Beware of gadgets

I've been going through some of our Electric Spec submissions. As ever, I'm very impressed with them. Thank you for sending them in!

Here, continues my series of advice for writers. Recently I read a story that contained a huge variety of high-tech machines. For every need the character had, a gadget was there. I, personally, have nothing against gadgets. In fact, I like them. However, don't be fooled by bells and whistles (and chips and LEDs and ...), gadgets cannot carry a story. A richly-drawn high-tech culture can be excellent world-building, but it's essentially background. We also need a sympathetic character and an interesting plot arc. If one of these three things is super-duper fabulous it may carry weaker versions of the other two, but it's a tough sell.
So, there you have it, one editor's opinion. :)