One of the challenges for SF writers is describing the alien worlds your characters land on. Even if the world is Earth-like and the atmosphere is one that humans can breathe unaided there will be subtle differences from our home world.
The trick is to get the amount of description right. Your characters might well be overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells of a new world, but you don't want the reader to be overwhelmed too. And that means being selective in the details.
When I first wrote about Latoya in Eyemind I had the story starting with my main character Keri Starseer land on-planet at sunset and looking around her at the landscape. It read like a travel brochure in my early drafts, and had to go. Now I've dispensed with that whole scene and the novel starts with her mid-way through a briefing with her new employer.
We have to describe our world in an eyeblink. In Panthera : Death Spiral I focus on the golden light and the dust of a savannah dawn. In Panthera : Death Plain the setting is rainforest, and I sketch out its size by having Ren look down on an unbroken forest of green below her as she's flying into the reserves.
Being specific helps us to fix the scene in the reader's mind quickly. Something is not red, but ruby, crimson, or claret. In Eyemind I describe a palace as being large and built of soft pink sandstone. That's all the description I need for this minor location. And when Keri is captured she is put into a cold cave with no light where she hears things scuttling about that remind her of large deadly spiders. I don't need any more description here.
Often the scenery will be familiar to your characters. As we don't take great notice of places we know well, neither will your characters. The details will pass by in an eyeblink.
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