Is hard SF dead?

I'm with you. I have a very strict definition of what hard sf is, and therefore don't even consider some of the authors you listed to have been hard.

About the time people finally accepted flying cars are a silly concept, sf died.

I don't know about a lessening of publishing such stories, and I can only speak for myself, but I love hard sf. I would love to see some good new stuff come out.

The problem with "hard" sci-fi is that, as I've tried to argue somewhat in the "realistic space battles" thread, is that authors try so hard to make the story 100% scientifically accurate, that it's 0% entertaining. No one's going to walk into Waldenbooks and plunk down ten bucks for a novel that reads like their high school physics textbook.

There are good hard-sci fi authors out there, but yeah, publishers aren't looking for hard science. They're looking for a good read.

Hard sci-fi unfortunately is a rare breed. It's kind of sad.

I think the biggest hurdle is that hard science fiction requires the reader to be at least a little bit science literate. Other types of stories don't have that kind of obstacle, and I think that's what makes it a harder sell.

People don't want to think, they just want to be entertained.

Here's an example. Watch the movie "Primer". It's about two engineers who build a time machine, and start to run into problems with causality when one of them starts using the machine to try to change his past too much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

This is an amazing movie, I thought, and was just fascinating because it portrayed time travel(the singular timeline variety, not alternate universe) so accurately. It really did show how screwed up things could get if people had that kind of power. It's dense as hell, and it's hard for the non-sciency/engineering folk to follow, but I thought it was amazing. Sure the exact means of building the time machine are never explained, but the effects of tampering with the timeline are so realistic(no back to the future nonsense here), and the questions it raises so interesting, that I've got to say it's one of the cooler science fiction movies I've ever seen.

I'm running up against some brick walls with a science-based thriller right now. It's definitely Crichton-esque in execution and style. I stopped writing SF entirely, because of the very few markets that were receptive to it (at least my agent expressed hardships in this area).
Greg Bear is very good at it, as is some other brand-name SF writers. But I do belieive they have this genre pretty much filled up, and there really isn't a lot buying going on here. It's so true that all I've been seeing in Publishers Lunch (deals) have been fantasy and paranormal romance, with an occassional historical or biography.

Wish I had better news for hard SF, but honestly, I haven't seen it and don't know what to tell you. As far as the shorty market, I think it's going great guns. Not so much for novels.

Tri

Dommo said:

Here's an example. Watch the movie "Primer". It's about two engineers who build a time machine, and start to run into problems with causality when one of them starts using the machine to try to change his past too much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

This is an amazing movie, I thought, and was just fascinating because it portrayed time travel(the singular timeline variety, not alternate universe) so accurately. It really did show how screwed up things could get if people had that kind of power. It's dense as hell, and it's hard for the non-sciency/engineering folk to follow, but I thought it was amazing. Sure the exact means of building the time machine are never explained, but the effects of tampering with the timeline are so realistic(no back to the future nonsense here), and the questions it raises so interesting, that I've got to say it's one of the cooler science fiction movies I've ever seen.

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A great little movie no one knows about. Filmed in/around my home town in the Dallas area. Includes scenes from the uni I was attending at the time. It was a fun watch with buddies trying to pick out all the locations.

I wonder if, with the growing pervasiveness of technology in our lives, the idea of "hard" sci-fi seems then almost too threatening? Too much the shadow hovering over us? Perhaps it's a trend that speaks less to our entertainment needs, and more to our deep-seated fears?

Just a thought.

SPMiller said:

A great little movie no one knows about. Filmed in/around my home town in the Dallas area. Includes scenes from the uni I was attending at the time. It was a fun watch with buddies trying to pick out all the locations.

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I heard great things about this movie and hired it. I couldn't get the disc to work past a certain point in the story. So I returned it and got the store's other copy. It screwed up in the exact same spot. Maybe a causality violation has caused that movie to cease to exist in my personal time line.

Albedo said:

I heard great things about this movie and hired it. I couldn't get the disc to work past a certain point in the story. So I returned it and got the store's other copy. It screwed up in the exact same spot. Maybe a causality violation has caused that movie to cease to exist in my personal time line.

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Is this the one where they have to stay in like a mini-storage unit during the times they're already in that time moment, so as to not run into each other?

payitforward said:

I wonder if, with the growing pervasiveness of technology in our lives, the idea of "hard" sci-fi seems then almost too threatening? Too much the shadow hovering over us? Perhaps it's a trend that speaks less to our entertainment needs, and more to our deep-seated fears?

Just a thought.

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It could be that science has advanced so fast and so far, it's too challenging to see what could come next.

dclary said:

Is this the one where they have to stay in like a mini-storage unit during the times they're already in that time moment, so as to not run into each other?

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That'd be the one.

Read some Alistair Reynolds.

