Originally Posted by
factotum
I consider it a win when SF (particularly on TV, but books do it as well) actually acknowledges distances in space and that it takes a long time to get anywhere at reasonable speeds, TBH! It also depends what sort of SF we're talking about. If we're talking the sort of super-powered tech we see in Iain M. Banks' Culture books (where, just to give a simple example, a ship hides from its enemies by staying in the outer layers of the system's star) then I'm happy to let that ride, because the entire setting has that sort of ridiculous stuff happening. Conversely, something like the Expanse works best when it's at its most realistic (albeit the Epstein drive is still pretty much magic).