7 ms·

I've always found the obsession some people have with "hard" SF utterly ridiculous. The article alludes to this when discussing various fallacies regarding SF.

I've always found the obsession some people have with "hard" SF utterly ridiculous. The article alludes to this when discussing various fallacies regarding SF. The strength of SF has always been exploring the relationship of people and technology, and how technology will affect people and society. The stories that continue to resonate and engage over time are the ones that do this best. The details of the tech/science not only don't matter they're often actively detrimental to the story's staying power (e.g., "The computer had a blistering 100MB of RAM.").

arkh 7y ago
"hard" SF is often about the physics being right. Dragon Egg is a good one: you get the effects of gravity around a neutron star but no details about some scientific vessel hardware. Or with the revelation space cycle where the speed of light is a limit so you get multiple totally different society on different planets.
saagarjha 7y ago
“Hard” science fiction is a form of writing with constraints: in this case; the constraints being that the physics have to be believable. It keeps the genre separate from “science fantasy” e.g. Star {Wars, Trek}–which are enjoyable in their own right, but quite different. You can assure yourself that the standard science-related plot devices of time travel, superluminal communication, or infinite energy aren’t introduced because they frequently poke holes in the plot. And it’s often interesting to see how authors create creative workarounds to stay within the bounds that hard science fiction imposes.
- cstross 7y ago
  Alas, that's not what "hard" SF means these days (or even since the 1960s). Consider the "known space" stories and novels by Larry Niven, who is pretty firmly pigeon-holed as a hard SF author: they're full of magic wands, devices that break the known laws of physics -- to which he makes the sole concession of at least striving for internal consistency. "Hard SF" is a term I'm deeply suspicious of; it originated in the late 1950s/early 1960s in the US SF publishing field as a twitchy counterpoint to the "New Wave" then appearing, as previous social taboos began to crumble -- "hard" had connotations of two-fisted manly-man engineers with slide-rules clenched between their jaws, support for the Vietnam War, and the implicit technocrat agenda espoused by the racist and sexist John W. Campbell, editor of Analog (the de-facto house magazine of the hard SF tribe), who over a 30-40 year period used SF to promote a white supremacist and ultra-capitalist agenda (hint: Heinlein's "Fifth Column" was written to an outline provided by Campbell, and Heinlein apparently toned down the racism in it, so it's now merely a screamingly racist "yellow peril" yarn). There are some rare exceptions within the hard SF sub-genre -- where the science was diamond-hard and the author didn't use it as a platform for some sort of far right political agitprop -- but they're dismayingly rare; for more on this phenomenon see Michael Moorcock's seminal essay, Starship Stormtroopers: http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/essay/starship-stormtroopers http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/essay/starship-stormtrooper... If you want constraints I'd recommend looking into Mundane SF, a much more recent (and much less visible, less successful) offshoot of the field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction It says something about our desire for the fantastika that "Star Wars" (space wizards! Evil emperors!) is infinitely more popular than this stuff today. (PS: gratuitous appeal to authority: I'm a multiple Hugo-winning SF author, and I write SF novels for a living. If you don't recognize my name, go feed "Charles Stross" into wikipedia before you downvote.)
  - thrower123 7y ago
    > There are some rare exceptions within the hard SF sub-genre -- where the science was diamond-hard and the author didn't use it as a platform for some sort of far right political agitprop -- but they're dismayingly rare; for more on this phenomenon see Michael Moorcock's seminal essay, Starship Stormtroopers: What do Heinlein and hard science fiction have to do with each other? He's far, far out on the squishy end. Also, I'm convinced that people who are convinced that Starship troopers is a fascist tract have only watched the movie uncritically, or have bothered to read the book, but have no concept of what military people are like. The best way to understand Starship Troopers is as Helmet for My Pillow or another of the countless WW2 memoirs, but in space. That's the narrative structure it follows. > It says something about our desire for the fantastika that "Star Wars" (space wizards! Evil emperors!) is infinitely more popular than this stuff today Strong counterpoint would be the Expanse. It's never going to dethrone a forty year old franchise backed by the biggest media company in the world, but it is proving more popular than I would have expected.
    - cstross 7y ago
      I wasn't commenting on Heinlein, I was commenting on John W. Campbell, who was basically the go-to editor for hard SF (and had an Agenda, capital-A intentional). The Expanse is popular because -- surprise! -- even a niche market can be a large market when it's a niche in a billion person audience.
    - danaris 7y ago
      Science fantasy is largely more popular because a lot of what humans want out of their stories is just that: fantasy. It would be much more difficult for a hard sci-fi series to gain the kind of traction that Star Trek and Star Wars do, simply because the kinds of story it can tell are much more constrained...and it doesn’t allow for the same kind of wow factor.
      - krapp 7y ago
