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In the question thread, Debbie asked about FTL travel and what I feel about it as SF author.

I use it in both of my worlds, but with different constraints.

In my space opera world (Watcher's Web, and Seeing Red--remember that? It still lives), the aliens have a huge energy energy network that creates wormholes where necessary. This is done through antimatter/matter pairs. It's all pretty non-scientific, though, but the world is one where you can travel within the inhabited parts of the galaxy within 24 hours.

In my hard SF world, people eventually develop a form of FTL travel, but only discover this when they develop the capability to accelerate ships to near-lightspeed. At this speed, funny things start to happen (which we don't know yet, but physics gets very weird). As a result, and at 1g acceleration, ships still take 6 months to reach that speed, at which time they can jump small distances. It's not easy.

Many other books, hard SF even, use FTL travel, because the story would be impossible to tell without it. In hard SF, you're generally 'allowed' one get-out-of-jail card. FTL travel is often it.

Thanks, Patty. Very interesting. I have mixed feelings about FTL, but so much SF is impossible without it!

Interesting topic.

I found the latest 'discovery' on neutrinos rather interesting, Patty. As in, they can 'possibly' travel faster than light.

I'm sure a lot of people find that interesting, but I also think that a lot of noob SF writers will be writing stories about it.

Heh, those FTL neutrinos have got a lot of people agitated.

*cues in slush avalanche of stories about neutrinos*

Don't be so precipitate. I haven't started writing it yet!