Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping
varieties of story to which the label applies...

https://reactormag.com/defining-our-terms-what-do-we-mean-by-hard-sf/
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"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> writes:

On 05/08/2024 11.09, James Nicoll wrote:

Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping
varieties of story to which the label applies...

https://reactormag.com/defining-our-terms-what-do-we-mean-by-hard-sf/

When I say "Hard SF", I mean "a story in which the science, be it right or >wrong, is important to the story. Thus, the Lensmen novels are hard SF, since >inertialess travel, the sunbeam, and passage of Lundmark's Nebula through
the Milky Way having formed the planets of said galaxies, are all important >to the stories. This is so even though we know that none of those are
valid.

Smith just got the name of the nebula incorrect, it was really the
Sagittarious galaxy.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Five_fascinating_Gaia_revelations_about_the_Milky_Way

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James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping varieties of story to which the label applies...

https://reactormag.com/defining-our-terms-what-do-we-mean-by-hard-sf/

"deliberately fudges the science...my least favorite flavor"

I don't mind some of these, as they are literally fictions about science,
but they have to be in the right spirit. One example I can think of
is when the Autarch in tCotA explains how a mass of antimatter iron
negates the weight of the flyer, but the lift diminishes over time due
to leakage of air via the insulation of the wires levitating
the anti-iron in its magnetic bottle. Which is why they stay in the
upper atmosphere until pulled down by a rope.

Elsewhere Wolfe explains that destriers run at, presumably,
a couple of hundred mph, thus allowing cavalry charges against
"high-energy armaments".

Cheers, David Duffy.

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"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> writes:

On 05/08/2024 13.51, Scott Lurndal wrote:

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> writes:

On 05/08/2024 11.09, James Nicoll wrote:

Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

When I say "Hard SF", I mean "a story in which the science, be it right or >>> wrong, is important to the story. Thus, the Lensmen novels are hard SF, since
inertialess travel, the sunbeam, and passage of Lundmark's Nebula through >>> the Milky Way having formed the planets of said galaxies, are all important >>> to the stories. This is so even though we know that none of those are
valid.

Smith just got the name of the nebula incorrect, it was really the
Sagittarious galaxy.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Five_fascinating_Gaia_revelations_about_the_Milky_Way

Interesting article, but if it says that the formation of planets in the >Milky Way was caused by the Sagittarius Galaxy passing through, I can't
find it.

FTA:

The perhaps most curious aspect of Sagittarius' interaction
with the Milky Way was described in a paper published in
the spring of 2020. A team of researchers from the Instituto
de Astroføsica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife, Spain, found
that in the wake of each Sagittarius crash through the Milky
Way's disc, stars formation in the galaxy accelerated. In fact,
one of those periods roughly coincided with the formation of
the Sun and the Solar System some 4.7 billion years ago.

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David Duffy <davidd02@tpg.com.au> wrote:

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping
varieties of story to which the label applies...

https://reactormag.com/defining-our-terms-what-do-we-mean-by-hard-sf/

"deliberately fudges the science...my least favorite flavor"

I don't mind some of these, as they are literally fictions about science,
but they have to be in the right spirit. One example I can think of
is when the Autarch in tCotA explains how a mass of antimatter iron
negates the weight of the flyer, [...]

That's a terrible example, as even in 2011, Villata (arxiv:1103.4937) was writing:

"On the other hand, the idea of antigravity is as old as the discovery of antimatter, and
some authors have argued on the possibility that the gravitational mass of antimatter is neg-
ative (e.g. [10,12???15]), which would imply that matter and antimatter repel each other (but
are both self-attractive). In other cases, it is proposed that antimatter is gravitationally self-
repulsive (e.g. [16, 17]) [...] Since the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe in 1998 (e.g. [18, 19]), some kind of
gravitational repulsion is one of the favorite candidate..."

So, it's more like _here there be dragons_

Cheers, David Duffy.

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On Mon, 5 Aug 2024 13:42:49 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

As far as footnote 2 is concerned, Ray Bradbury has been quoted as saying >that _Singin' in the Rain_ "[...] is a true-blue old-school science fiction >film [...]". See: ><http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/s/singinintherain_se.shtml>

So by that definition would Ray Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder"
(which many say created the term "the butterfly effect") be considered
"Hard SF"?

(I remember back in 2016 when someone called Bradbury prophetic for anticipating Donald Trump in that story...)

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In article <ve1abj9lq6rm1uv2hvi0d5riuu8mgrimdp@4ax.com>,
The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Aug 2024 13:42:49 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

As far as footnote 2 is concerned, Ray Bradbury has been quoted as saying >that _Singin' in the Rain_ "[...] is a true-blue old-school science fiction >film [...]". See: ><http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/s/singinintherain_se.shtml>

So by that definition would Ray Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder"
(which many say created the term "the butterfly effect") be considered
"Hard SF"?

(I remember back in 2016 when someone called Bradbury prophetic for anticipating Donald Trump in that story...)

I believe that Bradbury was thinking of Joe McCarthy when he wrote it
(as did a few other authors in the early 1950s).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. -------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

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