        > Science fantasy is largely more popular because a lot of what humans want out of their stories is just that: fantasy. I kind of disagree. What people want out of their stories is something that resonates with them emotionally or that speaks to the human condition. The fantasy vs science dichotomy doesn't really apply, and it's mostly subjective anyway. Also, it helps to remember that Star Wars and Star Trek were pioneering in their respective media. Star Wars basically invented the motion picture blockbuster and "epic" sci-fi. Star Trek, for all its hokey technobabble, was the first attempt (that I'm aware of) to portray an internally consistent, realistic future society onscreen. But both are also far more about people than technology or even extrapolation. If you take away the Force and the space wizards, most of what happens in Star Wars would be plausible in many "hard SF but with FTL" settings - it's actually a fairly grounded universe - and there are many such settings that somehow allow for telepaths as well. It's entirely possible to have hard sci-fi that has a wow factor and human drama (Babylon 5 comes to mind as an attempt, maybe the Expanse,) it's just not something people want to do because science is difficult, whereas teching the tech is easy.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  >> It keeps the genre separate from “science fantasy” e.g. Star {Wars, Trek}–which are enjoyable in their own right, but quite different. Being a staunch Trekkie, I protest. You can't put Star Wars in the same sub-genre as Star Trek! For instance, a common categorisation would have to explain the distinct absence of Ewoks or cute robots from Star Trek [1] or the much reduced focus on technology in Star Wars [2]. While (according to the wikipedia page on Science Fantasy) Star Trek is sometimes labelled as Science Fantasy, it's clear the aim of the show is completely different than the aim of Star Wars. I mean, one is an adventure with space swords and space knights, the other is ... an adventure, but with space captains and space lieutenants. So very different. ____________ [1] I doubt anyone would consider Lt. Cmndr. Data a "cute robot" and anyway, he's an android. [2] See: "the tech is overteching" (copied here so you can avoid opening that atrocious syfy.com page): "It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories," Moore said. "It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we'd just write 'tech' in the script. You know, Picard would say 'Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.' I'm serious. If you look at those scripts, you'll see that." Moore then went on to describe how a typical script might read before the science consultants did their thing: La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching." Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary tech to the tech, Mr. La Forge." La Forge: "No, Captain. Captain, I've tried to tech the tech, and it won't work." Picard: "Well, then we're doomed." "And then Data pops up and says, 'Captain, there is a theory that if you tech the other tech ... '" Moore said. "It's a rhythm and it's a structure, and the words are meaningless. It's not about anything except just sort of going through this dance of how they tech their way out of it." https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ron_moore_calls_star_trek https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ron_moore_calls_star_trek P.S. I know my comment comes along as a bit ironic, but I really see a difference between Star Wars and Star Trek and the kind of SciFi they represent. My best attempt at an explanation: in Star Wars, starships are cool. In Star Trek, how starships work is cool.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    On the other hand, Star Wars is mostly free of time travel plots while they're quite common in Star Trek. Time travel, while theoretically possible, is mostly used to introduce elements of fantasy into science fiction.
- bawolff 7y ago
  > time travel, superluminal communication, or infinite energy aren't included You should read the "orthogonal" series by greg egan :)
- ska 7y ago
  I've always wondered why physics is given primacy here - what is the point if your space travel is plausible but your biology is full of magical thinking? Beyond that lots of 'hard SF' is full very unsophisticated thinking about economies, social constructs, politics, etc. I think this doesn't reflect poorly on the authors so much as on how difficult it is to get all of this stuff right, even with a ton of research. One advantage mainstream fiction has in this regard is that by relying on a backdrop of "real world" events they will at least pass a sniff test even if you as the author haven't put much thought into it. Not that spec. fiction. authors don't crib extensively from history etc., also - but the desire to demonstrate the alien nature of things often unravels quickly as an author reaches the limits of their expertise/time/research abilities. I think it is one of the weaknesses of novel (let alone series) length work in this area that you can't help but expose the holes in the artifice. It's ok, readers have suspension of disbelief, but a strength of short fiction here is that you don't end up building in implausible or contradictory content in background material. It is interesting when a SF author chooses to try and get some other part of the world "right": e.g. Vinge, Butler, Stross, etc.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > I've always wondered why physics is given primacy here - what is the point if your space travel is plausible but your biology is full of magical thinking? It's purely audience demand. If your readers like physics and themselves hold magical beliefs about biology, they'll enjoy thinking about your physics and won't notice the problems in your biology.
    - ska 7y ago
      Sad if true, I think.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  So story telling that follows conventions of good story telling than random deus ex machinas and flux capacitors saving the day I dont think Science Fiction needs a subcategory for that, just a meter of timeless storytelling conventions
lmm 7y ago
Disagree. Asimov has enormous resonance today despite never writing a convincing human character. Tau Zero puts barely any paragraphs into people's society or relationships, but is still breathtaking. Having a world that behaves consistently and plausibly is what gives a fictional work heft; we can care about characters and actions because we can trust that their consequences will be followed through honestly. If an author can't even get their physics straight, why should anyone care about what they came up with on the social side, where it's a lot easier to get away with blind guesses or wishful thinking?
- yedava 7y ago
  What if an author gets inanimate physics right, but horribly botches the realm of the mind? After all, science deals with organic matter, and how that matter manifests thought and emotions. If an author can't even get that part of science right, why should anyone care what they have to say on another part of science?
