thumb|alt=Photograph of a man sitting in a chair.|[[Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most significant writers of hard science fiction]]

thumb|alt=Black and white photograph of a man, in the foreground, sitting at a table.|[[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. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences, 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, 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.

History

thumb|[[Frank R. Paul's cover for the last issue (December 1953) of Science-Fiction Plus|left]]

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.

Hugo Gernsback believed from the beginning of his involvement with science fiction in the 1920s that the stories should be instructive, although it was not long before he found it necessary to print fantastical and unscientific fiction in Amazing Stories to attract readers. 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.

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". 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+.

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. 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.

Academic Jessica Imbach defines hard science fiction as that which "adheres generally to the known physical laws of the universe and abstains from the use of magic, although this does not necessarily mean that its futuristic scenarios are more 'realistic' than other forms of science fiction and fantasy."

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, 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).

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.

  • David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (eds.), The Hard SF Renaissance: An Anthology (2002)
  • Michael Brotherton (ed.) Science Fiction by Scientists (Springer, 2017)
  • Wade Roush (ed.) Twelve Tomorrows (MIT Press 2018)

Short stories

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Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space (2000): No major writer

The "I, Robot stories", by Isaac Asimov, is not representative, a single story or "hard" science fiction

...in order to prevent history from repeating. -->

  • Robert Heinlein, The Past Through Tomorrow collection of stories (1939–1962)
  • Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations" (1954)
  • Poul Anderson, "Kyrie" (1968)
  • Vernor Vinge, "Fast Times at Fairmont High" (2001)
  • Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity (1953)
  • John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Jagged Orbit (1969), The Sheep Look Up (1972), The Shockwave Rider (1975)
  • Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (1970) and its sequel Starquake (1985)
  • Steven Barnes and Larry Niven, The Descent of Anansi (1982) The Ministry for the Future (2020)
  • Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain (1993)
  • Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005)
  • Cixin Liu, Remembrance of Earth's Past (trilogy, 2006–2016)
  • Andy Weir, The Martian (2011), Project Hail Mary (2021)

Films

  • Destination Moon (1950)
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
  • Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
  • The Andromeda Strain (1971)
  • Silent Running (1972)
  • Blade Runner (1982)
  • The Abyss (1989)
  • Contact (1997)
  • Moon (2009)
  • Her (2013)
  • Gravity (2013)
  • Ex Machina (2014)
  • Interstellar (2014)
  • The Martian (2015)
  • For All Mankind (2019–present)
  • Away (2020)
  • Pantheon (2022–2023)
  • 3 Body Problem (2024–present)

Anime / manga / comics

  • Destination Moon (1953)
  • Explorers on the Moon (1954)
  • Patlabor (1988–present)
  • Ghost in the Shell (1989–present)
  • Rocket Girls (2007)
  • Revisions (2018–2019)
  • Space Brothers/Uchuu Kyoudai (2007–present, 2012–2014)

Video games

  • Marathon (1994)
  • Policenauts (1994)
  • Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)
  • Orbiter (2000)
  • SpaceEngine (2010)
  • Universe Sandbox (2014)
  • Kerbal Space Program (2015)
  • SOMA (2015)
  • Hardspace: Shipbreaker (2022)
  • The Invincible (2023)
  • ΔV: Rings Of Saturn (2023)
  • The Alters (2025)
  • Terra Invicta (2026)

See also

  • Hypothetical technology, technology that does not yet exist but whose development is theoretically possible.
  • Mundane science fiction, a subgenre focusing on believable technology and plausible scientific scenarios set on Earth or within the solar system.
  • Techno-thriller, a hybrid genre that emphasizes technical details, particularly regarding military, political, or computer systems.
  • Rationalist fiction, a subgenre focused on logical consistency and the application of the scientific method.

References

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,
  • Kathryn Cramer's chapter on hard science fiction in The Cambridge Companion to SF, ed. Farah Mendlesohn & Edward James.
  • 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.&nbsp;194–200, The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, 2009.
  • Hard Science Fiction Exclusive Interviews
  • The Ascent of Wonder by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer. Story notes and introductions.
  • The Ten Best Hard Science Fiction Books of all Time , 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

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