From: Tavia Chalcraft tavia@btinternet.com
Action/adventure's pretty dull to read, more suitable for the visual. It's a shame there isn't more science fiction in fanwriting, yet there's so little credible science fiction in the series. Less even than Star Trek.
*Anything* can be dull to read, if it's written badly enough. Conversely, almost anything can be interesting to read, if it's written in the right way. Even a story about watching paint dry could be made to work if it was about Avon's thoughts as he watched it drying out. (I'm not saying it would be easy to write, or that it would turn out a deathless classic, just that a perfectly readable story could be made out of the classic epitome of boredom.)
As to the SF, a lot depends on how you define it. I would say any fiction set in a hypothetical future is more or less SF of a kind by default. But that leads on to the thorny problem of 'What *is* SF?' for which there are no easy answers. I wouldn't say that 'science' has to make an appearance in a b7 story, beyond the techno-trappings indigenous to the series (teleport, neutron blasters etc), but an avoidance of bad science can only be a good thing.
If you don't know about it, don't write about it. That's why there's never any sex in my stories:)
Neil