Pet Peeves

[wakela]

What makes you cringe when you come across it in a SF/F/H story?
How bad a deal breaker is it?  Is there anything to make you stop reading an otherwise decent story?

[nebulinda]

This could apply to a story in any genre, but I hate unexpected twists at the end. The kind of twist which was not hinted at AT ALL in the story. Some huge development just comes out of nowhere, and the characters can accept it even though it's just DUMB.

I recently read a story that started out awesome. There was character development, and the science was sound, and it was really interesting. So some characters go up into space and decide to orbit the sun, and what to they discover? Another planet sharing Earth's exact orbit, exactly six months behind. WTF. The explanation for why this planet hadn't been discovered until people went into space and saw it didn't make any sense. But I can forgive bad science if the rest of the story is good. I just hated this ending because it had nothing at all to do with the rest of the story. The author spent pages and pages building up round characters, that I really got to know and like, and the discovery had nothing at all to do with them. /rant

Anyway, here's a list of other pet peeves:
-cute and cuddly creatures that turn out to be deadly
-faster-than-light travel using some sort of "hyper drive;" I'm okay with worm holes.
-boring political/ethical exposition. This is why I didn't like 1984; I prefer my messages a little sublter.
-super heroes. I don't know why. As soon as super heroes enter the equation, I probably won't like it. I even didn't really like The Incredibles because of the super heroes.
-Rich and spoiled prince/princess wants to escape the demands and limitations that comes with being rich and royal. Scruffy peasant orphan (or with sickly parents, or just one parent) wants to rise above his/her pathetic life and live in the lap of luxury. They meet and at first hate each other, then fall in love. This will probably not stop me from reading a story, and it can be done well (Aladin, anyone?), but it will usually make me enjoy a story less.
-Anything do to with Eragon. I really wish I hadn't wasted the money, time, and space on that book.
-Long descriptions. I don't care how beautiful the sunrise is, or how the lake was reflected in the full blue eyes of the princess and it made the main character think about the pointlessness of life. Unless all this detail is essential to the plot, mention it then move on.
-I also am not a huge fan of stories written in present tense. If the story is otherwise stellar I can get over it, but I do prefer to read things written in past tense.

If I can think of any more things I will be sure to post them.

[FNH]

Personal Pet Peeve - Pointless Pornography.

Your in the middle, of a great sci fi story, hi tech tech stuff is blowing your mind, epic struggles,  then a quick break for some sex.  Totally throws me off my reading.  Takes me out of the story, ruins it. 

An example was the "Singularity" story on podiobooks.  Really good dramatic sci fi obviously building to some fantastic conclusion, them BLAM!  Pointless sex scene. 

The author ( apologies , forgot his name ) claims it was all about developing the characters, showing them growing together.

I didn't get that.  They were already buddies, friends, it didn't need to go there, why did it?  As far as I could tell it didn't add anything to thier characters other than that they would sleep with each other.  I always see that as a cheap-shot, a sales ploy, weak writing.

I do appreciate that theres skill in writing it but what does it add to the story, [null].

It's been a while since I read one but I think S.King does the same sort of thing in a bunch of his novels.

[sirana]

The author ( apologies , forgot his name ) claims it was all about developing the characters, showing them growing together.

Bill DeSmedt

[Jonathan C. Gillespie]

Good stuff so far, guys.

My personal pet peeves:

