Inky Horizons

The Long and Short of Fiction Reviews is a new online community started by xjenavivex looking for volunteer reviewers of all genres, and lengths, of fiction.   Here is her original post in which she was noodling with the idea: That's the Long and Short of it.... And here's the profile page for the online community she's gathered together so far: Community Profile I'm very happy to announce I will be reviewing western online fiction for this group. But they are still looking for volunteers who might be interested in reviewing all genre magazines (both print and online). They are even building a website for the review magazine itself. So if you are interested in getting in on the ground floor and contributing, then please contact them via the community profile. Good luck!

Every time you write a story you create a world.

It's a simple idea at its core. You are taking the reader by the hand and saying, "Here is a place I want you to visit. A place you will believe in. Something will happen here. I want to share it with you."

Writers talk about worldbuilding all the time. Especially genre writers. But I believe every writer creates a world when he writes a story. It is a microcosm of what might be, or what is, or what was...but it is a world, make no mistake about it. No matter how long or how short, that story you present is part of a world.

Of course, we are familiar with the big examples. Dune by Frank Herbert comes to my mind when we're talking about world building in SF. You can live in that world. It's full and rich and there's weight to it.

Dune is a real place. You can live there.

For fantasy I always think of Middle-Earth. Deep history, language, races, culture, creation story....that's a living, breathing world. You can live there, too, thanks to Tolkien's imagination.

All of fiction is rich with worlds we can live, and believe, in. And, with some stories, there are worlds you don't want to live in. They are too mean and nasty, such as 1984 by George Orwell. But, even with their crushing horror, they are no less fascinating.

But these are obvious examples. I'm arguing every story has a world, even if it's only background support. For the story to work, the world has to work. Even if it's no more than window dressing, or a simple stage which allows the story to progress.

A story can't exist without a world. If the story is about non-existence, that framework in which the story exists must be believable. Otherwise, the reader will feel cheated.

So the long and short is, every time you write a story you make a world. The trick is to make the world believable enough to support the story you are trying to tell. I'm not saying this is easy.

I'm simply arguing it's necessary.

Evan Lewis writes mysteries, westerns and historical fiction. He has a new story coming up in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 2010. He also has a blog called  Davy Crockett's Almanack of Mystery, Adventure and the Wild West that I check out on a regular basis. 

He has lots of good stuff, including posts about old Detective and Cowboy magazines including their covers. He has a real love for these magazines that set the standards of today and it shows. Check out his blog if you can, I think you will like it.  :)

Davy Crockett's Almanack of Mystery, Adventure and the Wild West

Drops of Crimson is having a well-deserved birthday! This magazine is now one year old and they're working on the second volume. They've just published again and it's full of the kind of horror fiction you've come to expect: scary and well-written. Can't beat that. Chock full of interviews and reviews, too. 

This issue is very good and like all the others a fun read. I loved  "House of Worship" by Brady Golden. It really stood out for me.

Another awesome issue. Enjoy!

Not pushing my own work but the site itself. They gave me permission to use the Cow Skull as a link for their site. If you haven't yet, click around on their site through the cow skull on bottom and check 'em out. It's a pretty decent resource for writers, imo, and I think they have plans for growth.

Western sites are rare enough on the Internet as it is. Let's give these guys some support and help get the word out. *nods*

Edited by John Jakes, this is without a doubt the most comprehensive work of quality Western fiction out there today and I have my writing buddy mjryan to thank for making me aware of it.

They're all here from Zane Grey to L'Amour, Max Brand to Jack London. But included are writers like Donald Hamilton (of Matt Helm fame), Ed Gorman's excellent "Wolf Moon" (which I reviewed elsewhere on my blog), John Jakes and Loren D. Estleman and Evan Hunter (better known as crime fiction writer Ed McBain).

