11/27/24

Placing the Crucible in a Science Fiction Story

 Should one start a science fiction story with a battle? I read an action novel that started with a brilliant, intensely detailed battle. The hostage rescue team was blindsided in an alley with a hidden .50 caliber machine gun placed by a criminal seeking revenge it turned out, dropping clues for the FBI to recover leading them to the kill zone. The slaughter was described minutely with the agents crawling in hot gravel looking for non-existent cover.

The trouble with that kind of beginning is that the rest of the book couldn’t reach the intensity of the start. The remainder of the story was afterwords.

Detective stories often start with a crime followed with a story to identify the perp. Where to place the crucible in science fiction  I would guess depends on the preferred structure of the plot.

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