• Pretentious cultural exposition where the writer throws out terms they're familiar with while offering no frame of reference for the unfamiliar reader to understand their meaning.  Some authors can do this well, but almost always they seem to be screaming "Look at me!  Look at me!  Marvel at my worldliness!"
• When authors don't listen too, deride, or flat-out insult their readers.  Even if the reader didn't pay anything for the work, they still invested time.  They're still a customer, and a potential customer of future work, too.  I think writers should show courtesy and resist the temptation to look down their noses at them, no matter what they say.  Writers don't have to agree with them, or respect them personally, but I think they should recognize they are the customer.  On that note, the customer has no obligation to use tact, in the same way one has no obligation to dance around their opinions of the latest movie they saw.
• Stories that ham-fist their writer's political leanings.  Even my favorite political story on EP is guilty of this one, as Stephen correctly pointed out.
• Characters that constantly, suddenly, finally, seemingly, etc.  I won't name the author, but there's a prominent fiction podcaster whose work is full of their lead characters "suddenly realizing" everything.  It's  jilting.  Just say he realized it, and be done with it.
• Yet another fantasy story about yet another modern everyman/woman encountering yet another fantastic creature alluded too in the first half of the story.  The sad thing is, these are often done well, but the good prose is wasted on an old theme, like spraying air freshener around unwashed, tattered gym socks.  And, come on -- do you really expect surprise from the reader when said critter shows up after you spent three paragraphs describing, through the conveniently-placed friend/bartender/street kid the mythical Dearbax of Cambden Bend?
• Enslaved robot stories.  They're just not usually done well.
• Punchline fiction.  Satire is sublime, but if I wanted a lame joke, I'd sit in a congressional session.
• Fiction involving any aspect of spirituality, and not just because I'm agnostic, but rather because it's usually poor quality.
• The latest story with Awkward Geek, Headstrong Rival, and Sally Coldheart.
  
• Stories that sacrifice flow for descriptive banter.  I prefer good pacing.
• Not really literary, but whatever happened to "thinking".  People "feel" everything these days.  Are you really emotionally invested in that much stuff?

[Brian Reilly]

Omnicompetent men The always confident, always right, cigar smoking, highly intelligent, gun-toting heroes of the old juvenile SF novels I was exposed to as a kid. I'll take my heroes flawed and human, please.

Empires and Kings in futuristic SF Sometime in the future we'll abandon democracy and go back to having kings? Despite the fact that the technology that let us go to space in the first place was a result of allowing people independence from this b/s? Not only is it unlikely, but setting a story in this kind of universe lends itself to heroes of the mythical type rather than the preferable little guy who wins against the odds.

Using an imperial setting for ironic purposes (like How lonesome a life without Nerve Gas) is OK.

Omnipotent technology All technology has its limitations. Nanotech that can create anything is pixie dust in SF clothing. Computers that are all-knowing are oracles in SF clothing. Aliens that can do anything are Gods in Sf clothing. Omnipotent technology turns SF into fantasy. Not that fantasy is all bad, but fantasy that thinks it is SF doesn't work. Show me both sides of your miracle technology (like Nano comes to Clifford Falls).

Technology that follows arbitrary rules. I'm talking about the 3 Laws, basically. This will never happen. If tech can be used for something, it will. Stories where every example of a certain technology follows some made-up law bore me.

[J.R. Blackwell]

This applies to basically any story in any genre, but I hate it, HATE IT, when writers write accents phonetically into a story.

As soon as I see something like: "Oi Whot! Aie dere Guvnur'" I go into a kind of killing rage.

Books have gone hurtling across the room, pages flapping, for this kind of offense.

This is probably the biggest deal breaker for me. Tenses, themes, settings, politics, random sex, nonrandom sex, drugs, royalty, method of travel, aliens, robots, green dancing girls, silly heros that always win the day, twists, detectives stories, cute aliens, ugly aliens, using alien life as a metaphor for racism in America, aliens that look like people, robots that look like people, military themes, violence, utopia, old themes written by new writers, new themes written by old writers, outdated or dated genres, alternate histories and silly parodies are all fine with me, as long as they are done well, but the arbitrary definition of well that I set for the fiction I like.

[SFEley]

I want to make absolutely clear that I am talking about novels in this post.  I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT SHORT STORIES.  I'm reluctant to even participate in this thread, because any time an editor says "I like..." or "I don't like..." anywhere, there's a risk of people gaming their submissions around it.  I don't want that.  I want to see all of your short stories.  You can usually get away with more things in a short story anyway, simply by wrapping the story around it.

