handwavium

• “I'm the first to admit to the liberal use of handwavium in my stories, but to me magic is the worst kind of handwavium - oh, it's magic, as if that explains everything.”

  Recommend a fantasy novel to someone who doesn't like fantasy.

• “I totally agree that language and language change is handled through handwavium (the invisible massless isotope, at that) more than it ought to be, in SF/F writing.”

  Howard Hughes and the Wretched Crack of Noon

• “I was talking to a friend about the TV show Eureka (which I really like, by the way, especially in the first part of S3), and I was saying that they mostly stayed on the side of "good handwavium" for me rather than "bad fake science.”

  Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

• “Anybody else have some ideas about writing good handwavium vs. bad fake science?”

  Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

• “Maskull travels via handwavium to a distant planet.”

  Philosophy Swirling Around an Exotic Sun

• “I recently reread Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed, which is more-or-less science fiction, but includes some weird stuff about cross-breeding between species from different planets lots of handwavium as well as ruins of a fallen civilization.”

  Fantastic Settings

• “The claim that rural areas won't be destructively taxed is handwavium at its best.”

  "George Bush called this the ownership society, but what he really meant was 'you're-on-your-own' society."

• “The fictional material handwavium similar to unobtainium is sometimes referred to in situations where the solution requires access to a substance that is probably possible to create, but only by means which would require a great deal of research, development, time, effort, and/or money, none of which the speaker intends to explain at the moment.”

  Wordly Wise

• “John Scalzi pointed out this clip, which provides the most beautiful example of speaking handwavium with confidence.”

  Testing

• “Then I want you to find the most convoluted handwavium in your own fiction and see how real you can make it sound.”

  Testing

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