Soft vs. hard science fiction (definitions)

[iansales]

More like the writer doesn't think of it as SF (which leads it not to be marketed as SF) but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

True. But the distinctions tend to mean more if you're a twitcher...

 

[Vladd67]

Mind you both JK Rowling and Goodkind both claim they didn't write fantasy, I suspect some writers who normally don't write sci fi don't like to admit that a book they have written is sci fi as it might harm their non sci fi sales.

 

[Parson]

Traditionally, hard sf referred to the physical sciences - physics, chemistry, etc.; while soft sf referred to the "softer" sciences - anthropology, psychology, etc. AFAIK, that definition has not changed, although people's uses of the terms might have.

By this definition "Pushing Ice" would be soft SF, and "Tom Swift and His Megascopic Spaceship" would be hard SF. I refuse to buy that definition.


Also you sent me to google all your acronyms and then "twitcher" do you really mean that as a person who looks for all kinds of birds?

 

[iansales]

Why would Pushing Ice be soft sf? It's got physics and tech and rocketry and cosmology in it. Le Guin is an example of soft sf.

And yes, I did mean a bird-watcher

 

[The_African]

Science fiction might include "The Island of Dr Moreau" and I personally would allocate "Jurassic Park" as a sci fi book. In both cases, there are ethical questions raised when science is made into a venture and a departure from the main stream.

Now was "Frankenstein" a sci fi book? It more or less is, but it isn't I don't think. It is no longer able to hold water as having the presence of science in any believable form, so now it is fantasy along with "Herbert West - Reanimator". They are still good stories.

I haven't read Frankenstein but why shouldn't it be considered science fiction if, in the context of the story, the fantastical events are explainable and natural and not supernatural?

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.[1] The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller, book reviewer for Astounding Science Fiction.[2] The complementary term, soft science fiction (a back formation that first appeared in the late 1970s[3]) by contrast highlights into science fiction in which science is never featured, or the science is incorrect or made-up. The term sometimes also contrasts the “hardness” of the sciences used in the story: the “hard” sciences are quantitative or material-based disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, & astronomy; while the more “soft” sciences are social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, or psychology. (Stories featuring engineering tend into be categorized as hard SF, although technically engineering is never a science.). Neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy — instead they are rule-of-thumb ways of characterizing stories that reviewers & commentators have found useful. The categorization “hard SF” represents a position on a scale from “softer” into “harder”, never a binary classification.

whats the difference between soft science fiction and hard science fiction?

I like this definition and I also prefer soft science fiction. The more unrealistic, the better, but I would prefer there to be a natural explanation for the unrealistic events. Or maybe I just can't stand dwarves, elves, old English narration etc. Would the Martian trilogy by Kim Robinson be considered hard sci-fi?

 

[iansales]

I've never heard "soft sf" used to refer to stories in which "the science is incorrect or made-up". For a start that would mean, well, pretty much 99% of sf is "soft sf".

 

[Parson]

Why would Pushing Ice be soft sf? It's got physics and tech and rocketry and cosmology in it. Le Guin is an example of soft sf.

And yes, I did mean a bird-watcher

Pushing Ice does indeed have all you say, but by far the most important thing that drives the story is the interpersonal relationships, so much so I'd almost forgotten the former. For me those relationships were the real depressing factor about the book. People who should have united to face the herculean task they were facing instead spent an inordinate amount of time pursuing petty grievances.

 

[iansales]

All fiction, sf or otherwise, features interpersonal relationships. That doesn't mean they're based on the sciences of sociology or anthropology. Pushing Ice is very definitely hard sf.

 

[Tinsel]

Science Fiction stories that spark controversy provide for great fiction. I have not noticed anything since "Jurassic Park" that had me wondering about the possibilities of some area of science.

You would think that some cutting edge science would benefit from the attention that fiction might produce or even enlighten.

 

[J Riff]

Jurassic Park is, to be fair, a bit glib on the science front, and so was a Nano-particle Creighton novel I read recently. He has a knack for keeping the action up, and dripping in just enough tech.
"Look Frog DNA!...aand now- Dinosaurs!" Perfect, well-researched, looks good, reads good, totally wrong and impossible.
Andromeda Strain...explains nothing. The germs just change, mutate and fade away. Hard to think of this as hard or soft SF, it's more like good adventure, action writing with just enough science to keep it believable to the average viewer or reader, not just SFF fans.

 

[Parson]

All fiction, sf or otherwise, features interpersonal relationships. That doesn't mean they're based on the sciences of sociology or anthropology. Pushing Ice is very definitely hard sf.

I would definitely agree, but I'm not sure it passes the test that was set down in the "emphasizes the hard sciences" definition.

Traditionally, hard sf referred to the physical sciences - physics, chemistry, etc.; while soft sf referred to the "softer" sciences - anthropology, psychology, etc.

I was making the point that there needed to be something more? different? better? as a definition than that. I'm tempted to resort to the line: "I can't define the difference, but I know it when I see it." I won't, but it is tempting.

 

[iansales]

Have you read The Telling by Ursula K LeGuin? Or her The Left Hand of Darkness? Or The Dispossessed? They're pretty much exemplar soft sf. They're explorations of other cultures. A lot of Vance could, I suppose, also be described as soft sf - The Languages of Pao, for instance, which takes as its central conceit the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis.

 

[Fried Egg]

Other examples of (good) soft SF:

"A Time of Changes" by Robert Silverberg
"More than Human" by Theodore Sturgeon
"A Scanner Darkley" by Philip K. Dick

 

[Parson]

Have you read The Telling by Ursula K LeGuin? Or her The Left Hand of Darkness? Or The Dispossessed? They're pretty much exemplar soft sf. They're explorations of other cultures. A lot of Vance could, I suppose, also be described as soft sf - The Languages of Pao, for instance, which takes as its central conceit the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis.

I have read The Left Hand of Darkness or another soft SF The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon would fit the debated definition. But what about things like On Baslisk Station by David Weber. My sense is that it would be soft SF, but it certainly has more than its share of Physics etc. Basically I want to draw the line with books that don't break the "laws" of Physics, like FTL, ESP or operative magic are Hard SF while others are Soft SF.

 

[iansales]

You can define hard and soft however you like. Just don't expect other people to know what you're talking about when you use your own private definitions

Given that most sf involves some form of literary device - AI, FTL, time travel, etc. - that "breaks" the laws of physics, that would make the genre a bit heavy on the soft side. You'd be better off to stick to the accepted definitions.

 

[Parson]

I would say that almost all of SF is "soft." It's more about "fiction" than "science." Not that I'm complaining. I really like SF and a lot of what I would call "hard" SF is downright hard to comprehend without the appropriate engineering degree.

Even accepting our debated definition it is not easy to quantify what is what. For example, the original Foundation trilogy, where would you put that?

 

[Fried Egg]

Even accepting our debated definition it is not easy to quantify what is what. For example, the original Foundation trilogy, where would you put that?

I would put that very much in the "soft" SF category as it is predominately social themes it is concerned with. Not exclusively by any means but definitely in the main. Although I guess it's possible that a book could be both "hard" and "soft"...

 

[Ursa major]

I think a link to the site, Grading Science Fiction for Realism, was posted somewhere on the Chrons.

It seems to use the same sort categorisation about which Parson was posting, i.e. the degree to which the science veers away from what we know can or may work.

 

[Parson]

Ursa, Great site. This is exactly what I was aiming at, but would never have taken the time or trouble to sort it out. Thanks!!

 

[The_African]

Wrong thread.