Thank you, J.Z. York! I just finished York’s debut novel, Pulse. I’ll do a full review later. Bottom line: good book, worth reading. But that’s not the topic of this post. I’m thanking York for addressing the elephant in the book.
An Elephant in a Book is a situation (tech, weapon, disease, technological advance, social relationship, etc.) that stands out but is never explained or addressed and, on the surface, doesn’t make sense. They take you out of the story, sometimes permanently. A few examples:
Pink snow. A while back I read a “science fiction” book chock full of human beings living on a very Earthlike planet except when the snow fell, it was pink. Why? Dunno. It bugged me enough that I tracked down the author. There was no explanation that made sense. Is it crystalized water vapor? Yes. Is the light/sun different? No. Then why is the snow pink? Give me something, even if it’s hand-waving “science” (They have a redder sun) or magic (the snow is pink because of an ancient curse to remind all in the land of the blood spilled in the PanCultural Wars of the 17th Age). Fine, at least it’s addressed.
The author’s answer? “Oh, I just like pink.”
You’re killin’ me Smalls.
Sometimes sci-fi has ships that are thousands of years old and fly established space routes for interstellar trade or to keep the peace. How is a ship that old not immediately obsolete when it gets home? My phone won’t even work in fifteen years, much less 2,000.
In York’s case, we have parallel worlds – same planet, different slice of the multiverse. York takes the time to explain that in the Pulse world, the inhabitants have agreed to stop the growth of war-fighting technology. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Groups on our very own Earth have done the same thing, abandoning firearms development, or exploring beyond their own shores. It rarely ends well. As a group of nations, the signatories of the Geneva Convention agreed to abandon some weapons. York posits the same for the Pulse world and explains why.
Good job. Elephant addressed. Full book review to follow.
BTW, Copperfield’s Book Fair was a great success, even with the marginal weather. I’ll definitely go back.
Best moment of the day: A young lad of about 12 is walking past with his parents. He stops and looks at the books. Then, full of enthusiasm, screams “There’s a sequel to SPARK?”
I confirm it. He gives his parents the skunk eye, clearly wondering why they’ve hidden this from him. He looks back at me.
“I’ve read it eleven times.”
Victor is my new hero. He bought both Fire and OrcLand, and I gave him a T-shirt. Well earned!
Thank you Pat! Victor is priceless and should be invited to give input into the next book in the series. He’d have a blast, you’d have a blast, and a super-powered, viral word-of-mouth campaign would begin. 🙂
I’m glad your sense of logic was satisfied on a sensitive point. It becomes an even bigger issue in the next book, when the two ideologues collide.
Aha! There’s going to be another book. I was hoping for that!