Important Question

[backupdump002]

Throwing this up here real quick while I'm thinking about it.

Internet, what is the main thing that you look for in a story? Three-dimensional characters? Intriguing plot? Breathtaking world/atmosphere? What is the one thing where, even if everything else about the story sucks, you'd keep following it anyway because your interest in that overshadows everything else? Just, you know, if you had to pick.

GO.

Comments

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Yesssssss I love that sort of thing. I mean, even if they aren't actual characters, I love it when people come up with these detailed alien species with their own biology and behavioral patterns and so forth. 83 Seriously, I could listen to that sort of thing all day.

[pyrasaur.livejournal.com]

If you like that kind of thing, you might like A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. It has hive-minded dog sentients. And sentient plants that ride on robot scooters. And genocidal maniac butterfly people. I lost interest in the book because of the humans' plot, personally, but Vinge puts in lots of cool little throwaway details about the non-humans and their worlds (ie. on the dogs' homeworld, rodents pollinate the flowers instead of insects).