Some stories shine. I've already mentioned Ed Gorman's "Wolf Moon", which to my mind is the definitive jewel in this collection, but Thomas Thompson's "Gun Job" is at least as good, along with Max Brand's "Wine on the Desert," Max Evans's dark fantasy "Candles in the Bottom of the Pool," Loren Estleman's speculative SF "Hell on the Draw" AND John Cunningham's "The Tin Star" which was the source material for the movie High Noon. And it's not all men, either. Marcia Muller has an excellent revenge story entitled "Sweet Cactus Wine" and Peggy Simson Curry's "Geranium House" simply must be read to be believed.

Yes, some of the stories are clunky. Two or three. But that's to be expected with some of the writers in this collection. They were prolific and made an impact on the genre, but it would have been wrong NOT to include them. L'Amour's "The Gift of Cochise" is forgettable, but it would have been nigh unforgivable not to include him. And we can understand why his story is the first one in the table of contents. Furthermore, while Zane Grey's work "Tappan's Burro" is dated by today's standards it still resonates with the reader and serves as the perfect capstone.

Overall the quality of these stories is very high. If you like good Western fiction, or just good fiction, you will definitely enjoy this collection. Give it a peek.

As a professional writer it is a rare occurrence when I come across a book which envelops me so completely I'm able to doff my critical/authorial/editorial/writer cap and just ENJOY the story within.

Wolf Moon by Ed Gorman enabled me to do that.

This is Western Noir at its very best. Everything clicks here. The writing is as good as anything I've ever seen, particularly when you're talking about an overall genre that is known for its embarrassing hackery, stiff characterization and hoary themes.

Not so Wolf Moon. This is a literate and terse novel that hits you hard. Gorman presents the West as it was and not as Hollywood wishes, or as we hoped it might be. No riding off into the rosy-hued sunset here. There is violence, and love and duty and honor among all the characters, even the more repellent ones in this story. Even better, Gorman knows the West and presents it, warts and all. He is unapologetic when we learn through the protagonist, Chase, that we will not see a happy ending to his life and the woman and child he loves. But even amid all the raw humanity that Gorman writes about in Wolf Moon there is still room for tenderness and love and human passion. Gorman weaves it all together and makes this one of the most memorable novels I have read this year.

I highly recommend this book. Seriously, it's extremely good. Give it a peek.

An Honorable German by Charles McCain is a mish-mash of different other novels and books cobbled together in an effort to draw an overarching look at the moral character growth of a German Naval Officer in WWII. 

Too bad he doesn't bring it off.

There's a lot of structural problems with this book, beginning with the first seven chapters which read as if they were tacked on during the editorial process to help give the novel breadth.  We have the sabotaged U-boat scene lifted right out of Herbert Werner's excellent Iron Coffins as well.  But McCain doesn't stop there. He even draws upon Werner's own reflections of his father's infidelity with someone not considered "racially qualified" according to the narrow-minded Nazi ideal.  It's little plot points like this that are so glaringly lifted (though changed more than enough to avoid any definitive accusation of plagiarism) which permeate the book and grate upon the well-read U-boat aficionado.  

More stupefying is the actual book notes which claim this novel is in the tradition of Das Boot and Hunt for Red October. Yeah, not so much, because like I said the first seven chapters of McCain's protagonist, Max Brekendorf, takes place upon the Graf Spee and then a German raider in the North Atlantic. Only later are we treated to the U-boats and even then McCain cheats us, skipping from a training mission straight to the second patrol.  So we even aren't allowed to feel the uncertainty and experience the learning curve along with Brekendorf as he enters into his first patrol.  Then the novel skips around some more and we are finally witness to a lovely rose-hued ending telegraphed right out of Hollywood.

But it's not all bad. While the writing itself isn't memorable it is at least serviceable, which is a nice change from the usual bald-faced hackery we so often see in some military fiction. And, to McCain's credit, he handles the technical, and more importantly the cultural, details very well indeed. He knows his way around a U-boat and a history book. This latter isn't meant as a slight. Quite the contrary, McCain's depth of knowledge of the cultural events that helped shape Germany's navy is one of the gems in an otherwise forgettable novel.

