Science Fiction

NOUN: A subcategory within a particular genre: The academic mystery is a subgenre of the mystery novel.

To have your subgenre thread added to this list, please send me an email with a LINK to the thread, and which main genre it is for (there is more than one thread like this.) Requests that do not include a link will not be added.

• Genetic Science Fiction
• Cyberpunk
• Dystopia/Utopia
• Post-Apocalyptic
• Near Future Science Fiction
• Post-cyberpunk
• Future History
• Social Science Fiction
• Sci-Fi/Romance
• Military Science Fiction

Hey-yo everybody and welcome back to another fantastic year of writing. One of the things I noticed last year was a crop of people wondering if their novel classified as science fiction or not.

So!

Instead of having a million and one threads with questions, just post your story summary here and our wonderful team of scifi veterans will be able to help you classify your novel. Happy writing!

Here is the obligatory introduction thread. So, time to sound off. Who will be writing science fiction this time around, and what sub-genre do you think it will be?

I'll get it started...

Hello, my name is Dreamers Cove [wave].

This year I have two different science fiction novels in the planning. One is a Young Adult Science Fiction and the other is a Romance Science Fiction. Yes, I'm crazy enough to try to write two books in one month. And if I need more I have an Adventure Science Fiction all plotted out and waiting in the wings.

Yay, it's Nano time!

Next?

I suppose I can always convert my measurements to metric later...

Originally, I was going to do entirely original measurment systems, including shadow-walks and other random terms, but my world already introduces a new environment, and since I did decide they were originally from Earth, and since shadowwalks would not make sense underground in the caves (it would only work for the surface civilization) - I opted to go for inches and miles.

Being an american, and knowing how conceiting we americans are, I can always say my colonists were from America and stick to what I am used to.

I do like metric mesaurements of distance, but I don't like metric measurements of liquid mass and I really hate measuring things in Celsius :P Can I measure temperatures in Kelvin and weights in standard and distances in metric without my readers shooting me? ;) Maybe my colonists were really confused...er..... :P

This was posted in Plot Doctoring, but it is more suited here and got pushed back with no replies anyways.

My girlfriend came over a couple days ago, and I showed her Galaxy Quest. Now, Galaxy Quest is probably the finest SciFi movie in history. It's funny, it's dramatic, it's perfect as far as storytelling goes. I could make lists about why it's great. So, I just finished watching it, and it actually took away all inspiration to continue writing about my MC's in the place they are at now.

The jist is, I have 3 MCs. They are up on a space station as of now celebrating (at least I think, I haven't written this part yet) the victory of a race by one of them (he WILL win in an insane and explosive way). A group of soldiers were looking for one of my MCs on the planet where my story started. And after a huge battle that produced no results which made for the lost of two of the team, they decided to quit the Military organization in my novel. I really want to find a way to bring these 3 remaining soldiers to join up with my MC's, but I can't find their motivation! I know they want to, but I can't figure out why! They want to get back at the government for the loss of their men, but why become allies with the resistance? Why this, why that?! I'm getting so confused.

Any suggestions on how to wrap them up to join with my MCs? Galaxy Quest made me want to go in the direction of "They all meet up and join to create a team that goes against the government" (Just the idea of a bond forming as a team) I just don't know how they're going to meet!

Hello everyone!

Here's the theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

Basically, in my world of post-fossil fuel world, I need alternative forms of energy. I've already gone over this in another post (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3326655) so this is not about that. This is about the coolness of flywheels.

Now, I'm not writing hard sci-fi (haven't got the degrees for that), but I'd still like things to be somewhat realistic. First of all, is it at all energy-efficient to build flywheels? In my world, there's no elaborate electrical network, so most things need to work on kinetic energy stored in various ways. Flywheels seem perfect for this: I could imagine the device being "cranked up" quite literally, and then used for whatever it is that needs energy: transportation, weapons, lightning, communication etc (although I'd imagine mostly the first two). What better way to exercise your military troupe than having them spend a couple of hours every evening cranking up the flywheels needed to roll their sorry butts to the frontlines in the morning!

Secondly, for you realism people: how likely would it be that a society that in theory could do anything we can do today would be able to practically, within the constraints of industry available to, say, a big European 19th century city, build flywheels that are at least somewhat effective in large enough numbers to be more than just a curiosity? I understand these things might require vacuum and special materials and whatnot, so I'm not entirely sure. The models could certainly be a lot more primitive as well - all I'm wondering is is exactly how feasible it all is. Note: safety is not so much of an issue, we're at war here, if you're gonna make an omelette etc.

I ask because I use a voice to text transcription program. Running it on a net-book that has no moving parts except for the cooling fan. (All hard memory chips no HDD)

Thinking about this, when I started reading SF computers filled buildings, and had 16 to 32K of memory, My father taught programming and said they couldn't even imagine a use for 100K.....

Of course it is not without problems, for example my dragon wrote down "friends and lovers" for "springs and leavers".....

Regards,
Gunns

I'm doing a pulpy space opera story in which my MC is abducted by aliens, rescues the other abductees, and has some sci-fi adventures before going home.

Here's the problem: The MC's fellow abductees (all aliens) are all relatively interesting, useful characters who help advance the plot and add depth -- all except one. I had him get shot during the insurrection (to show the aliens mean business) so he's out of the action before we even get a chance to really meet him... and then he just sort of hangs around in the background until the climax, when he helps save the day.

I've established he's a medical doctor, with the alien ability to secrete various medicines from his hands. He's a family man, who's willing to do anything to get back to his family.

The obvious course would be to make him the ship's doctor, and get the MC or one of her friends hurt, but I'd like to see if anyone has any more interesting ideas what to do with this guy.

I came across this interesting article about Bridging the Cool Moments in Books:
http://io9.com/5409660/how-do-you-bridge-the-gap-between-two-cool-moment...
It interviews some science fiction authors.

Anyway, I realised my problem was that I'm getting stuck on the bridging parts trying to make them interesting. I figure I may as well just write the "cool moments" and go back later to find cool ways to link them.

Read both science fiction and fantasy? If you prefer one over the other, why?