SF Review Sites

[psikeyhackr]

To me it was always science FICTION, not SCIENCE fiction. Literally, in the stress on the different words in the phrase. It's fiction first and anything else is secondary.

So why not read Westerns and detective stories! They are FICTION!

psik

[Ropie]

So why not read Westerns and detective stories! They are FICTION!psik

I already do!

[Omphalos]

You guys don't know what real SF is.

Buildings don't fall down when airplanes hit them.

Wrong on both counts, apparently. Now can we get back to the point of this thread? I'm interested to know.

Incidentally someone put together an enormous list of book review sites a while ago. I think it was that guy from Grasping for the Wind, but don't rightly recall. He enouraged people to swipe the list and put it on their sites, which I did. Here it is:

http://blog.omphalosbookreviews.com/?p=39

[psikeyhackr]

I already do!

So someone can criticize a Western about the historical accuracy of the weaponry if they know the subject well enough. If an author writes a story supposedly set in 1868 and mentions some gun that wasn't introduced until 1875 then a knowledgeable reader has a legitimate complaint.

To all of the readers that don't know the weapons that well it is irrelevant.

But Newtonian Physics worked a certain way even before Newton and I doubt that there are thousands of schools around the world teaching the history of weapons in the Wild West.

psik

[jelder]

I guess it's a personal thing, but I like to learn something when I read. Where possible, I expect what I read in a novel to be accurate. If it's not, I consider it to be poorly researched. Obviously with science fiction some things are unrealistic (time travel for example is likely a bunch of BS but makes for a great story). On the other hand if a character sets out to make a homemade bomb out of two elements that don't even react then the author is an idiot.

[Omphalos]

So someone can criticize a Western about the historical accuracy of the weaponry if they know the subject well enough. If an author writes a story supposedly set in 1868 and mentions some gun that wasn't introduced until 1875 then a knowledgeable reader has a legitimate complaint.

Taken purely on their own anachronisms like that usually arent a big deal. then can be indicative of a pattern of sloppiness, but on their own, who really cares? Shakespere did the same thing, but he did it to make the story better, not because he was a screw up. In high and low writings both the key issue is the context that the "error" was made in.