SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

XKCD guy says you're good! :-)

David wrote: "Another common problem: total lack of understanding of orbital dynamics and how gravity works (on an astronomical scale).

The most recent one that I remember was in Leviathan Wakes/..."

Yes, there are many problems like this! How about those incredibly large beings in House of Suns?

Flight in general often is not well done. My son-the-airplane-fanatic points this out frequently.

But how about biological absurdities such as oversized land creatures with exoskeletons? There are very good reasons why we don't have any larger than exist on earth, and even in other gravities there is a limit.

Karin wrote: "In the nineteenth century pink was a common colour for men's underwear. Pink was considered masculine due to its close association with red, and red was definitely primarily for men for some time in many places."

Until WWII, baby boys were dressed in pink because it was a bold color (as all males were expected to be). Baby girls were dressed in blue because it was the color Mary was always depicted wearing in Christianity.

One of my peeves is ridiculously improbable romantic scenes. I just finished Fallen Sun: The Great War (hated it for a variety of reasons), in which two characters were under attack, being shot at, and they start making out. Because sexual attraction > death.

Shanna wrote: "One of my peeves is ridiculously improbable romantic scenes. I just finished Fallen Sun: The Great War (hated it for a variety of reasons), in which two characters were under attack..."

PREACH IT, SHANNA.

Well, eons ago, I read a French sci-fi novel that was written like only French writers (from France, not Québec, please) can do, meaning using big words to often say stupid things. In this case, that novel (I don't have the title anymore) was centered on some galactic princess who kidnapped an Earth man because he is supposedly predestined to save her planet from a tyrant. To make a long (and mediocre) story short, the Earth guy proves to be unequal to the task and he and the princess have to leave in a hurry before her planet is blown up (don't ask me how). What is the first thing that passes in the mind of the princess just after she watched her world explode? She jumps on the guy and screws him, of course! That was beyond cheesy!

Nothing says romance like watching everything you've ever known go up in flames!

Allison wrote: "Phillip wrote: "Allison wrote: "Wait, I can't button mash and hack the CIA?"

What if I do it while spouting off witty one-liners?"

Right, I'm pretty sure that's the key!

:)"

Well if you know the key, then you don't need to hack them!

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Oh, back to women's bodies...

Is it funny how women on quests never seem to get their periods?

(I have read 2 books that actually addressed this, and one did it in the worst kind of way possible,..."

I just finished Crossroads of Canopy and was surprised that a) they handled it, and b) it actually had in-world implications.

Donald wrote: "Well if you know the key, then you don't need to hack them!"

hahaha!

Karin wrote: "colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "On a slightly different vein... there was a little thing which jumped out at me in a book I read recently, because it had a woman, in the early 1930s, being really freaked out about not having shav..."

Yes, this is very true. One needs to be accurate, because for many years only prostitutes shaved their legs, and no "respectable" woman who have done so. They started after short dresses and skirts became the style, but not right away."

To be clear, hair removal is not a modern affectation. It is something that has been going on for centuries, and probably for as long as fully modern humans have walked the Earth.

There are beauty manuals written by women for women from the European Middle Ages which detail beauty regimens, including removal of body hair. But men did it, too. One need only look at paintings from the past thousand years to see that.

It also varied by culture. The mohawk hairstyle sported by some male warriors in North American groups was achieved not through shaving but by plucking. Tonsure (the shaving of the head either partially or completely) was (and still is) practiced by religious orders in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Some Buddhist sects took that even further with complete body depilation.

The Romans, particularly men, shaved their underarms, but rarely their legs.

Shaving one’s legs isn’t a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination.

David wrote: "Another common problem: total lack of understanding of orbital dynamics and how gravity works (on an astronomical scale).

The most recent one that I remember was in Leviathan Wakes/..."

Depends on the time frame. An impact from something relatively tiny against Eros could cause it to fall into the sun, but it won’t happen next week.