No, it's not dead. Like any subgenre, it's in its own little recession while other spec fics are selling like gangbusters. It'll come back. And while it isn't as mainstream-popular as it once was, it makes it more difficult for a new author to break out in that genre. I know it's not advice folks like to hear, but it may be worthwhile to write something in a subgenre that's more popular, get established as a writer, and then try to sell what's currently a hard sell.

YMMV.

Dommo said:

I think the biggest hurdle is that hard science fiction requires the reader to be at least a little bit science literate. Other types of stories don't have that kind of obstacle, and I think that's what makes it a harder sell.

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We live in a world in which people build "museums" where they explain how Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church. I hope the majority is not that ignorant, but still.

People don't want to think, they just want to be entertained.

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That would also explain why TV has yet to live up to some of the expectations one might have in such a technology.

Here's an example. Watch the movie "Primer". It's about two engineers who build a time machine, and start to run into problems with causality when one of them starts using the machine to try to change his past too much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

This is an amazing movie, I thought, and was just fascinating because it portrayed time travel(the singular timeline variety, not alternate universe) so accurately. It really did show how screwed up things could get if people had that kind of power. It's dense as hell, and it's hard for the non-sciency/engineering folk to follow, but I thought it was amazing. Sure the exact means of building the time machine are never explained, but the effects of tampering with the timeline are so realistic(no back to the future nonsense here), and the questions it raises so interesting, that I've got to say it's one of the cooler science fiction movies I've ever seen.

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I agree, that is definitely one of my favourite SF movies. I loved how they never really explained things, it was only the engineers talking to each other and not to us in the audience. I was hooked from the first scene.

Dommo said:

People don't want to think, they just want to be entertained.

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Sorry, but this is just another way to insult all readers in one fell swoop.

I consider myself a person, and the best books I've read are the ones that BOTH entertain and make me think. It doesn't have to be intense, scientific theory-based thinking. It can be as simple as making me question something about myself, or about my attitude. It can make me go "oh, I never thought of that."

As writers, our challenge is to write books that do both. Yes, there is a market for books that are so science minded and challenging that the average reader's head will explode. But that market is small and it's hard to break into. There is also a market for books no more challenging that a five-piece jigsaw puzzle, but you know? It's tough to break into that market, too.

Dommo said:

I think the biggest hurdle is that hard science fiction requires the reader to be at least a little bit science literate. Other types of stories don't have that kind of obstacle, and I think that's what makes it a harder sell.

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You don't have to be science literate. Think of it like a really well researched period piece set in Victorian England -- those historians (amateur and professional) who know a lot about that era will be able to enjoy the book both for the story and for the verisimilitude, but you don't have to be a historian or even know much of anything about England to enjoy the book (assuming it also has a good story and good characters).

People don't want to think, they just want to be entertained.

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I disagree -- I think sometimes people just want to be entertained, and sometimes they want to think, and most of the time they want to be entertained in a manner that doesn't penalize them if they think.

Here's an example. Watch the movie "Primer". It's about two engineers who build a time machine, and start to run into problems with causality when one of them starts using the machine to try to change his past too much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

This is an amazing movie, I thought, and was just fascinating because it portrayed time travel(the singular timeline variety, not alternate universe) so accurately. It really did show how screwed up things could get if people had that kind of power. It's dense as hell, and it's hard for the non-sciency/engineering folk to follow, but I thought it was amazing. Sure the exact means of building the time machine are never explained, but the effects of tampering with the timeline are so realistic(no back to the future nonsense here), and the questions it raises so interesting, that I've got to say it's one of the cooler science fiction movies I've ever seen.

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That is indeed a good movie, though I think of it more as a puzzle or brain-teaser that happens to be in movie form. You don't need to compel your audience to use charts and an easel (or crack open a physics textbook) to figure out the plot in order to write hard scifi. To write hard scifi you just need to set your story in a universe that is plausibly similar to ours, in that it seems to have the same laws of physics.

Question asked: "Is hard SF dead?"

Badducky checks to make sure Nancy Kress is still alive... Yup. She's still alive.

Answer: No, hard SF is not dead. DOGS out this year by Nancy Kress via Tachyon was as good as it gets, Hard SF-wise, btw.

Analog is still going strong as ever, and they are mostly hard sci-fi. Why not try submitting some work to them and making a name for yourself in the hard sci-fi market?

Hard SF milks emerging science for its entertainment -- especially applied science -- and there's only so much entertainment-value in each generation of applied science.

Hard SF also needs characters at frontiers to create story, and different kinds of applied science offer more or less of this. The aeronautics/space developments of the mid 20th century offered a lot of these opportunities; while the bioengineering and informatics developments of the late 20th century offer fewer. But hard SF's loss can be the gain of other genres -- like the technothriller, for instance. And softer SF genres like space opera seem to wax and wane independently.

Hard SF needs new frontiers, or to revisit existing frontiers in new ways. It may slow to a trickle, but it's still coming.