  - krapp 7y ago
    >If an author can't even get that part of science right, why should anyone care what they have to say on another part of science? That does happen - an author will be educated in a particular field or have some specific domain expertise, and their work will obviously be correct in that one regard, but the science everywhere else will be kind of ridiculous. An author may put meticulous detail into the command structure and tactics of a military sci-fi setting but still portray concepts in physics, biology, etc. which are outdated or inaccurate, or filtered through the author's own prejudice. I don't think it's reasonable to expect even a "hard SF" author to be an expert in everything, or to expect all the science in such stories to be rigorous and correct. Remember that the reason positronic brains exist in Asimov's books is that he thought "positronic" sounded cool and futuristic. It's complete and utter technobabble, yet his robot stories are still considered "hard SF" by many. People just have to accept that even so-called "hard SF" is mostly BS, and enjoy stories for what they are.
- watwut 7y ago
  > If an author can't even get their physics straight, why should anyone care about what they came up with on the social side, where it's a lot easier to get away with blind guesses or wishful thinking? Because they require different set of knowledge and different focus. Perfect physics does not imply good characters or understanding of society regardless of how difficult they comparatively are. Moreover, Asimov resonates, because he wrote feel good stories. Many of them are effectively detective stories with some futuristic simple idea of world. Asimov however does not appeal to people who care about characters nuance and exploration of society under this or that condition. Asimov appeals to people who want to have fun with a creative idea without uncomfortable feelings.
thrower123 7y ago
Some people are just not all that interested in people. Science fiction is one of the few genres where it is somewhat acceptable to write stories that explore ideas and not feelings.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  I found the dispossed to be actually a hard sci-fi novel, when it comes to people. The truth is that many people want emotional-porn, disguised as worthy literature which allows for "felt" adventures without actual challenges to the mental cosmos. I still wait for actual hard-social-sci-fi - but its author(ess) would be hunted down the streets by the mob. Because humans are deeply flawed, and exploring those bugs and the hacks used by meta-organisms (like companys & states) would make for a thoroughly uncomfortable read. TL,DR: There is very little hard, uncomfy social scifi. Because we rage when dragged out of our mental comfort zones.
- randallsquared 7y ago
  Indeed. Most fiction is ultimately about social relationships, someone's inner life, or personal growth. There are many stories, however, where those concerns are not the primary motivation for writing or reading the story, and SF has a disproportionate share of those. A fair number of "hard SF" stories are basically travelogues.
bawolff 7y ago
Hard sf (where i use hard to basically be the science is consistent and no saving the day by "reversing the polarity of the deflector dish") can certainly explore the relationship between people and technology. Although personally i think that sf is best when exploring the relationship between society and people, and how it changes in different contexts. For example, i consider greg egan (e.g. "Diaspora") and peter watts (e.g. "Blindsight") to be authors whose works are improved and excellent because they are hard sf. Which is not to say there arent plenty of bad hard sf novels out there, there are. There are also plenty of amazing "soft" sf too. Hard sf is just a different type of novel, with different benefits and weaknesses. Like any (sub) genere it can be amazing in the right hands and terrible in the wrong.
jerf 7y ago
There are two types of mystery stories. In one, the focus is just on the people, the story, the setting, etc., and the reader is just along for the ride. There is a second type, which is technically a subset of this set, where the author gives the reader enough information to participate in the investigation, and gives them enough information to technically finger who the perpetrator is and exactly why before the characters in the story do. (To date myself a bit, this is Encyclopedia Brown-type stories.) They have all the features of the previous type of story, but also have this feature. However, since a well-written story is on the Pareto optimality frontier of the combination of story, plot, character, etc., to add this to the story usually requires some room to be made somewhere else. Hard vs. soft science fiction is a very similar relationship, I think. In addition, I'd at least pick a nit that while a story is welcome to "explore the relationship between humanity and technology" as much as it likes, it is seriously weakened when the technology itself is soft and ill-defined. Such stories are limited to exploring the author's personal opinions, if not outright neuroses. While there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, it's not anything special either; many genres have that. Where hard science fiction becomes interesting is when taking the tech and science seriously produces results that surprise even the author, and aren't just a reflection of the personal attitudes of the author. This is a high bar, rarely met, but it's one soft science fiction can't even try for.
edanm 7y ago
I used to think I didn't enjoy "hard" SF so much. Then I changed my mind after reading a few really good books ("Permutation City" by Greg Egan was the main one). The thing I like about hard SF is that it allows the exploration of questions we can't answer, but that are clearly implied by real-world science. I.e., what is consciousness? You can definitely give a great not-hard-SF exploration of this idea, that focuses on imaginary technologies and the relations people have with it. But you can also explore it from the angle of extrapolating real-world experiments, like the famous split-brain experiments, and trying to dig into what they could mean for the question of consciousness. Permutation City asks questions which are most interesting because they are real questions we don't know the answer to.