Two stars out of five.  (And I'm being generous only because I happen to like U-boats.)

The new Drops of Crimson magazine is up. And while I'm not in this issue (okay, that's not entirely true, the superb Haxan artwork wedschilde did accompanies her interview) I urge you to give it a look-see. I personally like this little mag, it often has good, quality horror in it.

So, please, make with the clickie on the banner below and if you like the stories then tell the authors. Thanks! :)

Here's the table of contents for Destination: Future which will be published by Hadley Rille Books  in January, 2010.  I must say I am deeply flattered (I know, hard to believe given my overblown ego, but it's true) to be in such august company as this:

"The Angel of Mars" by Michael Barretta   

"When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel

Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys" by Elizabeth Bear

"Memento Mori" by Sue Blalock

"Hope" by Michael Burstein

"Ambassador" by Thoraiya Dyer

"No Jubjub Birds Tonight" by Sara Genge

"Jade Flower" by C.E.Grayson

"The Gingerbread Man" by James Gunn

"Games" by Caren Gussoff

"Rubber Monkeys" by Kenneth Mark Hoover

"One Awake in All the World" by Robert T. Jeschonek

"Watching" by Sandra McDonald

"The Hangborn" by Frederick Obermeyer

"Dark Rendezvous" by Simon Petrie

"Encountering Evie" by Sherry D. Ramsey

"Monuments of Flesh and Stone" by Mike Resnick

"Mars Needs Baby Seals" by Lawrence Schoen

"Edge of the World" Jonathan Shipley

"Alienation" by Katherine Sparrow

"The Light Stones" by Erin E. Stocks

"Embians" by K. D. Wentworth

"To understand the United States you have to first understand the Civil War." --Shelby Foote


The Civil War defined this nation's past and its future, and, like it or not, our present. And in this novel Foote explores those ideas by using the Battle of Shiloh as a backdrop.

The novel itself is literary in structure. Foote goes out of his way to make it literary, and his choice of structure works. He presents disparate people in each chapter from both sides to narrate the action. In one chapter he tells the story from all twelve members of a Union squad, the 23rd Indiana.

And it works.

I suppose it's almost impossible to read any Civil War novel without comparing it to Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. But Red Badge was an idealized examination of a Civil War battle. Foote doesn't fall into that trap. He portrays war, and the men who fought it, under the cold light of reality. He doesn't shy away from the horror and the heartache and the seeming futility that is inherent in armed conflict. Nor does he fling it into the reader's face using hyperbole and wild emotion. He simply shows us the battle, lets us look into the hearts of the men who are fighting it, and allows us to draw our own conclusions.

Therefore, unlike Red Badge, Foote's story doesn't preach an overarching message. Any message you take away is one you find in your heart after you've read it. To my way of thinking that's more powerful.

One historical note: In this battle 23,746 men were killed or wounded, more than all the casualties of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War combined. "Shiloh", it should be noted, is a Hebrew word that mean's "place of peace."

This is a very good book. I highly recommend it. Give it a peek.

I happened to come across an anthology I wanted to share with you. It's called Northern Haunts: 100 Terrifying New England Tales. It's pretty good and I want to recommend it to you.

The stories are short but spooky and all of them are based in New England. The editor, Tim Deal, said he wanted the anthology to be used for ghost stories around a campfire and I can easily see that. Some of the stories are bloody, some ghostly, some psychological, some historical, and so on. You don't have to read this from front to cover. It's not that kind of book, imo. Just crack 'er open and start reading anywhere. Skip ahead, go back, carry the book with you and read a couple of stories while you're waiting in the grocery line or at a coffee shop.

And make damn sure you bring it with you next time you go camping. Read it while the firelight is flickering on your face and the dark is closing in and a hoot owl is watching you from the bare branches of a tree overhead.

Give it a peek. I think you'll like this collection.

I met my writing buddy mjryan today and started the edit for "Alpenglow". So far I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out. I've expanded the story a bit, fleshed it out, and I'm also seeing some fantasy elements I didn't really know were there the first time. Nice.

I got twelve pages in before I had to leave. Time pressure is limiting any further work on the story today, but maybe if I'm lucky I can do some tomorrow. If not I'm meeting my writing buddy Thursday anyway so I'll get more done then for sure.

I knew this would happen, though. Private life stuff interfering with my writing this month. Maybe it's good I didn't start a new story after all. I would be feeling some stress not being able to work on it and give it the time that is necessary. Editing a story is much easier in that regard. Even working at half speed my brain can accomplish that task. But I really wanted to start a new story and now I'm afraid when I do get the change I won't have the drive I have now.

Writers are such a flighty bunch. I'm not immune in this regard.

Last week I read To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer. This was one of those books that was always on my To Be Read list, I just never got around to it. It's a Hugo Award Winner. Unfortunately that doesn't always translate to Good Read. 

I know a lot of people like this book and the entire Riverworld Series. But I won't be reading beyond this, myself. It wasn't very well done. The writing was fine -- it is Farmer after all -- but the overall story, the general worldbuilding, and the literary structure of the story combined to lessen my enjoyment of the book. I could see this being a rolicking novelette, though, or at the most a novella.

And, I'm sorry, but I don't find Riverworld a very interesting setting anyway. Farmer side-steps some crucial philosophical arguments he could have presented, thus making the book more powerful.  He alludes to them, yes, but then moves on as if they're not that important.  I think that was a mistake. He's a better writer than that.

Even so I'm glad I read this book because I had to read this book. It's one of those books you gotta read (in my case eventually) if you write SF and even fantasy.  Some books are like that. But I'm not going to read any more of the series.

Arkady Renko is one of the best detectives out there in current fiction. Except the novels he appears in by Martin Cruz Smith are sometimes themselves little better than phoned-in stories.  In other words, they're not all Gorky Park or Polar Star.

They just suck.

The novel Wolves Eat Dogs is such a novel.  It's not much more than a misfire.  It takes Arkady, our hapless Russian investigator, to Chernobyl where he must solve the murder of a Russian billionaire.  Good idea, but the execution leaves much to be desired. The writing is so low key and minimalist we not only stop caring about the story we stop caring about Arkady.  We even stop caring whether we finish reading the book or not.  Not a good sign.  The book was a total yawner.  Don't waste your time.

Even though some of the characters in Stalin's Ghost were first introduced in Wolves Eat Dogs you don't need to read the previous book to enjoy the latter.  Stalin's Ghost is Martin Cruz Smith at his finest, almost in the same crackling style we saw with Gorky.  In this one Arkady is forced to investigate sighting of the dictator in an underground train. The writing is tight and the story and mystery and relationships are all top-notch.  This is Arkady (and Smith) at his best -- and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Give this one a peek.

Even if you haven't read it you probably have some idea what the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is about.

Do me a favor? Keep those ideas and don't read this novel, because if you do, man, are you gonna be disappointed.

Yep, this book sucked and sucked hard.  Forget about how slowly it moves. Forget about how unlikable the main character is, forget the ignorance Defoe has when it comes to geography, weather, sailing, farming, fauna, and pretty much everything else he writes about.  (Did you know penguins live on the equator and all Native Americans are cannibals? Oh, and men who sail ships aren't very religious and the White Man has a special dispensation from God to own the Black Man?)  Forget the racism when Crusoe forces Friday to address him as "Master" and dreams of making the island into a slave's paradise.  Forget all that. Some of these things can't be helped. It was published in 1719. It's not like a lot of people back then were enlightened.

It's just dull.  Like I said. If you haven't read this book you probably have some kind of take on what it's about. A man nobly learning to survive alone against Nature until he meets a native and they become fast friends and help one another.  Yeah. That sounds good.  Well, keep believing that because if you actually read this crap, man, are you gonna be pissed.

