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While I highly enjoyed the trilogy (especially 'The Dark Forest'), the Science Fiction element of the story remains very soft. At no point does the author offer

While I highly enjoyed the trilogy (especially 'The Dark Forest'), the Science Fiction element of the story remains very soft. At no point does the author offer any meaningful explanation for any of the technologies used in the books. I really liked the story, and enjoyed the ride, but as a fan of 'hard SF' such as the Expanse or the Mars trilogy, this book left me somewhat dissatisfied.

iainmerrick 4y ago
Totally agreed. It's a strange vibe because it feels like it wants to be hard SF, but it's really not. Maybe it's something about the translation? It's very Asimov-like, in that the elements where the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions (or human/psychic, human/alien, human/robot, etc) handled in a very rationalist, almost mechanistic way. And also like Asimov, there's super-science stuff (e.g. warp drives in Foundation, time travel in The End of Eternity) that isn't "explained" in any way, it's just part of the setting.
- ranger47 4y ago
  >the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions During my reading, I thought this was the point. I'm not sure the stories were trying to be in any specific genre, maybe genre-adjacent at best, but the author wanted to focus on what happens to the human and humanity with all this advanced, arguably fantastic tech.
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    The story has some rather clear political biases that a lot of people don’t like, and I can’t help but think a lot of the criticism of the series comes from that. The most tyrannical human characters in the book impose their tyrannies for the sake of collectivism, and collectivist authoritarianism comes very close to dooming humanity more than once. I can imagine people who have collectivist political outlooks not liking it at all.
    - iainmerrick 4y ago
      I don’t see anybody criticising those aspects, though. When people criticise the science or the plot or the characterisation, why not take them at their word?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- elorant 4y ago
  Human interaction is terrible. All the characters are flat.
  - cooperadymas 4y ago
    I believe the OP means on a grander scale, not individuals. Individuals in the series largely act as if their personalities have been hit by the dual vector foil. But the series is rarely about the individuals. Instead its about exploring how humanity - and aliens - might react to the existence of one another. In this regard I feel Liu created in the reader a vertigo-inducing sensation of depth.
    - iainmerrick 4y ago
      I actually was thinking about the individuals, but you’re right, he talks about how societies behave too (and that’s more important for the overall themes of the novel). I wasn’t trying to be dismissive, although it’s not entirely my cup of tea; my comparison to Asimov is meant as a compliment.
  - perihelions 4y ago
    - "All the characters are flat." Too soon...
    - bananarchist 4y ago
      Too good
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
What is a "meaningful explanation" of technologies we have not yet created and science we have not yet discovered? In the limit, a work of "hard" "science" fiction ends up like a Star Trek episode scenario before the "tech" bits were filled-in - "Captain, the Tech is overteching. We must tech the tech" [1]. I've read the Expanse btw and it wasn't particularly more "hard" or any less made-up than anything else. I don't remember whether I've read the Mars trilogy. _____________ [1] http://www.bryanreesman.com/2009/10/09/captain-picard-the-tech-is-overteching/ http://www.bryanreesman.com/2009/10/09/captain-picard-the-te... In the interest of full disclosure I'm a total trekkie. I even like ST:E (a lot).
- EdwardCoffin 4y ago
  Isn't this the opposite of hard science fiction? In my mind, hard science fiction is that where the science rules of the setting permeate and constrain the story, rather than being things to fill in. That said, I see more and more that people are accepting an alternative definition of hard science fiction, which is simply a way of distinguishing science fiction that does not involve outright magic from the fantasy/sf that does.
  - throwaway17_17 4y ago
    There is another view of the hard/soft sci-fi scale that has gained popularity among younger (i.e. under-30) commentators and reviewers where the scale is from: soft == any and all science things, discussions, or principles are merely set dressings to tell a story; hard == the science is the basis for the work and the consequences, interactions, etc of dealing with or addressing the ‘science things’ is the purpose of the work It’s kind of like saying the scale goes from just telling a story set on a space ship to writing a dissertation on long-haul space flight’s effects on human behaviors, which might have a narrative through line. I am not really sure I even like the premise of this usage of hard/soft sci-fi, I am much more prone to use the possible/impossible technology type of scale when discussing ‘hardness’ of sci-fi, but I don’t get to dictate the usage of language.
    - 4y ago
wjnc 4y ago
By no means disparaging and I'm addicted to the Expanse currently (book 5) - There is _no_ explanation of the technology (protomolecule, drive system, gates) in the books up until yet? Gravity and the Coriolis effect get mentioned a lot, the concept of a rail gun gets some explanation. I would classify Expanse as space opera. There's a lot more science, say, in Andy Weir. I think Andy would have a very hard time explaining the protomolecule.
- mavhc 4y ago
  Humans in the universe don't know how the protomolecule or the gates work though
  - wjnc 4y ago
