Hard science fiction

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Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most significant writers of hard science fiction

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Poul Anderson, author of Tau Zero, Kyrie and others

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="wolfe1986">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="westfahl1996" /> The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's Islands of Space in the November issue of Astounding Science Fiction.<ref name="jesse2005">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="hartwell2002intro">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="westfahl1996">Template:Cite book</ref> The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences,<ref name="jesse2005b">Template:Cite web)</ref> first appeared in the late 1970s. Though there are examples generally considered as "hard" science fiction such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, built on mathematical sociology,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that while neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy, they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.<ref name="westfahl2008">Template:Cite book</ref>

History

File:Science fiction plus 195312.jpg

Frank R. Paul's cover for the last issue (December 1953) of Science-Fiction Plus<ref>Ashley (2005), p. 381.</ref>

Stories revolving around scientific and technical consistency were written as early as the 1870s with the publication of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in 1870, among other stories. The attention to detail in Verne's work became an inspiration for many future scientists and explorers, although Verne himself denied writing as a scientist or seriously predicting machines and technology of the future.Template:Cn

Hugo Gernsback believed from the beginning of his involvement with science fiction in the 1920s that the stories should be instructive,<ref>Ashley (2000), p. 50.</ref> although it was not long before he found it necessary to print fantastical and unscientific fiction in Amazing Stories to attract readers.<ref>Ashley (2000), p. 54.</ref> During Gernsback's long absence from science fiction (SF) publishing, from 1936 to 1953, the field evolved away from his focus on facts and education.<ref>Ashley (2004), p. 252.</ref><ref name=":0" /> The Golden Age of Science Fiction is generally considered to have started in the late 1930s and lasted until the mid-1940s, bringing with it "a quantum jump in quality, perhaps the greatest in the history of the genre", according to science fiction historians Peter Nicholls and Mike Ashley.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

However, Gernsback's views were unchanged. In his editorial in the first issue of Science-Fiction Plus, he gave his view of the modern SF story: "the fairy tale brand, the weird or fantastic type of what mistakenly masquerades under the name of Science-Fiction today!" and he stated his preference for "truly scientific, prophetic Science-Fiction with the full accent on SCIENCE".<ref name=":0">Lawler (1985), pp. 541–545.</ref> In the same editorial, Gernsback called for patent reform to give science fiction authors the right to create patents for ideas without having patent models because many of their ideas predated the technical progress needed to develop specifications for their ideas. The introduction referenced the numerous prescient technologies described throughout Ralph 124C 41+.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Definition

The heart of the "hard science fiction" designation is the relationship of the science content and attitude to the rest of the narrative, and (for some readers, at least) the "hardness" or rigor of the science itself.<ref name="samuelson1993">Template:Cite journal</ref> One requirement for hard SF is procedural or intentional: a story should try to be accurate, logical, credible and rigorous in its use of current scientific and technical knowledge about which technology, phenomena, scenarios and situations that are practically or theoretically possible. For example, the development of concrete proposals for spaceships, space stations, space missions, and a US space program in the 1950s and 1960s influenced a widespread proliferation of "hard" space stories.<ref name="westfahl993">Template:Cite journal</ref> Later discoveries do not necessarily invalidate the label of hard SF, as evidenced by P. Schuyler Miller, who called Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust hard SF,<ref name="jesse2005" /> and the designation remains valid even though a crucial plot element, the existence of deep pockets of "moondust" in lunar craters, is now known to be incorrect.

There is a degree of flexibility in how far from "real science" a story can stray before it becomes less of a hard SF.<ref name="Westfahl1993CloselyReasoned">Template:Cite journal</ref> Hard science fiction authors only include more controversial devices when the ideas draw from well-known scientific and mathematical principles. In contrast, authors writing softer SF use such devices without a scientific basis (sometimes referred to as "enabling devices", since they allow the story to take place).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Readers of "hard SF" often try to find inaccuracies in stories. For example, a group at MIT concluded that the planet Mesklin in Hal Clement's 1953 novel Mission of Gravity would have had a sharp edge at the equator, and a Florida high school class calculated that in Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld the topsoil would have slid into the seas in a few thousand years.<ref name="westfahl2008"/> Niven fixed these errors in his sequel The Ringworld Engineers, and noted them in the foreword.

Representative works

Photograph of a man sitting in a chair.

Larry Niven, author of Ringworld, "Inconstant Moon", "The Hole Man" and others

Arranged chronologically by publication year.