Crusoe is perhaps the most unbelievable character ever to appear in fiction.  He's smart enough to fire ceramic plates in a homemade kiln, but he can't find the brainpower to fashion a clay pipe to smoke his tobacco. He moans and whines about being alone, but when he sees that enigmatic naked footprint on the beach what does he do?  He runs to his little cave and hides.  FOR MONTHS HE HIDES.  He can't figure out how to kill the goats who live naturally on the island without worrying about using up all his gunpowder and shot.  He can't figure out maybe he could make a club or a bow and arrow to kill the goats. He doesn't realize when he cuts down a HUGE tree and hollows it out it's too heavy to drag to the beach so he can escape.  He can't figure out a lot of things.

He's stupid.

And when he's not figuring out anything he's lounging around wondering why God let him live through that terrible shipwreck which took the lives of all the other men.  We're wondering that, too. Why didn't God let this loser drown with the rest of 'em? It would have saved us reading over 300 pages of this drivel. And when someone finally does show up...instead of trying to find out his name, Crusoe christens him "Friday" and makes him say "Master".  Well, first things, first, right?  Then he sends the little brown man off to pick his crops.  Nice.

I'm not saying there aren't some good things in this classic novel.  There are flashes of brilliance, but it's no more than heat lightening on the horizon. Still, despite Defoe's best effort, some of the noble quality of a man alone on a deserted island shines through.  There is a strong undercurrent of the philosophy of solitude and what that means to the human condition.  But mostly it's Crusoe moaning for hundreds of pages before he meets Friday and turns him into his footman instead of working together to make their lives better, which is what I thought the novel was going to be about.

It blows. It sucks. It sucks and blows, which isn't easy but Defoe pulls it off. 

There's lots more I could say about this novel, but why bother?  It would just depress you. I can't recommend it. Read at your own peril.

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls might be the best book I've read all year.   It has a history of being a book for children but there's more here than meets the eye. There's a deep humanist philosophy at work, incisive social commentary and believable emotion.  It works on a lot of levels.

Most "boy and his dog" books are primarily about becoming a man. But, at their fundamental core, they are, more than anything else, simple love stories.  Where the Red Fern Grows is no different.  The boy in the picture, Billy, wants redbone hounds more than anything else in the world because he wants to hunt racoons. He works two years, scrimping and saving, and finally gets his dogs. On the way home he meets a primeval force in the mountains that threatens his life.  He escapes, and begins to train his dogs, but is flummoxed as to what to name them.  Down along a river bottom he spots a tree with the words "Dan + Ann" carved into it by long ago lovers.  It's a sign from God.  There will be many others throughout the book.

Old Dan is the larger of the two hounds.  He's steadfast and loyal and strong. Little Ann was probably the runt of the litter. Smaller, she's the more intelligent of the two. There isn't a coon alive who can trick her. Both dogs have a deep bond between each other and also with Billy. More than one character in the book remarks, "I"ve never seen dogs act that way."

They are more than dogs.  Much more.

Overall, the writing is pretty darn good. Rawls conveys a real feel for the country and shows how it affects people in all aspects of their lives. In one passage Billy describes the river bottom:

"I had never seen a night so peaceful and still. All around me tall sycamores gleamed like white streamers in the moonlight."

There are lots of little flavor touches like that throughout the novel. On a hunt, Old Dan throws himself into the water:

"White sheets of water, knocked high in the moonlight by his churning feet, gleamed like thousands of tiny white stars."

Other little descriptions make this novel come alive in your hands.  Like how water squirts out from the mule's hooves as he clops through the mud or how Little Ann darts across a field bathed in moonlight and is "silent as a ghost and as quick as a flitting shadow."

On their first hunt they tree a coon in the largest sycamore in the river bottom. Eschewing all help it takes Billy days to cut the tree down. He's at the point of exhaustion and his hands are bleeding when he's about to give up, when a stray breeze catches the top of the tree and finally brings it down along with the coon.

