Therefore, Amelia inserts a coupla clueless Terran humans for just such a purpose. "Gee willikers, Ms. Alien, I didn't know that! Tell me more! Perhaps I will even make an oblique analogy familiar to a reader in a Western Earth nation!"*
Also helps that my protagonist thinks like an encyclopedia. I'd say that was a clever narrative choice on my part, but the truth is that he was like that before he ever became a protagonist. (So was his tendency to be a psychic voyeur, which turned out really useful for conveying other scenes or points of view not normally accessible from a first-person narrative. I wish that would happen more often.)
*Fry: 'DOOP'? What's that? Farnsworth: It's similar to the United Nations from your time, Fry. Fry: Uhh ... Hermes: Or like the Federation from your Star Trek program. Fry: Ohhh!
no subject
Also helps that my protagonist thinks like an encyclopedia. I'd say that was a clever narrative choice on my part, but the truth is that he was like that before he ever became a protagonist. (So was his tendency to be a psychic voyeur, which turned out really useful for conveying other scenes or points of view not normally accessible from a first-person narrative. I wish that would happen more often.)
*Fry: 'DOOP'? What's that?
Farnsworth: It's similar to the United Nations from your time, Fry.
Fry: Uhh ...
Hermes: Or like the Federation from your Star Trek program.
Fry: Ohhh!