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At what point can you pry an interesting setting and a reasonable plot out of hackey, thudding prose? I keep running into this problem with science fiction, even stuff that's fairly modern and highly recommended, where it's like a goddamned laundry list of activity with no connective tissue or life to it.
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Your protagonist is not a wooden puppet to carry your plot around--even the pulp detective guys churning out murder mysteries for a penny a page knew that. It's also like... I mean, not to tell science fiction authors how to do their jobs, but ideally your prose should do something other than give space fetishists something to jerk off to. There's the old razzle-dazzle, and then there's just whaling on the genre descriptor buttons like a drunk dude playing whack-a-mole.
Like don't
Also, if you slam on the brakes every few pages for five paragraphs of salivating descriptors that are just a SkyMall catalog of shit coke-addled futurists and thought-leaders were giving tedtalks about the month you wrote it, it's pointless and annoying and dumb and also it dates the shit out of your story.
Like, most science fiction is going to feel dated after a bit no matter what. It's the nature of the beast. Ideally, you want to avoid everyone in your target audience picking up the book a mere three years down the road and a) feeling like they opened a time capsule and b) being able to tell precisely when you wrote a scene just by searching Cory Doctorow or Warren Ellis's twitter feeds for the relevant buzzwords.
In conclusion, I know we're not all out here writing fucking Shakespeare, but these really aren't that hard to avoid! At all! Just... hire an editor who's not high on their own supply or something.
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Brian McAstronaut awoke in his space-bedroom to find that the ship's solar sails had become tangled in some space-debris while he slept. He would have thought 'overnight' instead of 'while he slept,' but of course he was in space and so there was no such thing as 'day' or 'night.' There was only sleeping in his space-bedroom and being awake in his spaceship. The year was 3030, and not being in space was something that people did in the Before Times, back when they lived on Earth and drank earth-liquor and believed in climate change.
Brian McAstronaut lived now, and in space, and he only believed in himself and his solar sails, because his exceptionally clear idea of what life was like in 2020 in spite of that having been a really long time ago gave him some really cool and cynical ideas about the nature of men. That was dangerously close to introspection, though, and he decided to stop doing it, because introspection was for people in other genres. Brian McAstronaut scrambled the semi-sentient space robots to go out into space and straighten the solar sails, which his spaceship needed to travel through space.
As he watched them work, he drank some space-liquor and listened to a piece of wildly anachronistic music that, presumably, the author likes very much or thinks will make the character sound cool or cultured to the readers, like if this was all happening here on Earth and now in the year of our lord 2019 and the character was listening to a troubadour's banging lute solo on his airpods. Which would be pretty great, wouldn't it, if we found some weird old-ass science fiction where the protagonist is listening to a rhapsody on their electric pianoforte and never mind, that's Jules Verne.
Anyway, as Brian McAstronaut drank his space-liquor and listened to the Rolling Stones, he looked out at the stars and waited while the author absolutely ransacked a fucking thesaurus to describe the panorama. It did not affect him emotionally in any way, because having emotions is for girls, or maybe for people who aren't in science fiction novels, which is basically the same thing. Brian McAstronaut had always lived in space. Living in space was what Brian McAstronaut did. Being impressed with space instead of alternating fighting for survival in space with treating space like it was his sofa in a twenty-first century living room was for people who weren't Brian McAstronaut.
And it's not that the writers are necessarily incapable of making it better. The book I'm reading now is fairly interesting when it dives into its self-contained stories and leaves the main narrative in the dust, but the second it crawls back out into the bitter blast of the main narrative, it's "Brian McAstronaut did this" and "Brian McAstronaut did that" and Brian McAstronaut better wind up being a badly-programmed android or some shit, because there's really no excuse for this. Brian McAstronaut lived now, and in space, and he only believed in himself and his solar sails, because his exceptionally clear idea of what life was like in 2020 in spite of that having been a really long time ago gave him some really cool and cynical ideas about the nature of men. That was dangerously close to introspection, though, and he decided to stop doing it, because introspection was for people in other genres. Brian McAstronaut scrambled the semi-sentient space robots to go out into space and straighten the solar sails, which his spaceship needed to travel through space.