The three become well known among other hunters.  They even go after what is known as a "ghost coon" a racoon that no one has ever been able to catch or tree. Little Ann figures out his trick and they capture the animal, but not before another tragedy takes place amidst that action. Finally, Billy and his dogs enter a hunting contest and though we get the expected result, and Billy and his dogs earn the respect from other hunters they deserve, it's actually setting up the novel for what we knew all along was coming.

Back home, they run into the primeval force they once faced all those years ago when the hounds were just puppies.  We know what's coming but we still feel the emotion and it all ties into a very effective package when Billy, now a man, revisits the memory.

This isn't a perfect book, but it's a damn good book. I highly recommend it.  You won't be disappointed.  Give it a peek.

The more I study opera the more I learn about suspension of disbelief at least as far as writing goes, and the human propensity for engaging in it. 

Suspension of disbelief is a big thing in opera.  It's a natural given you are to suspend a lot of disbelief so the opera can move on.  So what if the woman singing the role of a Viking is Asian?  So what if two characters meet and fall in love in five seconds to set up the tragic ending?  So what if a brother and sister, from the very same parents, are black and white?  So what if Brunnhilde's horse, Grane, NEVER makes an appearance during Gotterdammerung, even when she sings an aria to him and leads him into the funeral pyre at the end?

It doesn't matter.  You take it on faith Grane is there even if you don't see him.

Now I'm not saying you can get away with this sort of blatant disregard in fiction.  You can't.  But you can get away with a hell of a lot besides.  Fantasy is chock full of stuff like this: magic, dragons, elves, demons, etc.  SF is, too: time machines, faster-than-light spacecraft, stellar empires.  All that stuff is garbage.  The physical limitations the universe imposes upon these tropes are real and immutable.  You can't travel faster than the speed of light because it violates causality. Period.  But we happily accept FTL spacecraft and other nonsense elements like telepathy for the sake of the story.  That's suspension of disbelief on both the part of the writer and the reader.

And that's what fascinates me from a human perspective.  Our willingness, or innate need, to want to believe things that are manifestly and demonstrably not true intrigues me.  Okay, you can kind of understand why someone would want to do it in order to be entertained.  They are entering a contract with the writer when they pick up a story. But you can't cross that line in such a way the story jolts them out of that prepared place they've put themselves in.  Opera gets away with a hell of a lot, more than written fiction can, and I've yet to understand why, though I suspect it is because reading is entirely mental and opera has dependent qualities of visual and aural cues married to imagination.  But both depend on the audience willing to put aside some degree of skepticism so the story can continue in a logical way. That's the important thing to remember.

I guess what I'm trying to say is people can be manipulated a lot easier than I originally believed.  That's a pretty strong lesson for any writer to have learned, and I'm glad I have learned it.  Though there are still boundaries you can't cross, suspension of disbelief is not the Rubicon I once thought it was.

Most writers I know support the current writers' strike but they haven't shown any solidarity by not writing themselves.  I must admit I have also been guilty of this and it's bothering me more and more everyday.  I support the strike but I haven't stopped writing to show my solidarity. 

Now you might say, "But, they're apples and oranges!"

Oh, really?  Prove that.  Thought so.

It's writing.  Pure and simple.  Whether you do it for Hollywood or do it for a 500-print run magazine or do it so it can go in a crate in your attic, it's still writing.  It's creation.  Just because you're not being fucked over by producers and directors and movie companies doesn't mean what you do is different from what the writers on strike do for a living. 

There is no difference.  You can't justify it. 

So why haven't fiction writers stood in line with the striking writers?  Why haven't we put down or pens and pencils and keyboards and manual typewriters and stopped writing to show our support?  Is it because we realize our work doesn't really mean that much to begin with? Is it because we're so used to taking it up the ass from unscrupulous agents and editors and generally being treated like shit to begin with by some publishers?  Is it laziness?  Intellectual dishonesty?  Hypocrisy?  There has to be a reason.

