Horus Heresy Sci-Fi

[GhostLegion]

well...not that I think any of us want to get too technical around here ( gods I hope not anyway...too much of that from work to have as hobby too ), but to Chaeron's item above, I think all black library works technically fall into the pulp fiction category...while also fitting into dark fantasy or space opera sub genres of fantasy and science fiction without too much effort.  still...but this technicality is beside the point for this discussion and I digress....
 

and no Cews, youre not finding out about poor joe....hes not relevant to this story and the camera cut away from the scene

 

still I have to wonder sometimes about things authors and readers do to works they become familiar with.  as a fan of the turkey city lexicon, I can see many tropes and issues reused and/or avoided depending on the story.  I would argue that this is not necessarily a bad thing.  the main issue I have is with inference and authorship.  authors know where they are going and what they are driving towards through the course of their drafts...at least most do...maybe some...ok I don't know but id hope at least some do...nevermind.  what im trying to say here is that where the author may have a guiding intent, the reader doesn't always know it.  some readers are quite good at inference and determining where the story is headed...and this helps the author to no end, but also helps the reader enjoy a twist or reversal which may appear...other readers need to have everything handed to them.  for instance, lets revisit poor ol' joe and his rampaging carnifex...  we, as readers of the 40k universe, know what a carnifex is and does.  we also know that a single guardsman is just about screwed if a carnifex is charging him.  we don't need this bit explained...and we can only hope that either somewhere earlier a carnifex was described for readers who don't know...or that such will occur in a flashback of some kind later...say some commissar training holo about the dangers of xenos and unprepared guardsmen (stop laughing....now....oh comeon...fine...done?  ok ).  so in the course of telling a story, a blind transition may be just as explanatory as a George martin scene change....sometimes more isn't better is what im saying here...

 

so again I would ask which is preferable...and for the sake of argument let me put it bluntly:  would you the reader rather have EVERYTHING explained...or would you rather have a good story?

 

remember folks (for those old enough to be aware):

drink once when those fantastic wonders of technology explode in a single blast....

-or-

drink once when those fantastic wonders of technology are explained...

 

this is a key differentiation to make and understand what youd be getting yourself into....