Skip the glossary.
Yes, it's the kind of thing editors love because of the famous communication guidance 'assume a lack of vocabulary but not a lack of intelligence' but that is when you're writing for the broad public. Science-fiction readers are smart. When I was young I read ๐ ๐๐ญ๐ฐ๐ค๐ฌ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฌ ๐๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ and didn't know there was a glossary at the end. By the time I got to it, I already spoke the language.
In the first three pages of ๐ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐๐ด ๐๐ญ๐ด๐ฐ ๐ ๐๐ฐ๐ข๐ฅ by Annalee Newitz, Ph.D., (October 6, Tor Books) you'll be hit with lots of jargon and names but it's not a barrier, it's instead immersive. You're in their world.
Yes I, I wrote 'their' but this is not Sci-Fi DEI. It's essential to the story.
They, their, pronoun use is so necessary that even Republicans won't object - because the protagonist is an amoeba. Even better, an amoeba at a graduate school illegally. They have to consciously maintain an elaborate biological and chemical camouflage so they're not thrown out.
"Don't die!"
"Don't lose your notebook!"
Despite their being a self-identified uncool, socially awkward unicellular eukaryote, you will be charmed by this character.
I don't know what their species looks like so my brain chose the giant multinucleate cell Valonia ventricosa but you can choose anything you like. Figuring that out is part of the fun.
My Gardenpath may look different than your Gardenpath. That is totally okay. And kind of the point.
It also may be the most pro-science fiction you read this year, because the opening sentence is "You don't have to be smart of exceptional to earn a doctorate. You just have to want a doctorate."
Napoleon wrote, "Between a battle lost and a battle won, this distance is immense, and there stand empires." Every good scientist knows a PhD is basically an endurance contest. Most of the students Gardenpath - your slime-mold-ish protagonist - interacts with are just that. They pick relatively easy battles and are content to get a certificate. They are basically those government-funded academics who pick incremental experiments guaranteed to succeed so they will get another R01 grant while insisting the republic will fall if government doesn't continue to give them money.
Gardenpath wants to be revolutionary, not evolutionary, and is out to change the face of discovery itself - which their advisor says it a very bad idea, because a lot of the status quo is even more attached to existing dogma about their space than string theory believers are.
Dr. Newitz founded the online site io9, which also covered science, and seeing all the hyperbole - NASA should have trademarked the phrase "implications for life on other planets" by 2008 because they invoked it about every minor stastical wobble - it may seem jaded but that is how you know someone really loves science. But has been at this for a long time and can also poke fun at its more ridiculous academic pretensions.
The book drops in October, which is good news for Tor, because with this and The Traveler they should have a good fiscal year and get a big, fat bonus from Macmillan.
Science 2.0 rating: 5 out of 5 Bloggys!
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