    And we readers don't know how the Epstein drive works. Hence my conclusion: not hard scifi. The way the story is structured (each chapter a separate voice; most chapters a cliffhanger, like a tv series) and characters and crew are portrayed: space opera, with opera in the way of soap opera or telenovela (great word). I was thinking about why these books gripped me, while usually I get tired quickly of space opera. For me, it's in the quality of the execution. Each book and each chapter gives you direct action via a predictable sequence, while the characters get a little more round each iteration.
    - mavhc 4y ago
      It's a fusion drive
cooperadymas 4y ago
It's quite stellar that readers come away from some of these series with such different notions. Look up lists of the best hard scifi and you'll find the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy, or at least the Three Body Problem, on almost every one. Many readers come away from the first book stunned at how believable the technology feels compared to something like Star Trek or Star Wars. I'll give you that the further the trilogy goes the looser the explanations get, but that's by design. We jump far, far to the end of the universe. How does anyone give a reasonable explanation for billion year advanced technology? On the flipside, in the Expanse, humans are limited by physics and largely modern limitations, sure, but the crux of the story is built around a magical alien molecule for which we are never given an explanation. It's hard scifi to a degree, but no less soft than say, the sophon in ROEP.
- ByThyGrace 4y ago
  "Hardness" in science fiction is scarcely an academical subject of literature. I personally like Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness [0] but not beyond a thought excercise. If you can, find me a published author stating "I wrote this story strictly in terms of a level 5 in the Mohs scale"; there will be none (unless they're targeting reddit as a reader base). [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScal...
- breuleux 4y ago
  TBP's sophon is one of the most blithely nonsensical sci-fi technologies I have ever read. I found it far, far more egregious than the Expanse's magical alien molecule, to the point it put me off reading other books in the trilogy. IMO it disqualifies TBP from the hard sci-fi category entirely, but I admit I might be a bit too worked up about it.
  - cooperadymas 4y ago
    Spoilers from the Expanse ahead... The protomolecule turned people into vomit zombies with a collective hive mind that could communicate instantaneously across the solar system and move an asteroid defying all laws of gravity, with the ultimate secret intent of building an interstellar wormhole. Again, in the series (at least early on) humans are quite limited by known constraints and it would easily be considered hard scifi in many regards. But its central conceit was no less blithely nonsensical than that of TBP's - I simply can't understand how someone could put one in the hard category but disqualify the other.
shrx 4y ago
Calling The Expanse "hard sci-fi", especially in comparison to the Three Body Problem, is quite rich.
- mdorazio 4y ago
  I see this sentiment a lot and don't really understand it. Until the last few books there is a very clear distinction between the human tech (hard SF) and the alien tech (magic). The main story takes place very much within the limits of plausible physics (ships rely on reaction engines and takes weeks to traverse large distances, space combat and weapons are actually realistic, powered armor doesn't keep people safe from inertia, etc.), and then there are magical elements that the characters run up against. Contrast that with Three Body where the main plot driver revolves around FTL communication with indestructible intelligent nano-scale machines that can be anywhere any time, then gets progressively less realistic from there. I did enjoy the thread about the human ships going extra-solar, though, which was closer to Expanse in terms of Hard SF meeting a magical element (+dimensional travel).
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    Yes! What really irked me about The Three Body Problem was the way it blithely introduced faster-than-light communication as a plot point -- a key plot point! -- without any hint of a nod to the fact that this is impossible as far as we currently know. In fact, quite the opposite, the speed of light is taken to be a hard limit elsewhere in the story and that plays a key role too. So which is it? I think it can be okay to invent magical tech in hard SF, if and only if you clearly distinguish the magical bits and work through all the ramifications logically. A great example is the “bobbles” in Vernor Vinge’s The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
    - breuleux 4y ago
      TBP is also very cavalier about basic interactions with energy. To make a sophon, I kid you not, the aliens unfold a proton into a 2D sheet that they wrap around their entire planet. The unfolded proton has the same mass as the folded one (explicitly stated), but far from being invisible, it actually blocks all incoming light from their sun. That's orders of magnitude more energy than it takes to shatter protons in particle accelerators, smashing into the sophon for days on end, and it just... holds together? And then it gets to Earth and can apparently move and fold and unfold on its own and intercept all of our communications (which should also shatter it).
uhtred 4y ago
Interesting. I didn't like The Expanse at all- I thought it read like it had been written from the offset with the intention of it being a Netflix show. It lost me early on, when a character beat up a load of enemies with her jiu jitsu.
tlb 4y ago
Better to have no explanation than a bogus one, which is what it would have to be for things that haven't been invented yet. Sci-fi should focus on the social implications of hypothetical technologies.