arkh 7y ago

"hard" SF is often about the physics being right. Dragon Egg is a good one: you get the effects of gravity around a neutron star but no details about some scientific vessel hardware. Or with the revelation space cycle where the speed of light is a limit so you get multiple totally different society on different planets.

saagarjha 7y ago

“Hard” science fiction is a form of writing with constraints: in this case; the constraints being that the physics have to be believable. It keeps the genre separate from “science fantasy” e.g. Star {Wars, Trek}–which are enjoyable in their own right, but quite different. You can assure yourself that the standard science-related plot devices of time travel, superluminal communication, or infinite energy aren’t introduced because they frequently poke holes in the plot. And it’s often interesting to see how authors create creative workarounds to stay within the bounds that hard science fiction imposes.

cstross 7y ago
Alas, that's not what "hard" SF means these days (or even since the 1960s). Consider the "known space" stories and novels by Larry Niven, who is pretty firmly pigeon-holed as a hard SF author: they're full of magic wands, devices that break the known laws of physics -- to which he makes the sole concession of at least striving for internal consistency. "Hard SF" is a term I'm deeply suspicious of; it originated in the late 1950s/early 1960s in the US SF publishing field as a twitchy counterpoint to the "New Wave" then appearing, as previous social taboos began to crumble -- "hard" had connotations of two-fisted manly-man engineers with slide-rules clenched between their jaws, support for the Vietnam War, and the implicit technocrat agenda espoused by the racist and sexist John W. Campbell, editor of Analog (the de-facto house magazine of the hard SF tribe), who over a 30-40 year period used SF to promote a white supremacist and ultra-capitalist agenda (hint: Heinlein's "Fifth Column" was written to an outline provided by Campbell, and Heinlein apparently toned down the racism in it, so it's now merely a screamingly racist "yellow peril" yarn). There are some rare exceptions within the hard SF sub-genre -- where the science was diamond-hard and the author didn't use it as a platform for some sort of far right political agitprop -- but they're dismayingly rare; for more on this phenomenon see Michael Moorcock's seminal essay, Starship Stormtroopers: http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/essay/starship-stormtroopers http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/essay/starship-stormtrooper... If you want constraints I'd recommend looking into Mundane SF, a much more recent (and much less visible, less successful) offshoot of the field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction It says something about our desire for the fantastika that "Star Wars" (space wizards! Evil emperors!) is infinitely more popular than this stuff today. (PS: gratuitous appeal to authority: I'm a multiple Hugo-winning SF author, and I write SF novels for a living. If you don't recognize my name, go feed "Charles Stross" into wikipedia before you downvote.)
- thrower123 7y ago
  > There are some rare exceptions within the hard SF sub-genre -- where the science was diamond-hard and the author didn't use it as a platform for some sort of far right political agitprop -- but they're dismayingly rare; for more on this phenomenon see Michael Moorcock's seminal essay, Starship Stormtroopers: What do Heinlein and hard science fiction have to do with each other? He's far, far out on the squishy end. Also, I'm convinced that people who are convinced that Starship troopers is a fascist tract have only watched the movie uncritically, or have bothered to read the book, but have no concept of what military people are like. The best way to understand Starship Troopers is as Helmet for My Pillow or another of the countless WW2 memoirs, but in space. That's the narrative structure it follows. > It says something about our desire for the fantastika that "Star Wars" (space wizards! Evil emperors!) is infinitely more popular than this stuff today Strong counterpoint would be the Expanse. It's never going to dethrone a forty year old franchise backed by the biggest media company in the world, but it is proving more popular than I would have expected.
  - cstross 7y ago
    I wasn't commenting on Heinlein, I was commenting on John W. Campbell, who was basically the go-to editor for hard SF (and had an Agenda, capital-A intentional). The Expanse is popular because -- surprise! -- even a niche market can be a large market when it's a niche in a billion person audience.
  - danaris 7y ago
    Science fantasy is largely more popular because a lot of what humans want out of their stories is just that: fantasy. It would be much more difficult for a hard sci-fi series to gain the kind of traction that Star Trek and Star Wars do, simply because the kinds of story it can tell are much more constrained...and it doesn’t allow for the same kind of wow factor.
    - krapp 7y ago
