Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

Reposted for mrissa:

first lines: The first thing you have to know is that there is only one hockey. Field hockey, floor hockey, ringette for God's sake: no. There is one hockey, and I don't want to be its prophet, but you do what you have to do.

But air hockey, sweet Jesus, I have no idea why they even call that hockey. Not that I didn't play obsessively as a teenager; it was the only thing I agreed to do over at the Presbyterian Church after I was confirmed. That and the spaghetti supper. Nobody disses the spaghetti supper. And there was the time that Janet got me roped into helping with the lights for the Christmas program, when her granny was still alive. And maybe fall cleanup on the grounds. You don't have to commit to any particular kind of prayer to get the leaves out of their gutter in the fall, and if I don't do it Uncle Larry will be up that ladder, like he isn't up and down enough on that knee after the fall he took last winter.

But anyway, I digress as usual, and my point is this: air hockey is a perfectly fine thing, but it isn't hockey. And as such it should not fall into the problems we've been having with this game in this state since the Stars moved clear to hell and gone to Texas. But apparently the Sidhe didn't get the memo, which is how Tyler Arnason lost a girlfriend that wasn't even his to lose in an air hockey game.

I went to high school with Ty. We didn't like each other much then, and I can't say my impression of him has improved since. He spent all of his time in the arcade, and while I hate to sound like Janet, it was maybe time to get a second hobby now that we were, y'know, voting adults. But Ty had heard that there were some strange things going on with the team, so when he lost Jenny Landry to an unprepossessing goblin, he came to me.

I was not particularly polite, either, not before I knew what he wanted and even less so after.

Um.

...look, Christopher, here's how this works: you put a nickel in Carter and he will go for hours. Seriously, he is the juggernaut who lives in my brain. I have complete sympathy for The Used Chewing Gum of Shannara and Gym Shoes of Pern at this point, because if somebody said to me, "Carter Hall and the Periwinkle Tide, go," once I did start going, there would be such a thing. The only reason there isn't is that I didn't let that one start. It's dangerous, is what.

I thought "String Theory." was better.

I think the biggest problem with this one was trying to get across how pragmatism and the other kind of pragmatism were in tension in most of the Oort Cloud when my setting was one station and three small ships. But I dearly wanted to write it because I keep trying to get a handle on the way this Oort Cloud setting goes in my head, and I only got a chip of it in "Things We Sell to Tourists" and am not ready to tackle Eleven Words for Home yet.

<dies>

first: The platoon moved out like a single waveform, each Marine perfectly aligned with respect to the next.

last: Anders looked down at his daughter. "Don't you go all disgruntled on me!" She giggled, and he picked her up to take her home.

difficult: There is a style difference in writing thriller rather than SF, and that was very hard for me. Part of it is punching up the descriptions--thriller readers seem to want much more visual prose. Also I'm used to the science and the scientists being the main thing, not a sideline to the FBI, and for all I watch crime shows, it didn't feel natural, and I'm not sure I could do it again.