iainmerrick 4y ago

Totally agreed. It's a strange vibe because it feels like it wants to be hard SF, but it's really not. Maybe it's something about the translation? It's very Asimov-like, in that the elements where the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions (or human/psychic, human/alien, human/robot, etc) handled in a very rationalist, almost mechanistic way. And also like Asimov, there's super-science stuff (e.g. warp drives in Foundation, time travel in The End of Eternity) that isn't "explained" in any way, it's just part of the setting.

ranger47 4y ago
>the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions During my reading, I thought this was the point. I'm not sure the stories were trying to be in any specific genre, maybe genre-adjacent at best, but the author wanted to focus on what happens to the human and humanity with all this advanced, arguably fantastic tech.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  The story has some rather clear political biases that a lot of people don’t like, and I can’t help but think a lot of the criticism of the series comes from that. The most tyrannical human characters in the book impose their tyrannies for the sake of collectivism, and collectivist authoritarianism comes very close to dooming humanity more than once. I can imagine people who have collectivist political outlooks not liking it at all.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    I don’t see anybody criticising those aspects, though. When people criticise the science or the plot or the characterisation, why not take them at their word?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
elorant 4y ago
Human interaction is terrible. All the characters are flat.
- cooperadymas 4y ago
  I believe the OP means on a grander scale, not individuals. Individuals in the series largely act as if their personalities have been hit by the dual vector foil. But the series is rarely about the individuals. Instead its about exploring how humanity - and aliens - might react to the existence of one another. In this regard I feel Liu created in the reader a vertigo-inducing sensation of depth.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    I actually was thinking about the individuals, but you’re right, he talks about how societies behave too (and that’s more important for the overall themes of the novel). I wasn’t trying to be dismissive, although it’s not entirely my cup of tea; my comparison to Asimov is meant as a compliment.
- perihelions 4y ago
  - "All the characters are flat." Too soon...
  - bananarchist 4y ago
    Too good

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

What is a "meaningful explanation" of technologies we have not yet created and science we have not yet discovered? In the limit, a work of "hard" "science" fiction ends up like a Star Trek episode scenario before the "tech" bits were filled-in - "Captain, the Tech is overteching. We must tech the tech" [1]. I've read the Expanse btw and it wasn't particularly more "hard" or any less made-up than anything else. I don't remember whether I've read the Mars trilogy. _____________ [1] http://www.bryanreesman.com/2009/10/09/captain-picard-the-tech-is-overteching/ http://www.bryanreesman.com/2009/10/09/captain-picard-the-te... In the interest of full disclosure I'm a total trekkie. I even like ST:E (a lot).

EdwardCoffin 4y ago
Isn't this the opposite of hard science fiction? In my mind, hard science fiction is that where the science rules of the setting permeate and constrain the story, rather than being things to fill in. That said, I see more and more that people are accepting an alternative definition of hard science fiction, which is simply a way of distinguishing science fiction that does not involve outright magic from the fantasy/sf that does.
- throwaway17_17 4y ago
  There is another view of the hard/soft sci-fi scale that has gained popularity among younger (i.e. under-30) commentators and reviewers where the scale is from: soft == any and all science things, discussions, or principles are merely set dressings to tell a story; hard == the science is the basis for the work and the consequences, interactions, etc of dealing with or addressing the ‘science things’ is the purpose of the work It’s kind of like saying the scale goes from just telling a story set on a space ship to writing a dissertation on long-haul space flight’s effects on human behaviors, which might have a narrative through line. I am not really sure I even like the premise of this usage of hard/soft sci-fi, I am much more prone to use the possible/impossible technology type of scale when discussing ‘hardness’ of sci-fi, but I don’t get to dictate the usage of language.
  - 4y ago

wjnc 4y ago

By no means disparaging and I'm addicted to the Expanse currently (book 5) - There is _no_ explanation of the technology (protomolecule, drive system, gates) in the books up until yet? Gravity and the Coriolis effect get mentioned a lot, the concept of a rail gun gets some explanation. I would classify Expanse as space opera. There's a lot more science, say, in Andy Weir. I think Andy would have a very hard time explaining the protomolecule.