      > Science fantasy is largely more popular because a lot of what humans want out of their stories is just that: fantasy. I kind of disagree. What people want out of their stories is something that resonates with them emotionally or that speaks to the human condition. The fantasy vs science dichotomy doesn't really apply, and it's mostly subjective anyway. Also, it helps to remember that Star Wars and Star Trek were pioneering in their respective media. Star Wars basically invented the motion picture blockbuster and "epic" sci-fi. Star Trek, for all its hokey technobabble, was the first attempt (that I'm aware of) to portray an internally consistent, realistic future society onscreen. But both are also far more about people than technology or even extrapolation. If you take away the Force and the space wizards, most of what happens in Star Wars would be plausible in many "hard SF but with FTL" settings - it's actually a fairly grounded universe - and there are many such settings that somehow allow for telepaths as well. It's entirely possible to have hard sci-fi that has a wow factor and human drama (Babylon 5 comes to mind as an attempt, maybe the Expanse,) it's just not something people want to do because science is difficult, whereas teching the tech is easy.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> It keeps the genre separate from “science fantasy” e.g. Star {Wars, Trek}–which are enjoyable in their own right, but quite different. Being a staunch Trekkie, I protest. You can't put Star Wars in the same sub-genre as Star Trek! For instance, a common categorisation would have to explain the distinct absence of Ewoks or cute robots from Star Trek [1] or the much reduced focus on technology in Star Wars [2]. While (according to the wikipedia page on Science Fantasy) Star Trek is sometimes labelled as Science Fantasy, it's clear the aim of the show is completely different than the aim of Star Wars. I mean, one is an adventure with space swords and space knights, the other is ... an adventure, but with space captains and space lieutenants. So very different. ____________ [1] I doubt anyone would consider Lt. Cmndr. Data a "cute robot" and anyway, he's an android. [2] See: "the tech is overteching" (copied here so you can avoid opening that atrocious syfy.com page): "It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories," Moore said. "It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we'd just write 'tech' in the script. You know, Picard would say 'Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.' I'm serious. If you look at those scripts, you'll see that." Moore then went on to describe how a typical script might read before the science consultants did their thing: La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching." Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary tech to the tech, Mr. La Forge." La Forge: "No, Captain. Captain, I've tried to tech the tech, and it won't work." Picard: "Well, then we're doomed." "And then Data pops up and says, 'Captain, there is a theory that if you tech the other tech ... '" Moore said. "It's a rhythm and it's a structure, and the words are meaningless. It's not about anything except just sort of going through this dance of how they tech their way out of it." https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ron_moore_calls_star_trek https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ron_moore_calls_star_trek P.S. I know my comment comes along as a bit ironic, but I really see a difference between Star Wars and Star Trek and the kind of SciFi they represent. My best attempt at an explanation: in Star Wars, starships are cool. In Star Trek, how starships work is cool.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  On the other hand, Star Wars is mostly free of time travel plots while they're quite common in Star Trek. Time travel, while theoretically possible, is mostly used to introduce elements of fantasy into science fiction.
bawolff 7y ago
> time travel, superluminal communication, or infinite energy aren't included You should read the "orthogonal" series by greg egan :)
ska 7y ago
I've always wondered why physics is given primacy here - what is the point if your space travel is plausible but your biology is full of magical thinking? Beyond that lots of 'hard SF' is full very unsophisticated thinking about economies, social constructs, politics, etc. I think this doesn't reflect poorly on the authors so much as on how difficult it is to get all of this stuff right, even with a ton of research. One advantage mainstream fiction has in this regard is that by relying on a backdrop of "real world" events they will at least pass a sniff test even if you as the author haven't put much thought into it. Not that spec. fiction. authors don't crib extensively from history etc., also - but the desire to demonstrate the alien nature of things often unravels quickly as an author reaches the limits of their expertise/time/research abilities. I think it is one of the weaknesses of novel (let alone series) length work in this area that you can't help but expose the holes in the artifice. It's ok, readers have suspension of disbelief, but a strength of short fiction here is that you don't end up building in implausible or contradictory content in background material. It is interesting when a SF author chooses to try and get some other part of the world "right": e.g. Vinge, Butler, Stross, etc.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > I've always wondered why physics is given primacy here - what is the point if your space travel is plausible but your biology is full of magical thinking? It's purely audience demand. If your readers like physics and themselves hold magical beliefs about biology, they'll enjoy thinking about your physics and won't notice the problems in your biology.
  - ska 7y ago
    Sad if true, I think.
rolltiide 7y ago
So story telling that follows conventions of good story telling than random deus ex machinas and flux capacitors saving the day I dont think Science Fiction needs a subcategory for that, just a meter of timeless storytelling conventions

