Alternate Realities: A Scifi Book Club discussion

This is a question that I've been asking myself lately as I've just published my first scifi book (Battleframe) and I'm working through the second in the Mindwars series.
Is it the plot, the setting, characters, technology, action or a combination of all of them? My first book is really plot driven while the second is more about the characters themselves. I would be really interested to hear what makes a good book for you.

Cheers!

Vlad wrote: "There is one quality every good science fiction books I read possessed; proper grammar and syntax. Which, judging by your constant posts and the work's description, your book fails at.

Pro tip-..."
Thanks for the heads up. I was not meaning to spam at all and apologise if you thought that I was. It was a genuine question.

Harry Harrison is an awesome author....loved Eden series. I think that the way he took the whole biological and genetic manipulation of creatures to build technology was awesome!

What I like are novels that don't get bogged down in long descriptions. For instance, Tad Williams is a great author but I find there is so much writing that I end up getting bored....even though the story is incredible.

Loved the Anne McCaffrey dragon novels but then Morita's Ride just fell off the edge of a cliff for me. The plot seemed to get sacrificed for a lot of character interactions and in the end I put the book down.

As a person who just reads and doesn't write, i have no idea about the grammar or anything like that, but as a reader, it really comes down to what i want to read, and in turn what you want to write. I guess if your writing to just make money or just sell book, then i would have to tell you i hear romance and erotica are where the money is at. But i can tell that is not what you write. I personally like a lot of aliens and spaceships fighting, action kind of things, now i know there are interplanetary diplomacy books with no action and those are not for me, there are people that like those kind and they are a lot of people, and then there are a lot of people like me that want action and excitement, so it all comes back to what stories do you like to tell.
Now i have to bring up the education thing again, i don't have one like a lot of people now days but i still read books, and even those who do have an education may not remember sentence structure as well as others, so all of that dotting the Ts and crossing the Is does not make a good story. But that's just me.

Costa wrote: "As a person who just reads and doesn't write, i have no idea about the grammar or anything like that, but as a reader, it really comes down to what i want to read, and in turn what you want to writ..."
I'm a writer and as much as I love grammar I completely agree with Costa. What's the point in having perfect grammar and a really by story?
In a similar manner....forget movie special effects, give me a good story! I remember fondly the first Doctor Who's that had pathetic effects but held me spellbound as a child. The key to a good book is the story combined with believable fun characters. I actually get sick of the tortured soul characters that seem to be all the rage at the moment....give me some decent black and white....with none of the grey.

I also agree with Costa. The main component of a good story is a good plot. I had to read "Walden" in high school and all these English professors were saying this was better than the second coming. I hated it. All it talked about was Thoreau walking around enjoying nature's beauty. Bore-ring!
Another thing: I would like a good story in one novel. It seems like everyone and their brother (even if they don't have one) is writing trilogies. Do they all think that is what made Tolkien's stories so good? Really? Most readers are savvy enough to realize if an author writes 3 - 250 page novels instead of 1 - 750 page novel, they are doing it solely for the money. If that's the case, read Costa's comment (try romance and erotica.) I am just so sick of seeing all of these trilogies. I refuse to buy them. The exception being if all the novels are significant in length (400 + pages each.) Otherwise, scratch my name off your mailing list.

Thank you guys for the words. to respond to Niles, i think everyone is writing trilogies for the same reason crappy music is feeling the air waves. it is what sells, what i said about romance and erotica still holds, but if you really want to sell your idea, and let's be real the reason anyone does what they love is to be successful at it. Unfortunately because of crap like Twilight nobody wants to read a single story, unless you're Stephen King. New authors are being forced to compete with things like Divergent and Hunger Games so to the new author i say do what you must, and as for long stories, i don't like them, that's just me. I love Tolkien, but oh my god, three paragraphs on what color the surroundings are, that shit has no meaning to the over all story and i don't need to be told in detail what something looks like when we have all seen a million leaves. Again just me, but to any author, whether you like to write long ass descriptions or just make it shorter and get straight to the action someone out there will like your story maybe even a million somebodies, it is a big world out there. I will read anything and maybe because i grew up on comics but i kinda like sequels,

Realism. Good science fiction requires an appreciation, and preferably a little inside knowledge, of real science. But of course, it helps if it also has some valid social commentary or a little historical allegory as well.

I'm with Niles. I think the most important quality for a science fiction book is killer plot. The idea itself should be noteworthy even in summary. I'll always believe Isaac Asimov is the greatest SF author, and his plots were often profoundly interesting. I agree with Matthew that there should be at least some legit science in the piece, though I don't need my SF sounding like some long-winded technical paper.

Back to Isaac---another thing I love in good science fiction writing is fast, exciting pacing where each chapter swings you right into the next one per some enticing final sentence. I think this is true of any fiction, but I think even more so in SF. Asimov was a master at this, as evidenced in the Foundation Trilogy.

As for grammar--I think it goes without saying that it had better be fairly immaculate. As for prose style: I've read and loved SF books featuring spare prose styles (Asimov, Clarke) and flowery prose styles (Poul Anderson). I dig it all, so long as the other elements are there!