Anthologies

• David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (eds.), The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994)<ref name="hartwell1997">Template:Cite book</ref>
• David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (eds.), The Hard SF Renaissance: An Anthology (2002)<ref name="hartwell2002" />
• Ben Bova and Eric Choi (eds.), Carbide-Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction (2014)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
• Wade Roush (ed.) Twelve Tomorrows (MIT Press 2018)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Short stories

• Robert Heinlein, The Past Through Tomorrow collection of stories (1939–1962)<ref name=Clayton>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations" (1954)<ref name="hartwell1997" /><ref name="Huntington">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Benford">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gunn">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Poul Anderson, "Kyrie" (1968)<ref name="hartwell1997"/>
• Frederik Pohl, "Day Million" (1971)<ref name="hartwell1997"/>
• Larry Niven, "Inconstant Moon" (1971) and "The Hole Man" (1974)<ref name="hartwell1997"/>
• Greg Bear, "Tangents" (1986)<ref name="hartwell1997"/>
• Geoffrey A. Landis, "A Walk in the Sun" (1991)<ref name="hartwell2002">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Vernor Vinge, "Fast Times at Fairmont High" (2001)<ref name="hartwell2002"/>

Novels

• Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)<ref name=Brin>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity (1953)<ref name="hartwell1997"/>
• Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud (1957)<ref name=Benford/>
• James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)<ref name=Gunn/>
• Jack Vance, The Languages of Pao (1958)<ref name=Gunn/>
• Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust (1961)<ref name="westfahl1996" />
• Stanisław Lem, The Invincible (1963)<ref name="niezwy">Template:Cite web</ref>
• John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Jagged Orbit (1969), The Sheep Look Up (1972), The Shockwave Rider (1975)<ref name=Gunn/>
• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
• Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (1969),<ref name=Brin/> Jurassic Park (1990)
• Larry Niven, Ringworld (1970)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (1970)<ref name=Benford/>
• James Gunn, The Listeners (1972)<ref name=Benford/>
• Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
• Bob Shaw, Orbitsville (1975)<ref name=Gunn/>
• James P. Hogan, The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979)<ref name="westfahl1996" />
• Robert L. Forward, Dragon's Egg (1980)<ref>Template:Cite web Some editions also include a preface by Larry Niven, admitting that "I couldn't have written it; it required too much real physics"</ref> and its sequel Starquake (1985)
• Steven Barnes and Larry Niven, The Descent of Anansi (1982)<ref name=Brin/>
• Carl Sagan, Contact
• Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars trilogy (Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996))<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain (1993)<ref name="hartwell2002"/>
• Charles R. Pellegrino & George Zebrowski, The Killing Star (1995)
• Allen Steele, The Tranquillity Alternative (1996)
• Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder (2002)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Cixin Liu, Remembrance of Earth's Past (trilogy, 2006–2016)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Andy Weir, The Martian (2011),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Project Hail Mary (2021)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Films and TV shows

• Destination Moon (1950)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)<ref name="tor.com">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Andromeda Strain (1971)
• Silent Running (1972)<ref name="tor.com"/>
• Blade Runner (1982)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Abyss (1989)
• Contact (1997)<ref name="tor.com"/>
• Gattaca (1997)<ref name="tor.com"/>
• Primer (2004)<ref name="economictimes">Template:Cite news</ref>
• Moon (2009)<ref name="tor.com"/>
• Europa Report (2013)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Her (2013)<ref name="theportalist">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Gravity (2013)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Ex Machina (2014)<ref name="whatculture">Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Martian (2015)<ref name="theportalist" />
• The Expanse (2015–2022)
• Arrival (2016)
• Ad Astra (2019)
• For All Mankind (2019–present)
• Away (2020)
• Pantheon (2022–2023)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 3 Body Problem (2024–present)

Anime / manga

• Patlabor (1988–present)<ref name="Ruh">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Ghost in the Shell (1989–present)<ref name="Ruh"/>
• Planetes (1999, 2004)<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Rocket Girls (2007)Template:Citation needed
• Revisions (2018–2019)
• Space Brothers/Uchuu Kyoudai (2007–present, 2012–2014)Template:Citation needed

Video games

• Marathon (1994)
• Policenauts (1994)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Kerbal Space Program (2015)
• Terra Invicta (2022)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Hard fantasy
• Hypothetical technology
• Mundane science fiction
• Techno-thriller

Further reading

• On Hard Science Fiction: A Bibliography, originally published in Science Fiction Studies #60 (July 1993).
• David G. Hartwell, "Hard Science Fiction", Introduction to The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Science Fiction, 1994, Template:ISBN
• Kathryn Cramer's chapter on hard science fiction in The Cambridge Companion to SF, ed. Farah Mendlesohn & Edward James.
• Template:Cite book
• A Political History of SF by Eric Raymond
• The Science in Science Fiction by Brian Stableford, David Langford, & Peter Nicholls (1982)
• David N. Samuelson, "Hard SF", pp. 194–200, The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, 2009.

External links

• Hard Science Fiction Exclusive Interviews
• Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics: A Topical Index Template:Webarchive
• The Ascent of Wonder by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer. Story notes and introductions.
• The Ten Best Hard Science Fiction Books of all Time Template:Webarchive, selected by the editors of MIT's Technology Review, 2011
• "Low-Level Science fiction: Sci-fi with hard science and a literary slant"
• Hard SF at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction