it when a writer can't keep physics straight. the Sci part of Sci-Fi is Science. I think it is important for writers to either know science enough so they don't look foolish, or write sci-fi in such a way as to not give errata. Fantasy on the other hand can walk all over everything because there seem to be no rules in that genre.
Case in point. In one of my books, the hero has a "Grav-rifle." It shoots out one gram pellets of depleted uranium at substantial fractions of the speed of light. Didn't he contemplate recoil? One of his space fighters has an after burner that uses a stream of anti-matter to aid thrust. A "problem" he claimed was that when a fighter swapped ends, the antimatter had a propensity to travel the wrong way in the injection nozzle due to inertia. Please use a physicist as a proof reader.
Anyhow, I too want to be a sci-fi writer. I'm thinking that "anti-matter" needs a new level though. When writers talk anti-matter they seem stuck in the dawn of time. Earth, wind, and fire. Just as matter has different forms, wouldn't anti-matter have them too? anti-water, anti-lead, etc. I'm even thinking that anti-matter may have some properties that mimic liquid gases. When they come into contact with your skin, they don't freeze you (not right away). They form a boundary layer and insulate. You can take a beaker of liquid oxygen and pour it over your hand without freezing it. Cup your hand though, and you will have problems eventually.
Sci-fi should be written so it teaches science, not promotes falsehoods.
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The thing that gets me is that frequently science fiction is LESS interesting when it uses the bad science. To use bad science and make the story worse makes no sense.
It is fiction, so you sometimes have to allow at least one thing to slide. In space based sci fi,that is usually faster than light travel. I can live with that as long as they don't keep changing the rules every time they get into a jam and use it as a cop out escape mechanism.
They call it suspending your disbelief. Your problem, hale, is that you know too much. The general public is too unversed to notice.
The sad truth is our society doesn't know enough. Take this non sci-fi example. Blomgren has am current article about an Alaskan oops in a monetary fund. They have lost 1.5 billion so far.
During this article, they state, "the fund lost 49%, but has regained 19%." If you don't think, you assume they are at a 30% loss over all. No can do.
Let's take a sum of 1,000,000. A loss of 49% leaves 510,000. Now a gain of 19% of 510,000, is around 93,400, which comes to a total of 603,400. A loss of almost 40% from the original amount yet.
We really are becoming a nation of dummies, and as dummies, we will have the collective wool pulled over our eyes. It isn't a suspension of disbelief if the reader has no idea of what is reality.
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