• I am annoyed by prophecy.  It's a cheap trick.  The farmboy who's Chosen by Destiny has been done far past death, into undeath, and it's unnecessary.  The moment you tell us what has to happen later in the book or series, the plot turns tunnel-shaped.  And the inevitable reversals -- "Muaha, you thought I was going to fulfill the prophecy this way, but I did it this way instead!" -- just make it worse.  I'd much rather read about the farmboy who becomes a badass hero because he's smart enough and he wants to.
  
  
• Come to think of it, reluctant heroes annoy me too.  Not so much that they're hesitant to take on that nine-headed hydra -- that's just common sense -- but that they spend half the book bitching about being the protagonist, and how miserable it is to have all this power, responsibility, and magic weaponry.  Tough.  At this point, I'd actually cheer if a character in a fantasy novel said, "You know what?  Screw this quest.  I'm going home!"  Meanwhile, though, let's have a hero who can have some fun being a hero.
  
  
• Prologues annoy me.  The ones that begin hundreds or thousands of years before the plot, or that insist on dumping world exposition on you before anything happens to make the world worth knowing about.  Or even prologues that give you some random schmoe's point of view in some 'development' scene before you find out who the protagonist is.  (China Miéville does this in Perdido Street Station, which I'm reading right now and is otherwise excellent.)  I want to know, on page one, who I'm supposed to care about, and I want to see them doing something.

Hmm.  Those are all primarily problems of fantasy. I guess I should come up with some SF ones too.

• I'm annoyed by clunky prose.  It's getting better, but hard SF is still the clunkiest of all the subgenres.
  
  
• This isn't so much a peeve as kind of an eye-roller, and I feel as if it even has to be explained delicately: but I'm always slightly thrown by what I have to call "gratuitous diversity."  I'm not saying that diversity is bad, but it's pretty obvious that a lot of SF authors (and yes, I'll say it, white male SF authors) feel obliged to shoehorn it in without really thinking about it.  You are no longer allowed in hard SF to have a leading scientist who's a white guy.  And if you have a team of scientists, then one of them absolutely has to be Asian, one of them has to be African, the smartest ones have to be women, and if you can make one of them a talking primate or dolphin that's even better.  Eventually there must be some sex between the scientists, too, though you can leave the primate out of that.  (The dolphin's probably kinky enough to be interested, but the author never is.)
  
  This is only a problem when it feels fake.  An example of it clunking would be Greg Benford's Cosm.  Black female particle physicist accidentally creates a centimeter-scale pocket universe and tries to study it.  Cool story.  Had a lot to do with academic politics, which Benford clearly knows.  Only the character never felt quite right to me, and every so often he had to throw in some dating scene or some gratuitous dialogue with the character's best friend to remind us that she was black and female.  Real problems that could have been explored -- glass ceilings, subtle attitudes from her coworkers, etc. -- never manifested in any interesting way.  If I recall correctly there was a workplace discrimination issue related to grants or something, but she was able to just stand up and face it down directly, which didn't seem likely to me.  What clunked is that you could have substituted any other person of any other race or gender, with appropriate academic credentials, and neither the plot nor the character's personality would have changed in any real way.  It felt like making her a black woman was a formula decision on Benford's part: he was just checking boxes to make the book more 1990s.
  
  Contrast this with, say, Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang.  It's a future where the Chinese have taken over and established a semi-totalitarian world hegemony.  The main character is a half-Chinese gay man.  This makes his life...difficult.   His race and sexuality are not gratuitous, they're central to the plot, and I found his personality totally convincing and compelling.  (Heck, I'd probably be attracted to him in real life.)  The story simply could not have worked with a different character.
  
  Does the difference make sense?  Again, I don't stop reading a book because of things like this.  But I do notice, and it's at least a minor distraction.

[Jonathan C. Gillespie]

I see where you're coming from, but I don't necessarily agree.  Following your formula, the scientist should have been what -- white, male?  Isn't it equally realistic that she's a black, female scientist and no one gives a damn about that fact?  I guess it comes down to individual point of view, and the time the story was set in.  1960's -- sure, the conflicts need to be in there.  2226?  Not necessary; even detrimental.

[Jonathan C. Gillespie]

Nanotech that can create anything is pixie dust in SF clothing.

