Originally Posted by
Jennifer P
My honest opinion on the matter?
We need science fiction that is understandable by the average person AND science fiction that is cerebral and deep...we need both. However, if you're writing for network television, then you need to make something that can be related to by regular people or it just won't get good enough ratings. That's the way the world is...although it might change as broadcast television becomes more and more obsolete.
Know your audience - is your audience people who read Analog or is it your next-door-neighbor?
But without science fiction regular people can understand, then we lose one of its important roles - to get ordinary people to appreciate science and technology and think about the future.
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. But.... if you want quotes from ancient civilisations then Mil-SF is one place to look (not sure if this counts as 'civilised' 
). They are often full of quotes from Tacticus (or do I mean Tacitus? One Roman, one Greek) or Sun Tzu or Alexander the Great, not to mention Kipling and Shakespeare. I come across historical quotes in other kinds of SF but much less often. Personally I find it irritating and pretentious it this is done too often. It feels to me as if the author is either lazy or trying to beat the reader round the head with their own classical knowledge. Much like the ST:TNG episodes that used Patrick Stewart's Shakespearian credentials to fill a few minutes of screen time. Not sure exactly what you mean by 'inbuilt logic conundrums' but it strikes me that this is down to the ability of the author, not something that should be deliberately included. I've read plenty of books over my life where the author was good enough that events or descriptions or tiny asides in one part of the book mean you understand actions, motivations, cultures or events in another part of the book. Without great long paragraphs explaining exactly what's happening. I agree about the obscure facts. Can't have too many obscure facts. I've seen a fair few over the years but it always adds to the enjoyment. My favourite was in a Robert Rankin book. For the life of me I can't confirm it anywhere on the internet, but it related to some special 'pills' doled out to pilgrims visiting the Dalai Lama. Maybe it's not an obscure fact at all 
. As for explanations of science and technology, loads of it. Usually at the hard SF end of the spectrum. Greg Egan's The Clockwork Rocket is practically a science lesson in a universe with timelike dimensions instead of spacelike. I first heard about the Lorentz-Fitzgerald Contraction theory in an SF book.
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