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The sci-fi author David Weber said something in an interview I read ages ago that stuck with me. It was something to the effect of: "don't spend paragraphs desc

The sci-fi author David Weber said something in an interview I read ages ago that stuck with me. It was something to the effect of: "don't spend paragraphs describing how a light switch works in the future." There's a place for true hard sci-fi, but it is niche. The bulk of sci-fi is quite justifiably going to be more or less accurate in places in relation to how well it services the overall combined goals fo the film. It also somewhat bugs me that pretty invariably the folks that crap all over these movies are huge Trek or Babylon 5 fans, shows that have endless literal magic in them, and they're just fine with it. It's hard not to see this as another form of nerd sniping (note: not directed at you personally, just talking about a dynamic I've seen with many friends). I'll agree about pretentiousness, but I do think Intersteller should be given credit for working to get more right than the vast majority of flims, but more importantly for doing an original concept where in many ways, GR itself is a main character. That was a bold bet in a world where we have 9 Fast and Furious movies.

folli 5y ago
So where would one find this true hard sci-fi?
- herbstein 5y ago
  Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is a good starting point. Written by an author that knows how to write pop-thrillers with a very keen attention to the details in his books. It deals with the aftermath of the moon spontaneously breaking apart. No explanation is ever given to the reason. The first line of the book is: > The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. If you're looking for something even harder there's one author to stands out. Greg Egan. Most of his books are created by modifying some part of relativity and seeing what kind of world would be the logical conclusion from that modification. From the blurb for his book "Orthogonal". > In Yalda’s universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. > On Yalda’s world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. Every one of his books are this weird, and he has books worth of education material and graphics to help explain the mechanics of each universe he creates. He has also done some novel discoveries when it comes to superpermutations. If you don't want to go quite that deep into it all, you could take a look at "The Martian". The movie is a fine piece of work, but the book is really amazing. It goes into a lot more details. Andy Weir, the author, even made sure the phases of Earth and Mars matched up so closely that you can figure out when the book is happening by inferring the travel times and communication delays. Generally, you won't find much of this genre. Writing space opera (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) doesn't require too much. You have to have good characters exploring an interesting scenario, and then write it competently. Proper hard Sci-Fi on the other hand is incredibly difficult. It requires intimate knowledge of things like orbital physics and being able to infer what is and isn't possible within the next ~20 years. This is where most hard Sci-Fi is set because it grounds it the most. An analogous issue is that hard Sci-Fi often "expires". Stories written 30 years ago suddenly start sounding silly because technology developed in a new and at-the-time unexpected direction.
  - lgl 5y ago
    Great recommendations here. One pet peeve I have is that the term science fiction is used a lot in these types of discussions when the more accurate term in my opinion would be speculative fiction, sometimes with some real world science bits thrown in for either convenience or broader appeal. Particularly in regards to Greg Egan since his books are really out there. I personally recommend Permutation City and Diaspora which I found both amazing (although most of his books are also very good). Seveneves is still on my to-read list, from a lot of reviews I got the impression that the first part of the book is very good while the second part goes a bit downhill. I'll still probably read it someday. Another recommendation that's a bit more mainstream is the Expanse series which seems to really try to portray some of the real effects of space flight and gravity effects while, again, also throwing some more "out-there and not so realistic" stuff into the mix.
aardvark179 5y ago
I think the reason people can be happy with something like Trek but nitpick on more realistic attempts is that you hit a sort of uncanny valley. I know space flight in Trek or Babylon 5 is utterly made up, so you accept it and what stands out is the things you are shown that work within that made up framework. But if you show me space flight that’s close to being right then the ways it isn’t are what will stand out.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  Yeah, I've thought the same thing and generally agree, but it still bugs me, because more often then not, it's not "uncanny valley" that's driving the distinction in category in my opinion but rather "mass popularity vs nerd cult." The reason I put Bab 5 in there and not Star Wars is exactly because it did work hard to get a lot more of the science stuff closer to right, but equally as flawed as anything in gravity or interstellar. The portrayal of B5's O'Neill cylinder is highly flawed but escapes this same sort of criticism.
  - aardvark179 5y ago
    I didn’t ever really bother about how well the station actually worked in B5, it and the larger human ships rotated because the humans didn’t have artificial gravity, and that was enough. It fitted in the world they had built. Similarly I never minded that the design of DS9 is non sensical in real terms, it fits with the other things we see in trek so it feels okay. In contrast I bounced off Gravity because it was trying so hard to be accurate but had characters doing fairly long range orbital maneuvers by eye, and those two things didn’t feel like they fit.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
      Why do you say it was trying harder to be accurate?
      - aardvark179 5y ago
        Something like B5 isn’t centrally concerned with things like orbital mechanics, they aren’t the focus of its plots and the way ships behave is more a way to contrast the differing levels of tech. Gravity has a plot centered round how things orbit so when the plot cheats on that it’s jarring. Likewise when B5 had an episode centered round a character who had been Jack the Ripper, but got the area of London where the murderer had been active completely wrong that felt jarring because the nature of that character felt so central to that episode.
Can_Not 5y ago
> It also somewhat bugs me that pretty invariably the folks that crap all over these movies are huge Trek or Babylon 5 fans, shows that have endless literal magic in them, and they're just fine with it. Interstellar was heavily hyped as being "realistic".

