics at the time.

Yes, you do need to provide exposition for the audience, but the goal is to do it in a way that doesn't undermine the believability of the characters or the dialogue. In this case, it's simply the old rule "Show, don't tell." You don't need to have the characters explain what a transporter does, you just show them using it and the audience sees what it does.

I suppose if a writer really needs to explain something, there are ways that aren't as intrusive or obvious: a glossary, a foreword, footnotes, (which can be skipped if you wish) characters reminiscing about how they themselves learned how something worked in the past, explaining to another character who doesn't know how it works (particularly if they just give the basic idea rather than venturing down a rabbit hole of Future Tech 101).