That’s actually one of the plans for diverting Earth-impacting asteroids and comets: if we see it soon enough, we merely have to nudge it a teeny bit in order for it to miss the planet. A very small rocket will suffice. If we have enough lead time, we don’t even need to use an impactor, we just need to paint part of it white, so the solar wind will affect it differently as it spins, changing its trajectory.

In one episode of The Expanse they do a slingshot maneuver around the moons of Jupiter or something, using gravity assist, which would totally work... except they accomplish it in a matter of hour, when in reality it would take months or years. So it’s sort of a true-yet-forced version of science.

Another thing I was thinking about last night is books like The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog and movies like Alpha (https://youtu.be/uIxnTi4GmCo), which talks about the taming of the first dog, something that clearly happened independently numerous times on different parts of the globe, it’s always men who do it.

It occurred to me last night that it would probably be women who were more likely to tame a wolf. First of all, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle generally dictates that women stay put while men are out hunting. On a hunt is not a time to be training baby predators. Secondly, wolves would be more prone to skulk around settlements, which is where the women would be. Third, again speaking generally, women are more nurturing than men when it comes to these things.

So for me I see this as probably something women would have done, just to fill the time if nothing else. I once saw a study about the work patterns of hunter-gatherer societies which determined that they usually worked less than 20 hours a week maintaining their lifestyles. The men are typically semi-nomadic as they go out on hunts, but they didn’t work any harder or longer than the women. That’s borne out by encounters with peoples who have managed to avoid contact with modern civilization. It’s not that they don’t have the work ethic, it’s just that they don’t have the need.

So if you have ample time on your hands and you found a hungry wolf cub near your camp, I can totally see women being the prime instigators in taming them.

After 37 years in animal rescue, one commonality I see across all dog breeds is a fear of men. Even my dog, who I know loves me unreservedly, likes women more than men, and if there’s a woman anywhere in the vicinity she abandons me without so much as a backward glance. When my mom visited, she and Wabash were inseparable. (Example: https://www.instagram.com/p/BH-77zIB8...) Whenever I go to the neighbors, she hangs out exclusively with their daughter. (Example: https://www.instagram.com/p/BERZGWRu2...)

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s something hardwired into their genes from tens of thousands of years of being tamed by women.

So this isn’t something I can definitively say “they get it wrong”, but it doesn’t seem as likely that it happened as portrayed. (Down with the patriarchy!)

Trike wrote: "Depends on the time frame. An impact from something relatively tiny against Eros could cause it to fall into the sun, but it won’t happen next week."

That situation isn't exactly the same - by adjusting an orbit slightly, you could cause it to miss a target on its previous orbit, but it would still be in a nearly-identical orbit. On the scale of the solar system, the Earth and the hypothetical asteroid are just specks whose orbits coincide once at random. It doesn't take much change to cause two specks to miss each other.

Eros and the Sun aren't two specks with coinciding orbits. Eros orbits the Sun, and never goes anywhere near the Sun, and never will from any minor change. The only way to get its orbit to intersect the Sun (or anywhere near the Sun) is to decelerate it immensely.

I hadn't put that much thought into it, but now I google and see that people have (of course). From their numbers, the change in velocity would need to be 3.7 million times greater than what it would be (22.25 km/sec needed vs 0.6 cm/sec for the Nauvoo).

But as they and you point out, even if they fail to reach the sun, they could still divert if from Earth given enough time.

Tomas wrote: "I just read this thread from zero to here at once, so a few comments of mine:

To "monthly problem": in the series started by The Path of Flames, the issue is avoided because [spoil..."

Liquid benzine is not that flammable. In an engine it is the vapour that is ignited so I always find it much more believable when they show a heat haze over the vehicle before it explodes.
Also cars do not immediately flip-over when a tire bursts (gets shot out). If you don't care about damage to the wheel you can drive quite a way on a flat tire.
And shooting out a tire on a moving vehicle is no way as easy as Hollywood makes out. I love the X-files episode where a possessed van is circling Mulder for hours while he tries to shoot out the tires. The van eventually stops when it runs out of petrol.

