Good interior logic is a quality I consider the mark of a good storyteller in general. And I don't feel that US female authors are worse or better on average in this regard than male authors. The quality I mean by 'analytical' I guess is a bit different than that.
Also, thinking about it, there are several male authors who don't meet this criteria I thought of either. But I do feel that a lower percentage of female than male authors meet it.
I think the criteria is best exemplified by a set of Vernor Vinge stories in the 'Peace War' universe. In that universe there exists a piece of technology that can stop time for an arbitrary spherical volume for some arbitrary period of time (but fixed at the time of the bubble's creation) in the timestream the spherical volume is in.
He very carefully works through all the physics implications of this technology. For example, it creates a region of space that is totally opaque to neutrinos. It is a perfect mirror. When you touch the surface it's warm because it's reflecting the heat radiation of your hand back at you. There are no violations of known physics.
He also works through a number of really interesting uses. He thinks about how it might be used in war. It has obvious offensive applications. But it's also a good defensive weapon. The characters very cleverly exploit their enemy's lack of knowledge of what the technology actually is (it's originally thought to just be a permanent impermeable barrier), even though the enemy can use the technology themselves.
It's not just a maguffin, it becomes a real feature of the world in which the story takes place.
I'm going to contrast this with some stories by his ex-wife, Joan D. Vinge. In particular the Snow Queen series. These are awesome stories, and are among my absolute favorite stories in the SF genre. But she doesn't take this approach to her technology.
She makes use of advanced nanotech, but the nanotech is mostly magic. This is partly OK because the series is set after a grand fall of civilization in which a culture based on this advanced nanotech has destroyed itself by accident. But the characters largely use the nanotech as an environmental feature. The nanotech also frequently breaks various known physical theories with no particular explanation of how or the wider implications of these physical theories being discovered to be incomplete. It just does what the author says it does and it moves the plot forward.
And I guess you could look at this as a hard-SF vs. soft-SF distinction. That's how the distinction I'm making is usually seen. I usually see it as looking at just how far down you're willing to carry the implications of the change you're making to the universe the characters exist in.
I hope this clarifies
Good interior logic is a quality I consider the mark of a good storyteller in general. And I don't feel that US female authors are worse or better on average in this regard than male authors. The quality I mean by 'analytical' I guess is a bit different than that.
Also, thinking about it, there are several male authors who don't meet this criteria I thought of either. But I do feel that a lower percentage of female than male authors meet it.
I think the criteria is best exemplified by a set of Vernor Vinge stories in the 'Peace War' universe. In that universe there exists a piece of technology that can stop time for an arbitrary spherical volume for some arbitrary period of time (but fixed at the time of the bubble's creation) in the timestream the spherical volume is in.
He very carefully works through all the physics implications of this technology. For example, it creates a region of space that is totally opaque to neutrinos. It is a perfect mirror. When you touch the surface it's warm because it's reflecting the heat radiation of your hand back at you. There are no violations of known physics.
He also works through a number of really interesting uses. He thinks about how it might be used in war. It has obvious offensive applications. But it's also a good defensive weapon. The characters very cleverly exploit their enemy's lack of knowledge of what the technology actually is (it's originally thought to just be a permanent impermeable barrier), even though the enemy can use the technology themselves.
It's not just a maguffin, it becomes a real feature of the world in which the story takes place.
I'm going to contrast this with some stories by his ex-wife, Joan D. Vinge. In particular the Snow Queen series. These are awesome stories, and are among my absolute favorite stories in the SF genre. But she doesn't take this approach to her technology.
She makes use of advanced nanotech, but the nanotech is mostly magic. This is partly OK because the series is set after a grand fall of civilization in which a culture based on this advanced nanotech has destroyed itself by accident. But the characters largely use the nanotech as an environmental feature. The nanotech also frequently breaks various known physical theories with no particular explanation of how or the wider implications of these physical theories being discovered to be incomplete. It just does what the author says it does and it moves the plot forward.
And I guess you could look at this as a hard-SF vs. soft-SF distinction. That's how the distinction I'm making is usually seen. I usually see it as looking at just how far down you're willing to carry the implications of the change you're making to the universe the characters exist in.