Science fiction takes me away to places I’ll only ever see in photographs. This graphic is a NASA image of Alnitak and the Flame Nebula, one of the three stars of the belt of Orion. The other two are Mintaka and Alnilam, and those three names alone show what an important place Arab astronomers have in our knowledge of the stars. I suspect the names should be written Al Nitak and Al Nilam – but that’s another story.
But a photograph is just a pretty picture. And here’s a quote from Jack McDevitt's wonderful book, SLOW LIGHTNING, to illustrate that sometimes a picture isn’t worth more than a thousand words. A skilled writer can take you there, ignite a fire in your soul, show you the very edge of infinity.
“She meant the vast interstellar clouds, cradles for new stars, turbulent and explosive, illuminated from within but also by Alnitak. The nearby nebula NGC2024, stretching for light years across that restless sky, was a kaleidoscope of bright and dark lanes, of exquisite geometry, of glowing surfaces and interior fires. Enormous lightning bolts moved through it, but it was so far that they seemed frozen in space.” Jack McDevitt SLOW LIGHTNING
I wrote a sort of review of Slow Lightning. Should you be interested. By the way, for reasons known only yo the publisher, the book's title is INFINITY BEACH in the US.
Oh, I totally agree. I wish more SF/R authors would invoke the emotions surrounding the wonders of space. When I read a book that doesn't include those mental visuals, it's like going to Hawaii and never leaving the hotel room.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy in film. Just show the audience what the character sees. (Those scenes of the Milky Way in Passengers...OMG!) In books, it takes genuine effort to craft in words something an author may have only seen in NASA photos or in their own imagination, and then transfer that vision to a reader.
I'll go check out your review.
Yes, that's where movies trump books, I guess.
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