And we can’t forget that cars always blow up when they have an accident. Especially American ones. Every time lol

Karin wrote: "Trike wrote: "I read somewhere that >90% of shoulder gunshot wounds result in amputation. Even a glancing blow (aka “getting winged”) can kill you.

There was always a joke about American soldiers ..."

I understand they still use maggots for cleaning complicated wounds.

Trike wrote: "Shaving one’s legs isn’t a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination. "

True, but the book I was reading was set in America in the early 1900s and it wasn't that common for women to shave their legs during that time period in America. Certainly not to the point where it would be expected to the degree that it seemed to have been in the story.

Shanna wrote: "One of my peeves is ridiculously improbable romantic scenes. I just finished Fallen Sun: The Great War (hated it for a variety of reasons), in which two characters were under attack..."

Big issue I had with Across the Nightingale Floor.

Karin wrote: "Also, no one mentions how maggots could keep wounds clean..."

It is done in fiction, e.g. see Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle Collection

Karin wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "ANY Romance book that features a "virgin" who is involved in finger penetration but is still sporting a hymen.

Any Romance book that has the hymen at any location past 1 inch or..."

I'm pretty sure the... enthusiastic activities that happen in most Romance books of this ilk would NOT allow for anyone to keep said hymen, lol. That would be, of course, if they placed the hymen in the correct place to begin with.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Shanna wrote: "One of my peeves is ridiculously improbable romantic scenes. I just finished Fallen Sun: The Great War (hated it for a variety of reasons), in which two characters we..."

Bwhahahahahaha! Just read your review.

MrsJoseph wrote: "colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Shanna wrote: "One of my peeves is ridiculously improbable romantic scenes. I just finished Fallen Sun: The Great War (hated it for a variet..."

Yeah, that review made me lol, too.

Phillip wrote: "Karin wrote: "In the nineteenth century pink was a common colour for men's underwear. Pink was considered masculine due to its close association with red, and red was definitely primarily for men f..."

I'd forgotten just how long boys wore pink and girls wore blue!

IIRC, blue used to be a popular wedding dress color (the virgin mary thing).

Trike wrote: "To be clear, hair removal is not a modern affectation. It is something that has been going on for centuries, and probably for as long as fully modern humans have walked the Earth.."

Of course, I was referring to women shaving legs in the western world. Even now it's not universal.

Japanese women have removed virtually all of their facial hair for centuries; I haven't been checking to see if there has been any recent changes.


Men were the first to wear high heels in Europe as it was their legs on exhibition; some would even pad their calves. Men wore corsets at about that same time; women started that trend a bit later.

Bathing was normal in Europe in the early middle ages, but one mad monk (probably not alone, but I haven't researched this one in depth) pushed for no bathing as bathing was ungodly--this stemmed from a long tradition of a certain sect where things like bathing were worldly, etc.

MrsJoseph wrote: "IIRC, blue used to be a popular wedding dress color (the virgin mary thing)."

I know that it wasn't until Queen Vickie that white wedding dresses became a thing. And, iirc, for a long time only the wealthy folks would really have "wedding dresses". Poorer women would just wear whatever they had that was best.

Oleksandr wrote: "Karin wrote: "Also, no one mentions how maggots could keep wounds clean..."

It is done in fiction, e.g. see Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle Collection"

Good to know! I started the first book but didn't care for it and quit, so didn't get that far. He certainly did a lot of research, though. I preferred Reamde & Seveneves. I don't always like his protagonists, and that affects how much I care for a book. I no longer remember all the reasons I didn't like Quicksilver now, but I had a lot of other books I wanted to get to and didn't want to finish for the sake of finishing. I liked Reamde in spite of not liking many of the characters. In Seveneves there were characters I liked and I liked in it spite of certain inane and then also unbelievable things in the book, or at least things I find inane for one reason or another. I don't mind some unbelievable things, of course, because it's fiction in the far future, but some are just too much for me.