lmm 7y ago

Disagree. Asimov has enormous resonance today despite never writing a convincing human character. Tau Zero puts barely any paragraphs into people's society or relationships, but is still breathtaking. Having a world that behaves consistently and plausibly is what gives a fictional work heft; we can care about characters and actions because we can trust that their consequences will be followed through honestly. If an author can't even get their physics straight, why should anyone care about what they came up with on the social side, where it's a lot easier to get away with blind guesses or wishful thinking?

yedava 7y ago
What if an author gets inanimate physics right, but horribly botches the realm of the mind? After all, science deals with organic matter, and how that matter manifests thought and emotions. If an author can't even get that part of science right, why should anyone care what they have to say on another part of science?
- krapp 7y ago
  >If an author can't even get that part of science right, why should anyone care what they have to say on another part of science? That does happen - an author will be educated in a particular field or have some specific domain expertise, and their work will obviously be correct in that one regard, but the science everywhere else will be kind of ridiculous. An author may put meticulous detail into the command structure and tactics of a military sci-fi setting but still portray concepts in physics, biology, etc. which are outdated or inaccurate, or filtered through the author's own prejudice. I don't think it's reasonable to expect even a "hard SF" author to be an expert in everything, or to expect all the science in such stories to be rigorous and correct. Remember that the reason positronic brains exist in Asimov's books is that he thought "positronic" sounded cool and futuristic. It's complete and utter technobabble, yet his robot stories are still considered "hard SF" by many. People just have to accept that even so-called "hard SF" is mostly BS, and enjoy stories for what they are.
watwut 7y ago
> If an author can't even get their physics straight, why should anyone care about what they came up with on the social side, where it's a lot easier to get away with blind guesses or wishful thinking? Because they require different set of knowledge and different focus. Perfect physics does not imply good characters or understanding of society regardless of how difficult they comparatively are. Moreover, Asimov resonates, because he wrote feel good stories. Many of them are effectively detective stories with some futuristic simple idea of world. Asimov however does not appeal to people who care about characters nuance and exploration of society under this or that condition. Asimov appeals to people who want to have fun with a creative idea without uncomfortable feelings.