Good God, thank you, Brian.  I think the same way -- at the very least, where is the matter coming from?  If they're stripping particles away, where are they storing them?  You can't violate the laws of physics and get away with it by calling it nano.

[Russell Nash]

Nanotech that can create anything is pixie dust in SF clothing.

Good God, thank you, Brian.  I think the same way -- at the very least, where is the matter coming from?  If they're stripping particles away, where are they storing them?  You can't violate the laws of physics and get away with it by calling it nano.

That's it. Violaton of the laws of physics is what gets me. If you give me a reason, I'm happy. But without a reason, it doesn't fly.

Charlies Angels–Why the hell can they do that? 

Matrix–It's really in a computer and only they know it. Cool, got it.

[SFEley]

I see where you're coming from, but I don't necessarily agree.  Following your formula, the scientist should have been what -- white, male?  Isn't it equally realistic that she's a black, female scientist and no one gives a damn about that fact?

You're right.  And that's why I was so long-winded trying to explain it.  It's a tough issue, because even bringing up issues of race and sex puts one at risk of looking like an ass.

It wasn't the fact of the character's race or sex, but just something about the way it was written -- as a choice deliberately made to look diverse, with the minimum characterization needed to make it plausible.  And again, I probably only perceived it because there's so much of that in hard SF.  The team formula where no two people can come from the same continent, and the author goes out of his way to say so once or twice then back to business.

This may be a no-win trilemma.  I bitch about it because it seems forced in.  But if it isn't done, then yeah, the authors would come under fire for not doing it.  

And if the third alternative is chosen -- the author takes the time to flesh out every character, and make them all interesting and believable and deftly integrated with their backgrounds so it isn't a kludge -- then a large number of hard SF readers would probably complain that the novel was way too slow, spent too much time on characters and touchy-feely stuff, and didn't spend all its time on shiny particles and explosions.


I guess it comes down to individual point of view, and the time the story was set in.  1960's -- sure, the conflicts need to be in there.  2226?  Not necessary; even detrimental.

Oh, and for what it's worth, Cosm was meant to be contemporary SF, or at most a few years after its late-90s publication date.  So, more or less right now.

[Jonathan C. Gillespie]

This may be a no-win trilemma.  I bitch about it because it seems forced in.  But if it isn't done, then yeah, the authors would come under fire for not doing it.

You can blame the wonderful double-standards in our great PC nation.  No one wins, no one loses, the generic thrives out of fear of bad will.  Many people do think they have to place equal ratios of genders and races everywhere, and I don't really blame them.  We all sandpaper our media with the Great Obligatory Multicultural Theory.  If we were half as enlightened as we should be, we'd never give race and gender a second thought.

See?  Now I'm bitching  

[Holden]

That's it. Violaton of the laws of physics is what gets me. If you give me a reason, I'm happy. But without a reason, it doesn't fly. (sic)

This is the reason I preferred Marvel comics over DC as a child. Marvel heroes had explanation of how their powers worked, whereas DC characters often didn't. Flight is a perfect example. In marvel, Hulk "flew" by leaping with his super human strength, and Thor "flew" by throwing his hammer and letting the centrifugal force of the throw carry himself. On the other hand, many DC heroes simply had "flight" as one of their powers with no explanation at all.

[J.R. Blackwell]

You're right.  And that's why I was so long-winded trying to explain it.  It's a tough issue, because even bringing up issues of race and sex puts one at risk of looking like an ass.

I think the trouble behind this problem (the problem being weak diverse characters) is that the science fiction genre is dominated by white males. This is not to say that there aren't amazing writers of many backgrounds, cultures and genders writing science fiction, but the genre is still dominated by men of the paler sort.

Diversity is something that science fiction has struggled with. I believe you can be from any background or gender and write good characters of other genders or backgrounds, but it would help science fiction to have a greater diversity of writers. How exactly to do this, I don't know. I do know that the more diverse voices we have in our fiction, the more accurate our reflection and understanding of the world.