MrsJoseph wrote: "Karin wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "ANY Romance book that features a "virgin" who is involved in finger penetration but is still sporting a hymen.

Any Romance book that has the hymen at any location ..."

I avoid romance books for the most part, particularly ones with all of that unbelievable sex and erotica, not only the sexual attraction > death (Shanna--great line!) parts. Any romance book that mentions the hymen is in my never read category. If I do read a romance, it is usually one with more left to the imagination (I have 3 kids, so am not a prude, just can't stand that writing). The Clan of the Cave Bear books got me sick and tired of written sex when I was young, especially the ones where it was every second chapter, which was everything from he third book on (well, there was that boring one) and when the last one eventually came out I couldn't be bothered to finish the series.

So I don't think I have never read one with the hymen in the wrong place. I think I'd remember that sort of issue.. Is there a scifi book like that? If so, is it a classic one? I was still reading the sex scenes when I was in high school (shocking, I know--a teen interested in sex) and read a lot of classics then (well, pretty much everything that was out then that is still around is a classic now, I would think).

I’d add treating other cultures as stereotypes and shortcutting the research, say by Google-translating something said in a language unknown to the author. It happens too often at least with Slavic languages. For example Russian female surname ending with –ov/-ev, usually geta “a” at the end; for Polish masculine –sky/ski is changed to –ska and so on. Sometime male patronymic are used for female characters.
Another pet peeve of mine is that too often the USA and the world (aka Earth) are confused and everything global happens the Northern America.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "IIRC, blue used to be a popular wedding dress color (the virgin mary thing)."

I know that it wasn't until Queen Vickie that white wedding dresses became a thing. And, iirc, for a..."

Yup! In fact, it wasn't until *IIRC* the end of WWI that middle class American women did the white dress thing, too.

Okay, that reminds me of a HUGE issue I have: child brides. Everyone's always going on about how since everyone died young in the olden times, 15 is really like middle aged and...oy. That's just not at all how it works.

It's true that people died young a lot, and that there's something to be said for starting a family as soon as you're able to keep your line going. But if you didn't die of various plagues or childbirth, the average lifespan hasn't really changed much (late 50s-early 80s), so it wasn't "okay" to do that to kids, and it's not "historically accurate" to depict all over the place in books about quasi-medieval settings.

A quick Google search will show that ppreeetty early on (say by the year 1100) marriage ages were rising and the age difference was decreasing so that couples were more in line experience-wise. Really cherry picking (gross pun, sorry) history when we make these completely inaccurate portrayals of medieval settings and then give them ideas on women and marriage that even the Church discouraged at the time.

But I see this all the time. Game of Thrones, for example, and even my beloved Tamora Pierce.

Karin wrote: "I avoid romance books for the most part, particularly ones with all of that unbelievable sex and erotica, not only the sexual attraction > death (Shanna--great line!) parts. Any romance book that mentions the hymen is in my never read category. If I do read a romance, it is usually one with more left to the imagination (I have 3 kids, so am not a prude, just can't stand that writing). The Clan of the Cave Bear books got me sick and tired of written sex when I was young, especially the ones where it was every second chapter, which was everything from he third book on (well, there was that boring one) and when the last one eventually came out I couldn't be bothered to finish the series."

Clan had some of the worse and most repetitive sex scenes...ever. That's a terrible place to start, lol.

I'll have to look around for some SFF ones that get into that kind of detail. The majority of them (right now) are of a different color. It's this whole baby/breeding thing they have going on that (to me) is often quite gross.

Allison wrote: "Okay, that reminds me of a HUGE issue I have: child brides. Everyone's always going on about how since everyone died young in the olden times, 15 is really like middle aged and...oy. That's just no..."


