McCamy_Taylor wrote: Nice story, until the concept of genetic memory gets thrown in without explanation. While you could make an argument for some kind of generalized species specific knowledge----say the kind that lets birds know where to migrate---having cloned cells remember something that their former host knew is highly unlikely. And in science fiction, if you want to introduce the "highly unlikely" you have to take extra time to make it plausible.
From a writing perspective, I see the problem more as an inaccurate use of a known theory than anything else. Genetic Memory means something. And it ain’t what was portrayed here. It goes way beyond just being implausible. It’s flat-out
wrong. Wrong word used for something else.
It’s like writing that someone pulled-out his cell phone and shot his attacker with it. You know, a cell phone is a firearm that shoots bits of metal at high velocity with the intent of doing damage to the target. One of those things.
And if someone complains that. . .well. . .cell phones don’t do that, but pistols do. . . The only answer many authors give is that this is a work of FICTION. They say that details don’t matter.
The problem is that the reader knows what a cell phone is, and apparently the author doesn’t, and can’t be bothered to research what those thingies actually do. Part of good writing is to use the right words. Cell phone is just flat-out wrong in this situation. However: gun—handgun—pistol—blaster—even stapler, are possible ‘right’ words.
NOT the same thing, btw, as saying your character set the gragnap to kill mode, and then fired a prebnor beam that stopped his attacker. Why? Because gragnap and prebnor can be anything the writer wants, whereas a cell phone has a meaning that doesn’t include shooting people.
(
Okay Rick, we’re not talking about a cell phone with a built-in gun—There’s an App for that!—we’re talking about a regular cell phone as we know it, now. Okay?)Same with genetic memory. Gino read something about a real (if theoretical) thing, but then made it do things that it just can’t do. Ever!
Refer to my first critique. Gino used very specific numbers for speed and accelleration that added nothing to the story but they didn’t make any dang sense. My question is: Why?
McCamy_Taylor wrote:That means inserting some techno-babble. It doesn't really have to make complete sense. It just has to sound good.
McCamy, you had to know I’d challenge this one.
Other than the mind or actions of a psychopath, why doesn’t ANYTHING really have to make complete sense? I say it does, but only if you want to hang-on to as many readers as possible. Characters who don’t act in a believable way—with no explanation—are not believable characters. Isn’t that one of the points of this whole writing thing? Same with plots, descriptions (“The desert air was humid, as usual. Cowboy Bob hated monsoon season in Death Valley.”)
Why not make your stories make as much sense as possible, within their context?
I guess I need your definition of techno-babble. “Warp speed now, Scottie!” isn’t techno-babble, in my book. Nothing technical about it. Works fine.
“I fired my rockets and went from zero to lightspeed in the blink of an eye.” Is just bad science, not techno-babble. What’s yours?
McCamy_Taylor wrote: Stealing a brain of a near term infant would be much easier than trying to clone one, since a laboratory would have difficulty simulating the intrauterine environment with all the complex hormones that determine fetal development.
Which points out some more bad plotting. They didn’t steal brain tissue, they only stole the amniocentesis sample. You don’t have to kill the mother or the infant to do that. There are plenty of neural stem cells in the amniotic fluid. So why didn’t they just keep the sample they already had and work from that. She freakin’ gave them everything they took with them.
gino wrote:Tharp said. "Wow. Can you grow an entire brain from one cell?"
She chuckled. "We're not that good yet. It takes about a tenth of a gram of fetal stem cells, either from aborted remains, or through the amniocentesis procedure."
(and later)
"While our doctors were working on Mrs. Webster, that person removed the amniocentesis needle, placed it in a sterile container and left."
All they had to do was say: “Thank you, Mrs. Webster, we’ll let you know what our tests show.”
You still sure that things don’t have to make sense, just sound good?
Bill Wolfe
"I am Susan Ivanova. . . .I am the Right Hand of Vengence. . .I am Death Incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
January 20, 2011, 04:36:00 PM 