As he watched them work, he drank some space-liquor and listened to a piece of wildly anachronistic music that, presumably, the author likes very much or thinks will make the character sound cool or cultured to the readers, like if this was all happening here on Earth and now in the year of our lord 2019 and the character was listening to a troubadour's banging lute solo on his airpods. Which would be pretty great, wouldn't it, if we found some weird old-ass science fiction where the protagonist is listening to a rhapsody on their electric pianoforte and never mind, that's Jules Verne.
Anyway, as Brian McAstronaut drank his space-liquor and listened to the Rolling Stones, he looked out at the stars and waited while the author absolutely ransacked a fucking thesaurus to describe the panorama. It did not affect him emotionally in any way, because having emotions is for girls, or maybe for people who aren't in science fiction novels, which is basically the same thing. Brian McAstronaut had always lived in space. Living in space was what Brian McAstronaut did. Being impressed with space instead of alternating fighting for survival in space with treating space like it was his sofa in a twenty-first century living room was for people who weren't Brian McAstronaut.
Your protagonist is not a wooden puppet to carry your plot around--even the pulp detective guys churning out murder mysteries for a penny a page knew that. It's also like... I mean, not to tell science fiction authors how to do their jobs, but ideally your prose should do something other than give space fetishists something to jerk off to. There's the old razzle-dazzle, and then there's just whaling on the genre descriptor buttons like a drunk dude playing whack-a-mole.
Like don't
Brian McAstronaut ran his callused, manly hands over the glossy black hull of his new ship. It jutted proudly from the platform, its two heavy rockets hanging below it in an extra virile way. The extremely phallic, powerful spaceship excited him, but not in an overtly gay way, because the primary market for these books is straight men who are weirdly insecure in their own masculinity, and if they wind up conflicted about how a scene makes them feel in the pants department, they'll leave a bunch of one-star reviews on Amazon and spend all their free time calling the author a cuck on reddit.
Brian McAstronaut was super-secure in his own masculinity, because he had a spaceship kitted out with all the bells and whistles, which are of course named after twentieth- and twenty-first-century physicists--male physicists--because physics stopped being done after that and also because we're all running around right now hitting our Lanchester brakes in cars powered by Benz engines while our phones use a Haartsen connection to blast music over our de Forest speakers. Brian McAstronaut was glad he'd shelled out the extra credits for the optional ramjets, which made him feel a very straightforward and normal way in the pants department.
The entrance to his new spaceship was a vertical slit located between the two rockets--full to bursting with rocketfuel, just ready to spray it all over the stars--and Brian headed for it like a man on a mission, like a man's man who knew what he was doing and had never disappointed anyone with a rocket in his life. He grabbed the hefty entrance handle firmly and confidently, by the base, and pushed his way into the dark warmth of the vertical slit. It was keyed to his unique genetic imprint, and it telescoped open, welcoming him home.
Inside, the spaceship was spartan but inviting, needing no furniture or decoration or anything other than the quiet of the red womb-chamber. He could spend years here, suspended in cryogenic sleep, one with the ship while they sped across the stars. It would just be the two of them, Brian McAstronaut and his ship--the ship which was all his, and which he would never have to share with another person. He was pretty sure the ship loved him, and that this was a perfectly ordinary conviction to have. It was certainly very normal to not have to care about the rest of society, or how much time was passing, or whether or not his friends missed him, so long as he was one with the ship. He was like twentieth-century actor John Wayne, when twentieth-century actor John Wayne was astride a horse.
Everything that wasn't the womb-chamber was full of computerbanks and monitors and blinking lights that he could control with his strong man hands. Nothing would happen without him inputting commands, which was just how it should be. He was the man who hit the space-buttons and charted the space-course and decided when to pull over for more rocketfuel.
Brian McAstronaut climbed into the womb-chamber and pushed the red button next to the emergency brake for the onboard Nixon recorder. A Schimmelbusch mask was extruded from the placental lining, and Brian McAstronaut took it gratefully, wrapping himself in the thin, flexible umbilicus that trailed from it to the ship's life support system.