My grandmother's mom died in childbirth at age 13. She was married at the time. IIRC, my grandma had an older sister. My grandma didn't marry and have children til she was an adult, however. She's 94 now.

MrsJoseph wrote: "Allison wrote: "Okay, that reminds me of a HUGE issue I have: child brides. Everyone's always going on about how since everyone died young in the olden times, 15 is really like middle aged and...oy..."

Man alive! Congrats to your 94 year old grandmother, that's a tremendous accomplishment!

Yeah, for sure things DID happen but it wasn't/isn't ubiquitous, and definitely wasn't the "same" as having a 26 year old woman get pregnant today. And as you say, there's lots of evidence that young pregnancies are pretty dangerous.

and it is legal in the US in two states to marry at 14 (Alaska and North Carolina) with parental consent. The US is backwards as far as age restrictions compared to Europe. See this page for US state laws where Texas children can get married as young as 13

https://family.findlaw.com/marriage/s...

Again, it's not that it's "impossible" it's just not "normal." Normalizing exceptions makes it difficult to explain how harmful things can be even if they're not punishable at law, and I hate that we do that with fantasy worlds. Especially fantasy worlds that don't reference plague, in this example.

Allison wrote: "Man alive! Congrats to your 94 year old grandmother, that's a tremendous accomplishment!

Yeah, for sure things DID happen but it wasn't/isn't ubiquitous, and definitely wasn't the "same" as having a 26 year old woman get pregnant today. And as you say, there's lots of evidence that young pregnancies are pretty dangerous.

She's had a long life: one of the first PoC RNs in NYC, 5 kids, married for 67 years. Still here kicking ass.

Oh, I agree. It was dangerous - I think it was the reason my grandma began an RN.

MrsJoseph wrote: "Allison wrote: "Man alive! Congrats to your 94 year old grandmother, that's a tremendous accomplishment!

Yeah, for sure things DID happen but it wasn't/isn't ubiquitous, and definitely wasn't the ..."

She sounds badass :)

Michel wrote: “What is the first thing that passes in the mind of the princess just after she watched her world explode? She jumps on the guy and screws him, of course! That was beyond cheesy!“

To quote Dale Arden: “Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”

Allison wrote: "Okay, that reminds me of a HUGE issue I have: child brides. Everyone's always going on about how since everyone died young in the olden times, 15 is really like middle aged and...oy. That's just no..."

I think there's context involved as well. Without getting off my arse to do any new research, I always was under the impression that there was the real world and then there was royalty.

The latter moderately often married young to cement alliances, etc, even though the marriage might not be consumated for years (if ever, in numerous cases where one or the other died).

The former - well, your average joe wasn't wandering around the local childcare centre with an engagement ring because that 11 year old wasn't going to be as much a help around the house.

Oleksandr wrote: "I’d add treating other cultures as stereotypes and shortcutting the research, say by Google-translating something said in a language unknown to the author. It happens too often at least with Slavic..."

Yes, so true. Google translate is okay for a general gist sometimes for personal quick understanding, but is very limited. I am not even bilingual anymore, but I have found egregious errors. Also, not everything can be translated literally from one language to another, and I don't just mean idiomatic expressions, either.

I hate that global but everything happens in North America stuff as well! Plus the stereotyping. One example is, how many times do I have to tell people that Iceland was founded as a place for intellectual freedom and that being a Viking was something done by some men when they were young for only a fairly short time? Or that women had almost equal rights to men outside of politics from the beginning and were prized for intelligence as much or more as for looks, etc?

Another is how American the North American global things tend to be with very little understanding of Canada, etc. Or an American author (or from another country) visits one part of Canada and thinks that's how Canada is everywhere. I had never even heard of a beer store until I saw some movie that was supposed to be a comedy all about Canada--it was all about Ontario.