ChaosTitan said:

No, it's not dead. Like any subgenre, it's in its own little recession while other spec fics are selling like gangbusters. It'll come back. And while it isn't as mainstream-popular as it once was, it makes it more difficult for a new author to break out in that genre. I know it's not advice folks like to hear, but it may be worthwhile to write something in a subgenre that's more popular, get established as a writer, and then try to sell what's currently a hard sell.

YMMV.

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This was the advice given to me, and so far it's served me well. I'm not an ambulance chaser, but I do watch trends now, only because I'm peeking over the shoulders of marketing to watch what they're up to and see who and what is selling. I haven't given up on all my SF stories, I've just put them on a back burner for now. Just trying to up my chances with another sub-genre for the break-in plan and hope that the SF can ride its wake if something gets swooped up along the line. I think I've become more analytical about what I'm trying to sell lately, examining the odds and putting myself in the best position for a sale. This wasn't happening three years ago--I was writing whatever I damn well pleased and tossing it out in the world. Problem was, the world was tossing it back just as fast.

Tri

Tri

SPMiller said:

That'd be the one.

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We saw it and really enjoyed it.

Well I'm just stating the truth. Most people don't like thinking about things.

Look at it this way, how many people read the manual to program their VCRs/DVD Players? They're all usually pretty easy to set up IF you read the manual, but most people don't want to put in that little of bit work.

Science fiction is in that same boat, at least the hard variety. If people don't want to put in a little effort to understand some of the plot points, then the story is lost.

Take the movie primer for example. The fact that it REFUSED to dumb down is what made it so fascinating. At no point did they try to explain anything in layman's terms. That's why the movie is one of those "love it" or "hate it" types. The people who find the lack of understanding interesting (the puzzle element to it) get the most out of it, because they actually have to focus on what's going on. The more you pay attention the more you get out of it(hence why movies like Primer and Donny Darko are so popular for multiple viewings). In the same vain, a lot of people hated the movie because they didn't get it, or refused to put any thought into it.

I'll say TV is the same way, as are books. Most of the stuff is targeted to the lowest common denominator in their respective markets(so as to tap the largest possible revenue pool), and unfortunately Hard Sci-fi just doesn't work well like that. You can't dumb it down, and that's what kills it. BUT when a person does get the courage to go balls out, and run with a Hard Sci-fi story it can be so rewarding.

Just looking at movies some of the best science fiction ever made was hard sci-fi. Blade Runner, Gattaca, 2001 Space Odyssey, Children of Men, etc. What all of them had in common, was that they were really thought provoking because the worlds they portrayed, while non-existent, were things that were conceivable. I could see something like 2001 happening in my lifetime, or perhaps that of my children or grandchildren. The stuff talked about in Blade Runner is actually becoming an issue. What does it mean to be human, especially as our science progresses to where we can create synthetic life? This was a far out idea 25 years ago, but now it's reality.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not insulting the intelligence of everyone who doesn't like science fiction, but I'm just stating the truth about people not liking to think about things. People just aren't like that. You wouldn't believe the idiot proofing I have to do in my engineering work, or how I'm asked to help out with something and the problem is that the person didn't read the manual that came with the product. People are lazy in general(myself included), and a story that requires the reader to understand the material is inherently going to be harder to sell regardless of the genre.

I wonder if, with the growing pervasiveness of technology in our lives, the idea of "hard" sci-fi seems then almost too threatening? Too much the shadow hovering over us? Perhaps it's a trend that speaks less to our entertainment needs, and more to our deep-seated fears?

Just a thought.

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I've thought the same thing. Hard sci-fi is unique in that aspect. Historically speaking it's been very accurate, especially when describing ethical dilemmas, and maybe that puts some people off.

Well that was my point.

Hard sci-fi never has, and likely never will have a huge market because the stories aren't so approachable. They require the reader to have some understanding before hand.

I agree I think that the sci-fi market is saturated with crap, but at the same time I think hard sci-fi really is hamstrung by it's very nature. As I said from the get go, publishers are there to make a real profit, and being able to appeal to the largest possible section of a marketplace is the way to go if you're trying to make money. Hard sci-fi just isn't as profitable for a publisher most of the time since the market for it is just a lot smaller than fantasy or softer science fiction.

I mean I love all different genres of books, but I really enjoy hard sci-fi because of its vision. Escapist fantasy is cool, but what really gets my mind churning is seeing a plausible future. Nothing stirs my imagination like good science fiction, and that's because it allows me to see real possibilities. Fantasy can't do that for me. It can't show me what could be in my world, it can only say "what could be in this magical land".

Don't think that I'm a pure science fiction junky, and hate fantasy, but I appreciate them for different reasons, and I understand that epic fantasy will always do better than hard sci-fi simply because of its more approachable nature. Epic fantasy makes the rules as it goes along, hard sci-fi makes the rules as the universe dictates.