Comments on: Worldbuilding, Briefly

By: Antonio

Antonio — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:43:42 +0000

Good science fiction is a utopia so many times we can not forget that, thus having no boundaries

By: Brad R. Torgersen

Brad R. Torgersen — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:47:29 +0000

Raz @ #68,

I noticed that too, how the CU military is too efficient and the equipment tends to work too well. Granted, in the future we might overcome the usual bugaboos that plague our current military. But it’s been my experience — in uniform — that there is a certain amount of ‘broken’ that can’t be removed from the military. Files get screw up. Stuff gets lost. Bureaucrats fowl up. People and equipment get sent to Point C when they should have gone to Point A. Some troops are just lazy, or liars, or pathologically fucked. And so forth.

OMW could have been ‘dirtier’ in this regard, and it would have lost none of its entertainment value. For me anyway.

By: ioresult

ioresult — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:27:27 +0000

NelC @69, this is the best explanation to date! Why didn’t I think of that before!

By: NelC

NelC — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:00:54 +0000

The real reason the soldiers in OMW have green skin is to make it difficult for them to desert and hide among the colonists or (worse) the population of Earth.

By: Raz Greenberg

Raz Greenberg — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:25:28 +0000

When OMW first appeared in Hebrew, one reader complained that the novel’s universe works “too perfectly” – he was especially bothered by the Earth/CU relationship, with the former allowing the latter to keep a complete monopoly on interstellar affairs, (almost) no questions asked. Another reader (a critic, actually) commented that the novel describes army and wars in a way that is unrealistically efficient – the million or so mistakes, ranging from the small to the deadly, that accompany ANY army in any war are almost completely absent from OMW (I should note that since most Israeli citizens do mandatory army service, they get to see these mistakes – big and small – done on an almost daily basis).
What I liked about “The Ghost Brigades” is the fact that this novel actually takes us behind the scenes of this seemingly-perfect universe, revealing that it isn’t as perfect as it seemed in the first novel.

By: Francis

Francis — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:32:54 +0000

Two (longstanding) gripes about OMW (which, (parenthetically [punctuation joke]) I enjoyed immensely):

1. the miniature people in OMW 1. This theme appeared again and again when I read Asimov’s SF (about 30 [!] years ago). But really, humans are a lot smarter than anything that size.

2. Food vs mining in OMW 3&4. If you’re really starting a brand new planet with lots of baddies in the sky, you want to dedicate about 5% of the population (double what we do now) to growing food, and the rest to mining the minerals to build and supply the factories needed to build the rockets to defend the planet.

but since i have no skill at writing fiction (California water law being my area of expertise) I tip my hat to someone who does, and who provided so much enjoyment.

Thank you.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:17:50 +0000

No, not even close. They eat food and stuff.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:41:20 +0000

On a more serious note, I have a question for everybody complaining about the use of chloraphyll as a source of energy. Is it a soldier’s only source of energy?

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:36:23 +0000

Glen, #63

Because Martin Caidin said everything there is to say on fighter pilots. (And if no body takes that as a challenge I’m going to be very disappointed in people. :) )

By: Glen

Glen — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:01:19 +0000

one OMW question or in military sf literature in general. Why can I find any major length stories about space fighters? It seems that there are stories about ground troops, and massive space battles. There is very little in print about dog fights. Any particular reason for this. Do you have a theory on this subject?