Science Fiction is nothing more than "Fiction in Shiny Metal and Vinyl drag" yet for all of the metal and plastic it does have an objective-- to look at life, politics, philosophy and / or human experience from a different view point. Sometimes that viewpoint has a message sometimes it is "just for the fun of it"...

Some times SF is a game of "what if..."ife or history was somehow different...

Read the hard cover version of "In the Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn (I picked up my copy on e-Bay). In the hardcover of that book there is a after word which is a updated and revised version of two "speculative science" articles the author wrote for Analog magazine entitled "An Introduction to Cliology". See: http://books.google.com/books?id=2MrNykSR2WkC&pg=PA477&lpg=PA477&dq=An+Introduction+to+Cliology&source=bl&ots=Ma53rbZ7n2&sig=MxK_tir9rBAbvm-SnHF99MzO8cc&hl=en&ei=Vx0TTsqTIqX20gGWg4j-DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=An%20Introduction%20to%20Cliology&f=false

Cliology is the "science" of predicting the future by extrapolating from the past (Putting Isaac Asimov's "Psycho-History" on nearly solid scientific ground... if you're not familiar with Psycho-History read  "The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov).

SF writing is not that hard... you can get word generators or star system creators...  those are just facilitators of your objective-- the story. Firstly you have to have a story and characters that people want to read about.

Sometimes science fiction doesn't  have to have funny sounding words or shiny metal... sometimes they take ideas one step further. for example ""Falling Through Reality"is a story about what it might be like to fall into a parallel world.

[See  http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo/msg/a6b7fce05c6e5241?hl=en&&q=falling+through+reality  which was published in The ACC anthology 2 [commercial break: http://www.accanthology.com/buy.html ]]

Yes there is a logic and sets of rules and that is why you do your foot work / research reading.

Sometimes SF is nothing more than romance novels dressed in Shiny or rough leather clothes (The whole Liaden universe by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller and the Dragon Riders of Pern universe by Anne McCaffery are both "romance" SF)... but plot and characters hold those universe together quite well (Some of the best entertaining fiction I have read!)

Sometimes SF is a political treatise: 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, almost all of the "major novels" by Robert Heinlein,  all of the "Co-Dominium" noves by Jerry Pournelle have political agendas.

Sometimes SF is a parallel mythology / history which gives the story a whole different skew on life, history, and reality (see Jaquiline Carey's massive SF/Fantasy/Historical Romance/kink-fest Kushiel series).

So you have some home work-- some background reading is a good place to start:

"The Writers Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe"

George Ochoa and Jeffery Osier

Writer's Digest Books 1993

http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Creating-Science-Fiction-Universe/dp/0898795362Gives a general overview of SF and how to write it.

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On creating Aliens that won't get you laughed at:

"Aliens and Alien Societies (Science Fiction Writing Series)"

Stanley Schmidt

Writer's Digest Books 1995

Out of Print

The author was editor of Analog Magazine

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On creating a scientifically possible world:

"World-Building (Science Fiction Writing Series) "
Stephen L. Gillett
Writer's Digest Books

Out of Print

written by a USGS scientist who also happenst to be an SF writer. The bookgives you everything you need to create a scientifically sound world... There are several computer applications and / or pencil and paper role-playing game books that will generate valid results...

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A REAL science book that gives the facts on what kind of planet humankind can live:

"Habitable Planets for Man"

Stephen H. Dole

The Rand Corpoation

http://www.rand.org/pubs/commercial_books/2007/RAND_CB179-1.pdf 

If you have any other more specific questions PM me...

 

joel

 

edited to add "clickable links"