The Definition of Science Fiction

Ooh, how about Cyberpunk and Steampunk?

There are so many sub-genres and movements. Wikipedia has some of them if you care to nitpick the specifics. Once upon a time I found a really nice list of sub-genres but I lost the bookmark ages ago.

At some point, my brain went Nnnnnnng at the thought of trying to classify by sub-genre and gave up.

I see hard SF as being 'about' the science, whereas soft SF has it as a backdrop to exploring human responses to the future. Note however that the extrapolation in 'soft' must still be rigorous according to what we know. If you're making up new rules of physics*, you've got Fantasy (of which Space Opera is a subgenre). Note also I consider fields like anthropology, sociology and psychology hard science for the purposes of this definition.




* I don't mean finding ways around our current rules (FTL in an otherwise rigorous story), I mean proposing totally different schemes of metaphysics, such as having a magic system (hello, Force!). Bester's Stars my Destination is a difficult one to categorise, because even though jaunting is obviously not based in our current understanding of the universe, it's not really treated as magic and the extrapolation to wider society is rigourous. Maybe there's call for a Sci-fantasy category.

Someone gave a a difference between sci-fi and fantasy as looked at from the conflict angle. Conflicts solved by logical extrapolation from the basic laws is sci-fi; conflicts solved by emotion and "will" are fantasy.

By that, space opera could be seen as fantasy hiding in a futuristic setting.

Hard SF definitely tends towards the first paradigm(usage?).

Hard vs. soft would then follow albedo's definition.

To me, hard sci fi is a story where the science is the focus. The plot revolves around that science and explaining it are key elements. The people aspect is secondary, or even non-existant to the plot.

Soft science fiction deals with the human side of how science affects our lives. The science isn't critical, it's what that science has done that matters.

Space Opera is sci fi that could be fantasy if you swapped out portals for space ships and magic for laser guns. The setting is the science fiction part, not the story. That could be set anywhere. Even the old west if you used wagons for space ships and Colt 45s for lasers.

It is what I say it is.

Smiling Ted, I must admit that your definitions nearly parallel mine. Thus, I feel you've done a good job.

Obviously, others will disagree.

Whereas I was taught (back in the misty depths of time--1970's) that Hard SF based itself on the "hard" sciences (engineering, mathematics, astrophysics, physics. etc) and Soft SF based itself on the "soft" sciences (psychology, anthropology, etc).

By Ted's definition, the story Ringworld by Larry Niven would be soft SF (or perhaps even Fantasy). The material "scrith" from which the ring is built is, according to Niven, an impossibility. The forces the ring must withstand are greater than molecular bonds.

Yet I betcha everyone who's read it would agree it's a hard SF story.

Even worse, a ringworld "orbiting" a star in such a manner is inherently unstable - one edge will eventually fall into the star. This was such a severe problem that he wrote a whole novel as a sequel, "The Ringworld Engineers," to "fix" it. So maybe the sequel was a "harder" SF story than the original.

And as far as I know, there's no SF that's really "all about the science," though it's often a substantial portion of "hard SF" stories - I see the essence of SF being how a change in science or technology (in any time period, past, present or future, thus including "retro-SF" subgenres such as Steampunk), affects one or more people (or other sentient beings) in the story.

And now that DelaneyLee gives his distinction between hard and soft, I recall that from decades ago too. But then over long periods of time, a "soft science" can become a hard science, such as alchemy becoming chemistry.

Pthom said:

By Ted's definition, the story Ringworld by Larry Niven would be soft SF (or perhaps even Fantasy). The material "scrith" from which the ring is built is, according to Niven, an impossibility. The forces the ring must withstand are greater than molecular bonds.

Yet I betcha everyone who's read it would agree it's a hard SF story.

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You'd lose that bet.

SPMiller said:

You'd lose that bet.

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oh?

Pthom said:

oh?

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Oh.

Then it appears my NaNoWriMo book will be "Space Opera" by these definitions. I'm OK with that.

Bob Shaw had a very strict idea of what comprised SF. In his opinion if you could take away all the spaceships and FTL and ray guns and aliens etc, and you can still tell the story, then it's not SF. If you can tell the story equally well in another genre - western, fantasy, adventure, then it's not SF. His short story 'Light of Other Days' is a nice example.

Remember when Wu finds the mountain, that was formed by an asteroid or comet or something, striking the ring from the outside, deforming the scrith into a mountain many times taller than Everest?

Damn fine reading, but pure bolognium.

I like bolognium. SF depends on it.

Yeah, I would say "hard" science fiction is more determined by scientific rigor and focus on scientific justification for technology in the story. That doesn't even necessarily mean that the things in the story are possible given our current understanding of science, or that the technology is anywhere close to what we can build today. It just means that the author puts a lot of effort into explaining the science and making it seem plausible.

Soft science fiction is happy just to say "this is how things are, now let's get to the good stuff." (Meaning characters, action, society, or whatever the soft science fiction author cares about that isn't technology.)

Dgullen said:

Bob Shaw had a very strict idea of what comprised SF. In his opinion if you could take away all the spaceships and FTL and ray guns and aliens etc, and you can still tell the story, then it's not SF. If you can tell the story equally well in another genre - western, fantasy, adventure, then it's not SF. His short story 'Light of Other Days' is a nice example.

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I believe this as well, to an extent (and the same is true for fantasy). I wouldn't go so far as to say that a story which could change settings and still work is not part of the genre, but I would question why it needed to be written in the genre. Science fiction and fantasy are hard work. Why go to all that pesky trouble of worldbuilding and exposition and making strange things seem plausible if you're just going to tell a story that could be set anywhere?

ahhhh i thought it was a space opera awww now im confuseded again.

it seems space opera is a story where the science is a back drop, but it has a good real part with my story... it affects things and stuff changes because of it.

like stuff that used to be done with magic starts being done with science, in fact only a few even study magic at the end. the science is a real part of the story not just a back drop.

awww where do i fit?