I Started Up a New LiveJournal
I just started up a new LiveJournal mediacentric. I'm using it to post all media related stuff like about fantasy/sci-fi books, movies, adventure games. I'm leaving all the personal stuff out. It's basically a blog for my obsessions I guess. I'm still going to post about that stuff here. I just felt it would be nice to have a separate non-personal journal. So feel free to add this new one to your friends list if you want.
Cross posted from mediacentric
I may still be new to the sci-fi genre, but I'm still trying to work out what the difference is between hard sf and soft sf. At least, I know that hard sf is usually based on science. According to Wikipedia, it defines hard sf as "characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both." Ok, I get that, but what little sci-fi I've read that falls into this category, is yes science based, but sometimes I wonder how plausible or accurate the technology really is. After all, we definitely don't have the technology for say, a warp drive, and it certainly might have to bend the laws of physics if we were to attain one. So can this sort of technology in the subgenre hard sf, really be considered "hard" if it's not currently plausible? All right, so I understand maybe in 300+ years we might have the technology to build a warp drive. The thing is, in the science fiction I've read, the technology seems to have come out of nowhere, or is not really based on real science, yet these books might still be considered "hard sf." IMO they might as well fall into the category soft sf, or "a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story." So basically soft sf is more based on how science affects society and culture. I guess you could really have a science-fiction book with both the hard and the soft elements.
Anyway, the point is I don't know how some science fiction is labeled as "hard" when it's not based in the realms of possibility, at least in our current time period and our universal laws. I agree with this bit from Wikipedia: "In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Peter Nicholls writes that "soft SF" is a "not very precise item of sf terminology" and that the contrast between hard and soft is "sometimes illogical."[
Cross posted from mediacentric
I may still be new to the sci-fi genre, but I'm still trying to work out what the difference is between hard sf and soft sf. At least, I know that hard sf is usually based on science. According to Wikipedia, it defines hard sf as "characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both." Ok, I get that, but what little sci-fi I've read that falls into this category, is yes science based, but sometimes I wonder how plausible or accurate the technology really is. After all, we definitely don't have the technology for say, a warp drive, and it certainly might have to bend the laws of physics if we were to attain one. So can this sort of technology in the subgenre hard sf, really be considered "hard" if it's not currently plausible? All right, so I understand maybe in 300+ years we might have the technology to build a warp drive. The thing is, in the science fiction I've read, the technology seems to have come out of nowhere, or is not really based on real science, yet these books might still be considered "hard sf." IMO they might as well fall into the category soft sf, or "a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story." So basically soft sf is more based on how science affects society and culture. I guess you could really have a science-fiction book with both the hard and the soft elements.
Anyway, the point is I don't know how some science fiction is labeled as "hard" when it's not based in the realms of possibility, at least in our current time period and our universal laws. I agree with this bit from Wikipedia: "In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Peter Nicholls writes that "soft SF" is a "not very precise item of sf terminology" and that the contrast between hard and soft is "sometimes illogical."[