I have a novel that is in abeyance (someday I'll finish one) where it's not the US that ends up taking over North America (but it's not a global story per se).

Allison wrote: "Okay, that reminds me of a HUGE issue I have: child brides. Everyone's always going on about how since everyone died young in the olden times, 15 is really like middle aged and...oy. That's just no..."

Boy-howdy, THAT list of misconceptions could fuel a discussion for years.

“People only lived to 35!” No, the *average* was 35, but once you remove childhood deaths and women dying in childbirth, the life expectancy of a human hasn’t changed for tens of thousands of years.

“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” — Psalm 90:10, The Bible


“We only use 10% of our brain!” No, we use 100% of our brain, but if you believe that line, you’re only using 8%, tops.


“Your hair and fingernails keep growing after you’re dead!” If those keep growing after they put you in the box, then you weren’t dead. (Being prematurely boxed *was* a regular occurrence, however. Often enough that there are lists of people who “rose again.”)


“Our body’s cells completely replace themselves every seven years!” Do you have a mole/scar/tattoo/etc. that’s older than 7 years? Then this obviously isn’t true, duh.

And so on.

Yes yes! All of that, Trike!

And agreed Oleksandr and Karin! Americans (and I don't exclude myself) get a little self centered. You have to remember, we're very young. We're a teenage nation presently rebelling a bit. Please be patient, we'll remember how nice the world was to us soon.

Donald, I definitely think that could be part of it. For example even the life span has disclaimers for average scholar life span vs. laborer. Royalty being separate makes intuitive sense. When I get to a computer I'll check!

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Trike wrote: "Shaving one’s legs isn’t a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination. "

True, but the book I was reading was set in America in the early 1900s and it wasn't that common for women ..."

It’s hard to say, but looking at newspaper ads from the 1890s through WWI certainly reveals an awful lot of hair removal products featuring arms and legs. Perhaps it was primarily creams and potions (and poisons!) rather than shaving.

Trike wrote: "colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Trike wrote: "Shaving one’s legs isn’t a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination. "

True, but the book I was reading was set in America in the early 1..."

Yes, the times were changing. The biggest shift in the US and Canada was in the interwar period when short skirts started, but it didn't happen all at once--these things never do. Women were allowed to vote, sexual attitudes were changing from the Victorian era where "decent" women weren't supposed to like sex, etc. Plus, hairy legs started becoming associated with men and was not considered feminine as time went on, particularly with silk and nylon stockings.

However, it didn't take off in all of Europe as early as it did here; I went to school with European women in the 1980s who didn't bother shaving, and it wasn't from the hippie movement, it just wasn't as popular in many of those countries. I think things have changed since then, but it depends on who I talk with and I haven't been over there since I was a kid (in the UK one summer in 1989, but that's not the continent).

A lot of people are giving up the whole shaving thing anyway. A fair few celebs are leading the charge. If you looked at my legs lately you’d think I was one of them. Nooo....just really lazy. And it is winter here at the moment lol

There was at least one book I think that got the shaving thing correct- Dragonfly in Amber- book two of the Outlander series. Claire comes homes from a “spa” day with some duchess or other with shaved legs and Jamie was pretty disturbed by it... basically he was like: “why would you want to go back to looking like a 12 year old? You are a grown woman?”

It was a pretty refreshing look at modern beauty standards versus historical ones. Which brings up a larger anachronism than just shaving: modern beauty ideals are vastly different today then they were even a hundred years ago.

Yeah, at the court of King Louis XIV, in Versailles in the mid 17th Century, they liked their women plump and as white as corpses! They insisted on wearing clean clothes but nearly never bathed and wore powdered wigs full of vermin!

Early marriages weren't ubiquitous but not very rare either. Recently I read some documents from 1929-1930 Soviet Ukraine and there is a bunch of bios, mainly male (it is from police documents regarding anti-Soviet rebellion at that time) and most men 16-20 are married and with dependents (most likely their children).