>I agree that rules can be broken (although I would not go as far as to say they are "there to be broken") as long as you have an idea why. That doesn't mean they should be glibly ignored as though there were no substance to them. In fact the 8th rule pretty much matches your Stevenson example.
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>Have you read anything by Elmore Leonard? He is hardly an airport author.

Last few years I take one author and read pretty much anything he wrote, then move to the next one. This way I went through most of the opus (opi?) of Frank Herbert, Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds, Kurt Vonnegut jr, Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson. As you see, I still haven't finished reading all the SF I couldn't acquire 30 years ago :). Actually, some of it I'm reading for the second time - which I usually do with page turners, when I sense there's more to it than meets the fast reading eye.

>I can't comment on the case at hand, not having read the movie or seen the show. Part of my problem with sci-fi is my eyes immediately glaze over when I see place names like Bajoran.

The trouble with names in mainstream (i.e. US) SF is that these names are also too mainstream. Just insert a few apostrophes and make them end in -on or -or, and you're done. Star Trek is specially bad with this - just look at Clingon, Cardassia, Bajor, Vulcan (which is how many other languages call a volcano), Romulans (and we know Romulus is the alleged founder of Rome). The only notable exceptions to this can be found in the Ferengi line, which did have somewhat original names.