I'm writing my Masters thesis on race and gender in Octavia E. Butlers fiction, and reading about her, she really had to struggle for recognition in science fiction. On the cover of Butlers 1979 release Dawn, her main character, an African-American woman named Lilith, was shown as a white woman! The publishers (Warner) were afraid a black female on the cover wouldn't sell books. I know that was 1979, and perhaps things have changed since then, but that is the culture that writers and readers are coming from. No wonder that a lot of diversity is token diversity!

[JaredAxelrod]

Swords in modern fantasy.

There's been thousands of years of weapon development, and hundreds of years since the sword stopped being a useful weapon.  You want to write about swords--which is fine; swords are cool--put in a time period where having our hero pull one out make sense (ere's a hint; if he's on a motorcyle, it probably doesn't).  An enchanted flintlock or a holy hand grenade shouldn't be that much to ask for.

Also, poor people--especially Southern poor people--being portrayed as idiots.

[SFEley]

I think the trouble behind this problem (the problem being weak diverse characters) is that the science fiction genre is dominated by white males. This is not to say that there aren't amazing writers of many backgrounds, cultures and genders writing science fiction, but the genre is still dominated by men of the paler sort.

True again, though that has been changing.  At the very least, representation by women in the field gets better all the time.  (I couldn't find easy data on race -- my anecdotal experience at conventions tells me that this is still a very white genre, though my hunch is that the problem is more about getting other races to write and submit in the field than editorial discrimination.)

I suppose I may be simply asking too much, or expecting writers with particular strengths to show strength in every area.  I suppose a part of my mind says that if Maureen McHugh can write a convincing gay man, or Arthur Golden can write a convincing geisha, then Benford and Brin and company should either write convincing diverse characters or not bother.

But "not bother" may not be an option, and you can't make every writer perfect at characterization.  My real beef may have been summed up by John Clute in his review of the novel:

"The face may be black, the sex may be female, and we may often be told that the buttocks are too large, but the voice is the voice of Benford."

I guess I was just hoping for a different voice.  This isn't something that every writer has as a talent.

Diversity is something that science fiction has struggled with. I believe you can be from any background or gender and write good characters of other genders or backgrounds, but it would help science fiction to have a greater diversity of writers. How exactly to do this, I don't know. I do know that the more diverse voices we have in our fiction, the more accurate our reflection and understanding of the world.

Yes.  But again, it is verifiably getting better.  It's not a perfectly mixed stone soup yet, but at least today if an early-adolescent boy says, "Ewww, I'm not going to read anything written by a woman," he's cutting out somewhere between a third and half of the published field.

[wakela]

I agree, Steve, sometimes it makes sense, but it often seems forced. 

I had already become a fan of Samuel Delany when I found out that he was black and gay.  I had been reading stories packed with race and gender issues, and I just thought they were cool stories.

At the 2001 Worldcon in Philidelphia I went to a panel on diversity.  I was naive enough to think it would be about diverse alien cultures.  The panel members furrowed their brows and used sociology terms to pretend to be scientific while they tsk tsked about groups that only welcomed a certain kind of member.  I remember a characteristic of such groups was that they use one word to refer to themselves and another to refer to outsiders.  None of the panel members seemed to get the irony that we were in a room of 200 white people who considred themselves fans and others mundanes.

Why don't more non-whites go to conventions?  Do they not read SF? I could see how it would be intimidating to be surrounded by people different that you, but fandom seems to be a pretty welcoming bunch.  I've met so many bizarre personalities at conventions, I can't imagine them rejecting anyone.

Has anyone read "Dark Matter: Reading the Bones?"  It's an anthology of spec fic by black authors.  What about the books of  Haruki Murakami?  I found that I had fallen into the trap of assuming the characters were white even though the authour obviously assumed they were Japanese.

[wakela]

"Do not go out at night.  That's when They come out."
"Who?"
"They."
"Who's they?"
"Them."
"What are you talking about?"
"Those That Must Not Be Named."
"Throw me a bone, here."
"Once we lived in peace.  But that was in The Time Of Peace.  Then there was ... The Coming."
"For crying out loud, tell me what the hell is going on." (this is spoken by both the main character and reader).

