Orson Scott Card, who has been known to get behind the typewriter and belt out works of SF that people (in large numbers too) were prepared to spend real money buying, once wrote a book on writing SF and Fantasy. (He called it, How to write Science Fiction and Fantasy, which is direct, but always looks to me as if it should be a subtitle. For a really good title, Lawrence Block's, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, can hardly be beaten.) One of Card's ideas about the SF reading community was that they are very good at the title of this piece.
Any work of SF worth the paper it is written on should take you to worlds that you have never encountered, 'cos they don't exist. These will, of necessity, be full of stuff that people have never met before. When you hit one of these things, the writer has two choices. One is to stop everything and explain the thing in full. The other is not to bother just yet, but to wait till there is a lull in the zapping and explain it then.
Choice two is the best thinks Orson, 'cos SF readers would always rather the writer played the advantage and let the story go on raher than blowing the whistle and bringing the fun to a halt. I'm with him on this and I'm sure most other people are too. At least, if they are SF fans. Probably if they like mysteries too. Dunno about you, but I'm pretty sure Agatha Christie wouldn't have got on that well if she'd rushed to reassure the reader that it was the butler what did it in the first chapter.
There is a place for exposition, and SF readers tend to like being told how the flux capacitor's inability to handle chewing gum can lead to the threat of the universe exploding. Often that's all they need to be told, as it sets up the need to prevent the Garrilian terrorists from throwing gum into the capacitor. (You can have that one as the start of a story if you are desperate. Otherwise, I really wouldn't bother).
Anyway, all this leads up to the secnd part of the prologue. The first part pays off so far into the story that it isn't worth spending much time on. It's my insurance. I've told you about Gaia and that she comes in later. When she does, you'll be ready to believe I had a plan for all this. That's enough.
With McLeod and the scene on the couches, I've tried to set up something that will help the reader get into what is happening next. You know that two people, one female and young, have been joined to a computer, or something similar. You've heard the idea that books and stories are connected with this and you should have picked up on the idea that time is going to be compressed. There is also a strong hint that someone is being lied to here - that bit about the tech waiting for them to leave and then resetting the compression factor and starting the simulation. There is another hint, painted in as strongly as I can get it, that there is something going on here that isn't to anyone's plan.
Bu now I'm hoping that the story is starting to sound a little multi-layered and complex. There is what McLeod has been told is happening, which we might have an inkling for, but will have to hold in abeyance a bit. Then there is what the people who are running this simulation are really doing, which we can only guess is not what McLeod thinks it is. Then there is whatever is going on with the girl's character number being changed, which is clearly not to the plans of anyone and is very, very important.
Small wonder I say that nothing here is what it seems to be. The next post should just be the first part of Day One. More about that after I've posted it.
I
enjoyed this very much. I am not a regular reader of science fiction,
in fact it is more than twenty years since I read any, but I found this
absolutely intriguing.