mavhc 4y ago
Humans in the universe don't know how the protomolecule or the gates work though
- wjnc 4y ago
  And we readers don't know how the Epstein drive works. Hence my conclusion: not hard scifi. The way the story is structured (each chapter a separate voice; most chapters a cliffhanger, like a tv series) and characters and crew are portrayed: space opera, with opera in the way of soap opera or telenovela (great word). I was thinking about why these books gripped me, while usually I get tired quickly of space opera. For me, it's in the quality of the execution. Each book and each chapter gives you direct action via a predictable sequence, while the characters get a little more round each iteration.
  - mavhc 4y ago
    It's a fusion drive

cooperadymas 4y ago

It's quite stellar that readers come away from some of these series with such different notions. Look up lists of the best hard scifi and you'll find the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy, or at least the Three Body Problem, on almost every one. Many readers come away from the first book stunned at how believable the technology feels compared to something like Star Trek or Star Wars. I'll give you that the further the trilogy goes the looser the explanations get, but that's by design. We jump far, far to the end of the universe. How does anyone give a reasonable explanation for billion year advanced technology? On the flipside, in the Expanse, humans are limited by physics and largely modern limitations, sure, but the crux of the story is built around a magical alien molecule for which we are never given an explanation. It's hard scifi to a degree, but no less soft than say, the sophon in ROEP.

ByThyGrace 4y ago
"Hardness" in science fiction is scarcely an academical subject of literature. I personally like Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness [0] but not beyond a thought excercise. If you can, find me a published author stating "I wrote this story strictly in terms of a level 5 in the Mohs scale"; there will be none (unless they're targeting reddit as a reader base). [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SlidingScale/MohsScal...
breuleux 4y ago
TBP's sophon is one of the most blithely nonsensical sci-fi technologies I have ever read. I found it far, far more egregious than the Expanse's magical alien molecule, to the point it put me off reading other books in the trilogy. IMO it disqualifies TBP from the hard sci-fi category entirely, but I admit I might be a bit too worked up about it.
- cooperadymas 4y ago
  Spoilers from the Expanse ahead... The protomolecule turned people into vomit zombies with a collective hive mind that could communicate instantaneously across the solar system and move an asteroid defying all laws of gravity, with the ultimate secret intent of building an interstellar wormhole. Again, in the series (at least early on) humans are quite limited by known constraints and it would easily be considered hard scifi in many regards. But its central conceit was no less blithely nonsensical than that of TBP's - I simply can't understand how someone could put one in the hard category but disqualify the other.

shrx 4y ago

Calling The Expanse "hard sci-fi", especially in comparison to the Three Body Problem, is quite rich.

mdorazio 4y ago
I see this sentiment a lot and don't really understand it. Until the last few books there is a very clear distinction between the human tech (hard SF) and the alien tech (magic). The main story takes place very much within the limits of plausible physics (ships rely on reaction engines and takes weeks to traverse large distances, space combat and weapons are actually realistic, powered armor doesn't keep people safe from inertia, etc.), and then there are magical elements that the characters run up against. Contrast that with Three Body where the main plot driver revolves around FTL communication with indestructible intelligent nano-scale machines that can be anywhere any time, then gets progressively less realistic from there. I did enjoy the thread about the human ships going extra-solar, though, which was closer to Expanse in terms of Hard SF meeting a magical element (+dimensional travel).
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  Yes! What really irked me about The Three Body Problem was the way it blithely introduced faster-than-light communication as a plot point -- a key plot point! -- without any hint of a nod to the fact that this is impossible as far as we currently know. In fact, quite the opposite, the speed of light is taken to be a hard limit elsewhere in the story and that plays a key role too. So which is it? I think it can be okay to invent magical tech in hard SF, if and only if you clearly distinguish the magical bits and work through all the ramifications logically. A great example is the “bobbles” in Vernor Vinge’s The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
  - breuleux 4y ago
    TBP is also very cavalier about basic interactions with energy. To make a sophon, I kid you not, the aliens unfold a proton into a 2D sheet that they wrap around their entire planet. The unfolded proton has the same mass as the folded one (explicitly stated), but far from being invisible, it actually blocks all incoming light from their sun. That's orders of magnitude more energy than it takes to shatter protons in particle accelerators, smashing into the sophon for days on end, and it just... holds together? And then it gets to Earth and can apparently move and fold and unfold on its own and intercept all of our communications (which should also shatter it).

uhtred 4y ago

Interesting. I didn't like The Expanse at all- I thought it read like it had been written from the offset with the intention of it being a Netflix show. It lost me early on, when a character beat up a load of enemies with her jiu jitsu.

tlb 4y ago

Better to have no explanation than a bogus one, which is what it would have to be for things that haven't been invented yet. Sci-fi should focus on the social implications of hypothetical technologies.