[Heradel]

Diversity is something that science fiction has struggled with. I believe you can be from any background or gender and write good characters of other genders or backgrounds, but it would help science fiction to have a greater diversity of writers. How exactly to do this, I don't know. I do know that the more diverse voices we have in our fiction, the more accurate our reflection and understanding of the world.

Yes.  But again, it is verifiably getting better.  It's not a perfectly mixed stone soup yet, but at least today if an early-adolescent boy says, "Ewww, I'm not going to read anything written by a woman," he's cutting out somewhere between a third and half of the published field.

As someone that's probably more recently out of that phase than others on the forum, I don't think there's as big a "ew, a girl writer" than you might think. Especially if they're going to something like TAB (if I remember correctly, Teen Advisory Board, basically a book group during lunch periods), there are going to be about twice as many girls there as guys, and the author ratio was probably about evenly split. In my personal experience I read almost all of Tamora Pierce's Young Adult novels up to around 2002. I was also introduced to Terry Pratchett through The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (which has probably had a bigger effect on my funny-writing than any other book), and I got a lot of flak for liking a book about a Cat and Mice.

I also assumed Terry Pratchett was female until I looked at the back flap after I'd finished reading it.

Talk about disillusionment.

Plus, this is a post Harry Potter youth, and that did a whole lot to kill that kind of sentiment from what I can tell with my younger cousins.

[SFEley]

"Once we lived in peace.  But that was in The Time Of Peace.  Then there was ... The Coming."

This is awesome.  I very need to use this sometime.

[SFEley]

Plus, this is a post Harry Potter youth, and that did a whole lot to kill that kind of sentiment from what I can tell with my younger cousins.

That's a good point.  And wonderfully ironic since, as was pointed out in another thread, the reason J.K. Rowling uses her initials is because the publisher assumed young boys would have exactly that sentiment.

[Heradel]

Plus, this is a post Harry Potter youth, and that did a whole lot to kill that kind of sentiment from what I can tell with my younger cousins.

That's a good point.  And wonderfully ironic since, as was pointed out in another thread, the reason J.K. Rowling uses her initials is because the publisher assumed young boys would have exactly that sentiment.

Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever even seen her first name.

[SFEley]

"Once we lived in peace.  But that was in The Time Of Peace.  Then there was ... The Coming."

And, come to think of, this probably is my biggest pet peeve, the one I complain about most: plots where all of the problems stem from characters being totally unwilling to communicate with each other for no reason (or for utterly inane reasons).  This is probably more common in television and movies, but it happens all the time in prose, too.

The Harry Potter books are a major offender here.  Entire forests would be alive today if the adults had been willing to talk straight with the kids, or Harry wasn't having a snit with Ron, or whatever.  Order of the Phoenix could simply not have happened if Dumbledore had, in the first couple chapters, scheduled a meeting with Harry in his Day Timer.  (I won't even get into the major character who died because Harry got a package halfway through a book and forgot to open it.)

I don't want conflict because people are stupid.  I want conflict because people are smart.  It's far more enjoyable, and it doesn't make me want to reach into the page and throttle characters.

[Russell Nash]

Plus, this is a post Harry Potter youth, and that did a whole lot to kill that kind of sentiment from what I can tell with my younger cousins.

That's a good point.  And wonderfully ironic since, as was pointed out in another thread, the reason J.K. Rowling uses her initials is because the publisher assumed young boys would have exactly that sentiment.

Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever even seen her first name.

I believe it's Joanne. Up until the third book you just didn't see her. I think they even left it vague on the "About the Author" page in the first few printings. On the third or fourth book they started saying, "this is such a phenomenon it doesn't matter" and that's when you just couldn't get away from interveiws of her.

I've heard so many different booksellers and librarians say in interviews that J.K. really broke through some barriers. Reading is really up among teens and they don't seem to care about the writer beyond being a writer. To say it better: male, female, black, white, yellow, green just doesn't really matter anymore.