Recursivity

It always amazes me how people with little or no experience doing science end up as science writers, and, worse, end up being taken seriously as science writers.

The latest example is Mary Roach, author of a book about space travel, Packing for Mars. She was interviewed on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" yesterday, and this hilarious exchange took place:

Interviewer Tony Cox: "Do you know whether or not a gun would even operate in zero gravity?"

Roach: "Oh! You know, ahh, that's something for the Mythbusters to play around with!"

(Now, there is actually a small scientific issue about whether a gun will fire in space, but it has nothing to do with "zero gravity". A gun's firing comes from a chemical reaction, and that chemical reaction needs oxygen. In an oxygen-free environment, if the gunpowder doesn't contain its own oxidizer, the gun wouldn't fire. But, as I understand it, most modern gun cartridges do contain their own oxidizers, so this would not be an issue.)

If you don't know that "zero gravity" isn't an issue for whether a gun could fire, then you have no business writing a book about space travel.

Elsewhere in the program, Steve from Florence, Kentucky said, "I understand that when people are actually put into a Faraday cage so there's no electromagnetic radiation that actually comes in contact with them, they kind of lose the ability to actually think. As I understand it, when humans go into space, this is a problem. How has NASA dealt with this?" And instead of laughing and explaining why this is nonsense, Roach goes off onto a tangent about "space stupids".

Shouldn't a good science education be a prerequisite for science writers?

Harlan Coben is a pretty good mystery writer. I don't like his Myron Bolitar novels, but that's because I don't like the main character, a sports agent, at all. But some of his other books are top-notch: Tell No One, which was made into a movie by the French director Guillaume Canet (Ne le dis à personne) is excellent, as are many of his other stand-alone novels. Each stand-alone has a similar theme: something in the distant past of a character's life is eventually revealed, with strong repercussions in the present day, changing what many of the characters thought they knew.

His latest book, Caught, is about the disappearance of a high-school lacrosse player, and, while it starts slowly, you get the trademark Coben reversals in the last 50 pages. It's a good summer read.

However, there was one passage that stood out (p. 209):

Something was niggling at the back of Wendy's brain. It was there, just out of sight, but she couldn't quite get to it.

Is there anything more infuriating in mystery writing than this cliché? The reader learns that something is triggered at the back of the detective's mind, and it's like a great big sign reading, "IF YOU WANT TO FIGURE IT OUT, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CLUE."

What are some other mystery novel clichés that turn you off?