Science Fiction Is About The Characters!

I read this article about a week ago at Locus about how writers make up excuses for science fiction being inaccessible.  You know - I agree with Kameron Hurley.  I'm  writing a story with different props and setting and that it is it.  Yes, there are stylistic and differences in approach to writing the story for a genre, but it should be just like generic storytelling for any audience. Any more, and it is now an intellectual puzzle or exercise for specialists.  You should be able easily describe the core theme of the story relating to the characters without the tech to pass this test.

http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2013/12/kameron-hurley-making-excuses-for-sciencefiction/

Kuratas - a real Japanese mecha.

At its core, any science fiction story should be about characters and how futuristic technology affects their lives or society in general.  You have to explain the tech to show the effect on people, but that is all.  It is about the characters be they alien, human, or robot AI.  I actually came to this same conclusion based on other readings, in particular manga, as the most recent example.  Manga - or Japanese comics - is successful in all story genres because of the characters.  There are action, mystery, sci fi, high school, disaster, etc., manga, but they all have strong storytelling based on rich characterizations.  Yes, manga follows formulas, but so do other types of fiction, and it is better than many western comics because of the character focus of the stories.  One of my favourite manga is Bakuman, which is about a pair of aspiring mangaka (manga writer and artist), and what they do to become famous.  While I'm not going to wait to kiss the girl like one of the Bakuman protagonists, I would also like my Exocrisis Blue to be made into an anime.  It is a pipedream, but one that I can hopefully strive to achieve, by having a good story with strong characters.  While my writing involves mecha and advanced military technologies, it is about the student pilots who must pass their training and fight for all humanity in the end.

I write mecha military SF for now, but I'm definitely going to think about how I can push the envelope with advances in AI, robotics, drones, and humans in the command loop. You need human characters to tell the story, but if military tech keeps improving, how do you tell a rich story without humans at the pointy tip of the spear?  There is going to be no need for combat pilots, regular infantry or starship crews as robots / electronics can do our job faster and they don't leave grieving families.  What kind of story revolves around that?  I'm thinking about it and hope that military SF pushes these boundaries even more.  No more crews dying in space in their cruisers, or men having limbs blown off by mines.  Soldiers will still be there, but in what role?

Happy new year for 2014 everyone!