Posthuman Blues

I really can't stand scientists who assume their profession automatically equips them to be science fiction writers. For every single successful scientist/author hybrid (i.e., Gregory Benford, Arthur C. Clarke) there's an inept wannabe (i.e., Gentry Lee, Robert Zubrin) who somehow manages to get novels published.

(Actually, I kind of enjoyed Zubrin's "First Landing," even though it was near-parodically cheesy, dripping with naivete, horrid dialogue and undistilled sentimentality. Lee's "Bright Messengers," on the other hand, was almost unreadably bad -- and utterly forgettable. And it has a sequel!)

Theodore Sturgeon's law of science fiction: 99% of SF is bad because 99% of everything is bad.