folli 5y ago

So where would one find this true hard sci-fi?

herbstein 5y ago
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is a good starting point. Written by an author that knows how to write pop-thrillers with a very keen attention to the details in his books. It deals with the aftermath of the moon spontaneously breaking apart. No explanation is ever given to the reason. The first line of the book is: > The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. If you're looking for something even harder there's one author to stands out. Greg Egan. Most of his books are created by modifying some part of relativity and seeing what kind of world would be the logical conclusion from that modification. From the blurb for his book "Orthogonal". > In Yalda’s universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. > On Yalda’s world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. Every one of his books are this weird, and he has books worth of education material and graphics to help explain the mechanics of each universe he creates. He has also done some novel discoveries when it comes to superpermutations. If you don't want to go quite that deep into it all, you could take a look at "The Martian". The movie is a fine piece of work, but the book is really amazing. It goes into a lot more details. Andy Weir, the author, even made sure the phases of Earth and Mars matched up so closely that you can figure out when the book is happening by inferring the travel times and communication delays. Generally, you won't find much of this genre. Writing space opera (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) doesn't require too much. You have to have good characters exploring an interesting scenario, and then write it competently. Proper hard Sci-Fi on the other hand is incredibly difficult. It requires intimate knowledge of things like orbital physics and being able to infer what is and isn't possible within the next ~20 years. This is where most hard Sci-Fi is set because it grounds it the most. An analogous issue is that hard Sci-Fi often "expires". Stories written 30 years ago suddenly start sounding silly because technology developed in a new and at-the-time unexpected direction.
- lgl 5y ago
  Great recommendations here. One pet peeve I have is that the term science fiction is used a lot in these types of discussions when the more accurate term in my opinion would be speculative fiction, sometimes with some real world science bits thrown in for either convenience or broader appeal. Particularly in regards to Greg Egan since his books are really out there. I personally recommend Permutation City and Diaspora which I found both amazing (although most of his books are also very good). Seveneves is still on my to-read list, from a lot of reviews I got the impression that the first part of the book is very good while the second part goes a bit downhill. I'll still probably read it someday. Another recommendation that's a bit more mainstream is the Expanse series which seems to really try to portray some of the real effects of space flight and gravity effects while, again, also throwing some more "out-there and not so realistic" stuff into the mix.

aardvark179 5y ago

I think the reason people can be happy with something like Trek but nitpick on more realistic attempts is that you hit a sort of uncanny valley. I know space flight in Trek or Babylon 5 is utterly made up, so you accept it and what stands out is the things you are shown that work within that made up framework. But if you show me space flight that’s close to being right then the ways it isn’t are what will stand out.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
Yeah, I've thought the same thing and generally agree, but it still bugs me, because more often then not, it's not "uncanny valley" that's driving the distinction in category in my opinion but rather "mass popularity vs nerd cult." The reason I put Bab 5 in there and not Star Wars is exactly because it did work hard to get a lot more of the science stuff closer to right, but equally as flawed as anything in gravity or interstellar. The portrayal of B5's O'Neill cylinder is highly flawed but escapes this same sort of criticism.
- aardvark179 5y ago
  I didn’t ever really bother about how well the station actually worked in B5, it and the larger human ships rotated because the humans didn’t have artificial gravity, and that was enough. It fitted in the world they had built. Similarly I never minded that the design of DS9 is non sensical in real terms, it fits with the other things we see in trek so it feels okay. In contrast I bounced off Gravity because it was trying so hard to be accurate but had characters doing fairly long range orbital maneuvers by eye, and those two things didn’t feel like they fit.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    Why do you say it was trying harder to be accurate?
    - aardvark179 5y ago
      Something like B5 isn’t centrally concerned with things like orbital mechanics, they aren’t the focus of its plots and the way ships behave is more a way to contrast the differing levels of tech. Gravity has a plot centered round how things orbit so when the plot cheats on that it’s jarring. Likewise when B5 had an episode centered round a character who had been Jack the Ripper, but got the area of London where the murderer had been active completely wrong that felt jarring because the nature of that character felt so central to that episode.

Can_Not 5y ago

> It also somewhat bugs me that pretty invariably the folks that crap all over these movies are huge Trek or Babylon 5 fans, shows that have endless literal magic in them, and they're just fine with it. Interstellar was heavily hyped as being "realistic".