This has bothered me more and more of late.  Maybe I shouldn't let it eat at me so much, but I can't help it.  I do support the strike.  Shouldn't I show my solidarity by not writing until the strike is resolved?  What about when I was a teacher?  When other school systems are on strike should teachers all over the nation also go on strike to show their solidarity?  Or should they argue that's a different school system altogether which is what they do?  And what about other professions?  Is it because writing really isn't a profession despite how we pretend otherwise?

I support the strike.  I do.  But shouldn't I support it further by not writing?  And why haven't I done that?  Am I the thing I hate the most in the whole wide world -- a fucking hypocrite?

Maybe so.  And that really bothers me.

I'm still in the middle of editing the novel. Actually, I've finished that and now I'm reading it.  Yeah, believe it or not, when you write a story you have to read it at some point.  Go figure.

One thing I do, however, when I edit my story is use a search function to find and zap qualifiers in the manuscript.  Qualifiers are a pain.  They weaken sentence structure even though they are invisible.   Sometimes you need a qualifier, and having one in dialog isn't the kiss of death.  Listen to the way people speak.  They use LOTS of qualifiers.  But what works in real life doesn't always work in fiction and you have to be careful when using them.

 Here is a list of qualifiers I search for when I'm finished with the manuscript:

Very
Rather
Just
Quite
Really (This one is truly insidious. Remove it whenever possible)
Still
Almost

There are many others but these are the seven I always search for. You should too if you want your fiction to be taken seriously.  I really mean it!

Last night during our writing group an idea was floated that maybe science fiction isn't finding new readers because the vocabulary of the genre scares them off.  This isn't a new idea, but I think it has merit and I want to talk about it. 

It goes without saying all genres have their own peculiar vocabulary.  But the problem with science fiction is you can't always understand what's being talked about just because the word is used in context.  Someone brand new to the genre might not know what FTL means, or what a waldo is, or why a spectral type G star might be better than an O-type.  And that only scratches the surface.  Science fiction is LOADED with terms like this. It's damn near another language.  Why is this important?

Because some writers who should know better use this as a way to differentiate themselves from the reading public. I have heard more than once at various SF conventions from some writers: "Most people are too stupid to read -- and appreciate -- science fiction.  That's why we're not picking up new readers." 

Guess what?  This kind of  head-up-the-ass arrogance gets around.  People pick up on it.  Writers like this (fortunately they are few and far between but they do exist and the damage they do is unrepairable) need to be challenged.  I'm not kidding.  I've heard this several times and it really bothers me.  And I bet writers who regularly attend SF cons can name one or two writers who act this way.  I have decided, however, that if I hear this again I am going to stand up and call the person the "dumb fuck" he is.  It's time someone does it.

So why do they do this?  Why do they say things like this?  It's as if these writers are trying to strike back at the cliques who ostracized them in high school.  They're so desperate to prove they are no longer dweebs all they end up doing is proving they're arrogant assholes instead.  You're too stupid for science fiction?  Christ, why not just fold up our tents right now and kill the whole fucking genre?

Aside from this, I still think one of the major problems is the vocabulary in SF. Someone interested in reading SF will probably begin doing so at an early age.  He will want to learn the terminology; he will be motivated.  Okay, fine.  But what about the casual reader?  Does the terminology of science fiction tend to scare a lot of them away?  I think so -- to some degree.  It might also be their basic misconception about the genre.  Someone who doesn't know it very well might believe there's nothing but spaceships and aliens in science fiction.  After all, that's all they see coming out of Hollywood.  But the written genre is very, very different from what is often portrayed on the silver screen.  Its primary focus is on the human question.  Spaceships and stars and Faster Than Light spaceships are just trappings.  The main question is one of humanity. 

To be fair I know all genres use this as their foundation. But I argue no genre, NONE, examines that question better, and with more relevancy, than science fiction. That is its main strength, and the way we can draw new readers into the genre.