thrower123 7y ago

Some people are just not all that interested in people. Science fiction is one of the few genres where it is somewhat acceptable to write stories that explore ideas and not feelings.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
I found the dispossed to be actually a hard sci-fi novel, when it comes to people. The truth is that many people want emotional-porn, disguised as worthy literature which allows for "felt" adventures without actual challenges to the mental cosmos. I still wait for actual hard-social-sci-fi - but its author(ess) would be hunted down the streets by the mob. Because humans are deeply flawed, and exploring those bugs and the hacks used by meta-organisms (like companys & states) would make for a thoroughly uncomfortable read. TL,DR: There is very little hard, uncomfy social scifi. Because we rage when dragged out of our mental comfort zones.
randallsquared 7y ago
Indeed. Most fiction is ultimately about social relationships, someone's inner life, or personal growth. There are many stories, however, where those concerns are not the primary motivation for writing or reading the story, and SF has a disproportionate share of those. A fair number of "hard SF" stories are basically travelogues.

bawolff 7y ago

Hard sf (where i use hard to basically be the science is consistent and no saving the day by "reversing the polarity of the deflector dish") can certainly explore the relationship between people and technology. Although personally i think that sf is best when exploring the relationship between society and people, and how it changes in different contexts. For example, i consider greg egan (e.g. "Diaspora") and peter watts (e.g. "Blindsight") to be authors whose works are improved and excellent because they are hard sf. Which is not to say there arent plenty of bad hard sf novels out there, there are. There are also plenty of amazing "soft" sf too. Hard sf is just a different type of novel, with different benefits and weaknesses. Like any (sub) genere it can be amazing in the right hands and terrible in the wrong.

jerf 7y ago

There are two types of mystery stories. In one, the focus is just on the people, the story, the setting, etc., and the reader is just along for the ride. There is a second type, which is technically a subset of this set, where the author gives the reader enough information to participate in the investigation, and gives them enough information to technically finger who the perpetrator is and exactly why before the characters in the story do. (To date myself a bit, this is Encyclopedia Brown-type stories.) They have all the features of the previous type of story, but also have this feature. However, since a well-written story is on the Pareto optimality frontier of the combination of story, plot, character, etc., to add this to the story usually requires some room to be made somewhere else. Hard vs. soft science fiction is a very similar relationship, I think. In addition, I'd at least pick a nit that while a story is welcome to "explore the relationship between humanity and technology" as much as it likes, it is seriously weakened when the technology itself is soft and ill-defined. Such stories are limited to exploring the author's personal opinions, if not outright neuroses. While there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, it's not anything special either; many genres have that. Where hard science fiction becomes interesting is when taking the tech and science seriously produces results that surprise even the author, and aren't just a reflection of the personal attitudes of the author. This is a high bar, rarely met, but it's one soft science fiction can't even try for.

edanm 7y ago

I used to think I didn't enjoy "hard" SF so much. Then I changed my mind after reading a few really good books ("Permutation City" by Greg Egan was the main one). The thing I like about hard SF is that it allows the exploration of questions we can't answer, but that are clearly implied by real-world science. I.e., what is consciousness? You can definitely give a great not-hard-SF exploration of this idea, that focuses on imaginary technologies and the relations people have with it. But you can also explore it from the angle of extrapolating real-world experiments, like the famous split-brain experiments, and trying to dig into what they could mean for the question of consciousness. Permutation City asks questions which are most interesting because they are real questions we don't know the answer to.