"Mother," Brian McAstronaut said, breathing in the cryosleep space-gas. This was a normal thing to say, and he didn't feel at all weird about it. A nineteenth-century psychologist called Sigmund Freud had discovered that this was a perfectly healthy response that perfectly healthy men had to womb-chambers, and Brian McAstronaut didn't need space-therapy to deal with his space-issues.
On the launchpad, a space-dockhand pounded on the hull yelling about the ship being parked outside the lines and tying up the pad, but he couldn't get in because it wasn't his ship, and Brian McAstronaut's ship only loved Brian McAstronaut and, maybe, a special resupply ship or two that also loved Brian McAstronaut and so the ship would be willing to share him every so often.
Brian McAstronaut was super-secure in his own masculinity, because he had a spaceship kitted out with all the bells and whistles, which are of course named after twentieth- and twenty-first-century physicists--male physicists--because physics stopped being done after that and also because we're all running around right now hitting our Lanchester brakes in cars powered by Benz engines while our phones use a Haartsen connection to blast music over our de Forest speakers. Brian McAstronaut was glad he'd shelled out the extra credits for the optional ramjets, which made him feel a very straightforward and normal way in the pants department.
The entrance to his new spaceship was a vertical slit located between the two rockets--full to bursting with rocketfuel, just ready to spray it all over the stars--and Brian headed for it like a man on a mission, like a man's man who knew what he was doing and had never disappointed anyone with a rocket in his life. He grabbed the hefty entrance handle firmly and confidently, by the base, and pushed his way into the dark warmth of the vertical slit. It was keyed to his unique genetic imprint, and it telescoped open, welcoming him home.
Inside, the spaceship was spartan but inviting, needing no furniture or decoration or anything other than the quiet of the red womb-chamber. He could spend years here, suspended in cryogenic sleep, one with the ship while they sped across the stars. It would just be the two of them, Brian McAstronaut and his ship--the ship which was all his, and which he would never have to share with another person. He was pretty sure the ship loved him, and that this was a perfectly ordinary conviction to have. It was certainly very normal to not have to care about the rest of society, or how much time was passing, or whether or not his friends missed him, so long as he was one with the ship. He was like twentieth-century actor John Wayne, when twentieth-century actor John Wayne was astride a horse.
Everything that wasn't the womb-chamber was full of computerbanks and monitors and blinking lights that he could control with his strong man hands. Nothing would happen without him inputting commands, which was just how it should be. He was the man who hit the space-buttons and charted the space-course and decided when to pull over for more rocketfuel.
Brian McAstronaut climbed into the womb-chamber and pushed the red button next to the emergency brake for the onboard Nixon recorder. A Schimmelbusch mask was extruded from the placental lining, and Brian McAstronaut took it gratefully, wrapping himself in the thin, flexible umbilicus that trailed from it to the ship's life support system.
"Mother," Brian McAstronaut said, breathing in the cryosleep space-gas. This was a normal thing to say, and he didn't feel at all weird about it. A nineteenth-century psychologist called Sigmund Freud had discovered that this was a perfectly healthy response that perfectly healthy men had to womb-chambers, and Brian McAstronaut didn't need space-therapy to deal with his space-issues.
On the launchpad, a space-dockhand pounded on the hull yelling about the ship being parked outside the lines and tying up the pad, but he couldn't get in because it wasn't his ship, and Brian McAstronaut's ship only loved Brian McAstronaut and, maybe, a special resupply ship or two that also loved Brian McAstronaut and so the ship would be willing to share him every so often.
Also, if you slam on the brakes every few pages for five paragraphs of salivating descriptors that are just a SkyMall catalog of shit coke-addled futurists and thought-leaders were giving tedtalks about the month you wrote it, it's pointless and annoying and dumb and also it dates the shit out of your story.
Like, most science fiction is going to feel dated after a bit no matter what. It's the nature of the beast. Ideally, you want to avoid everyone in your target audience picking up the book a mere three years down the road and a) feeling like they opened a time capsule and b) being able to tell precisely when you wrote a scene just by searching Cory Doctorow or Warren Ellis's twitter feeds for the relevant buzzwords.
In conclusion, I know we're not all out here writing fucking Shakespeare, but these really aren't that hard to avoid! At all! Just... hire an editor who's not high on their own supply or something.
