Sunday, April 25, 2010

Jobs

What do people do for a living in our science fiction romance and alien romance worlds?

I see farmer-colonists, teachers (magical and religious), healers, a plethora of law enforcers, also law makers, nightclub owners and bar tenders, entertainers (and pleasure-givers) and athletes, explorers, warriors, rulers, traders, doctors, newsmen, pilots and other functionaries necessary for the running of a military or civilian space station or space ark. Also the pirates, bounty hunters, assassins, smugglers, freedom fighters.

Maybe that's a comprehensive list, after all. Are there any glaring omissions that strike you?

If so, what gets glossed over, and why?

Have you read a small stack of books and been left with a niggling feeling that some of today's (and yesterday's) worldbuilding is rather superficial?

On the other hand, the submission guidelines for mid-list books seem to be calling for shorter manuscripts. Few debut authors could write a rich, sprawling Dickensian work.

I watch Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs" with great interest, and wonder how much of civilization's truly nasty jobs could be presumed to be done by robots in the future.

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