Sci-Friday: Learning the Tropes
There are many more qualified for Sci-Friday writing than I am. For the really good stuff, check out the following:
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Meanwhile, I write historical fiction, so these days, most of my reading is in that genre. But I’m a child of the 70s, a first-generation Trekkie.
So this Friday habit got me thinking about the first time I read Sci-fi.
My 8th grade English teacher assigned us The White Mountains, by John Christopher. I remember enjoying it but had a heck of a time visualizing these “tripods”. I didn’t know what a tripod was or should do or look like. As a Star Trek fan, I had the foundation of lasers, phasers, warp speeds, and jumps, but what was a tripod? All I could “see” was something to mount a camera on.
Thinking about it now reminds me that we gradually build a vocabulary and understanding of the tropes within genres.
I’ve been surprised at readers of my WIP asking what I mean by “mail”. “Is it the same as chain-mail?” Or even, “what is chain-mail?” As a long reader of history, action-adventure, and historical fiction, my meaning of “mail” in a 7th-century context seems obvious. But when I read Wilbur Smith’s descriptions of sailing vessels, what is obvious to him, can be lost on me.
So back to sci-fi: If you were to recommend one book to a new reader, something foundational from which to build the knowledge and awareness of the vocabulary and tropes, what book would you choose?
I remember giving up reading Patrick O’Brians’s Master & Commander because I was just lost in all that sailing lingo and definitely lacked the historic background knowledge to understand what was going on. Likewise I struggled with David Weber’s first Honor Harrington book, even though he provided pages upon pages explaining the tech - but I still don’t know how the aliens they fight in the end are supposed to look like… I settled on something like a giant praying mantis. And I’ve actually googled what an “artic” is because Terry Pratchett used it in a description (it’s an articulated lorry or what Americans call a “semi”) and I was just like wtf?! 🤣
I think finding a sci-fi book that is a good introduction is a tall order, because the genre is so varied? You can read a sci-fi book and never encounter spaceships or phasers at all. I can’t quite remember what the first science-fiction book was that I read - Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea maybe? 🤔 But like you, I’ve had seen enough Star Wars and Star Trek to have a grasp of what was going on when I encountered Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which definitely was the first book I read that had spaceships and aliens.
Very humbled to see my name on this list - thank you!