: Remus Shepherd <remus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
: For what it's worth, I've been using the following definitions:
:
: Fantasy assumes that the reader will suspend disbelief when presented
: with common tropes. ("Okay, it's an elf with a magic sword.")
:
: Soft science fiction uses established sci-fi tropes to create
: suspension of disbelief in the reader. ("So he looks like an elf
because
: of genetic manipulation. Okay, I'll buy that.") Where the tropes do
not
: exist, 'soft' science fiction makes no attempt to explain them. ("And
: the sword has computer-aided swinging action? Um, all right.")
:
: Hard science fiction works hard to suspend disbelief in the reader,
: working from scientific principles that we know are true today.
: ("The pointy ears are chimeric cartilage, altered in utero by that sect
of
: star-trek worshipping wackjobs that he grew up in. And the sword uses
: liquid gallium-filled chambers, controlled by magnetic actuators that
: enhance balance and increase the power of any swing. Cool!")
:
: To summarize: Hard science fiction earns every ounce of disbelief it
: gets. Fantasy relies on the readers to be willing participants in the
: suspension of disbelief. And soft science fiction falls in between,
relying
: on the fact that previous sci-fi stories have recognizable components
that
: readers will latch onto if given the chance.
That's an interesting model, but it doesn't seem to cover some very
important areas. Such as Brian Sanderson's "Mistborn" setting, where he's
not relying on common tropes, or things like the 30s superscience epics,
or even, say, Vinge's Zones of Thought, or even Asimov's positronic
brains, where the sometimes-fairly-extensive explanations that are
given aren't based on "scientific principles we know are true today".
Or cases like Niven's Magic Goes Away, or Swann's Broken Crescent, or
Cook's Wizard's Bane, where lots of explanation goes into supporting
relatively traditional tropes.
Basically it seems to be a simple linear spectrum drawn through a much
more
complex and oddly connected "space" of
tropes/techniques/expectations/whatnot.
In some ways, for some purposes, a two-dimentional surface may be a better
approximation, where "hardness" refers to how much thought (though not
necessarily exposition) goes into keeping things recognizably consistent,
and oh, call it "rational", and "fantasy/SF" refers to choice of tropes.
Hence, Sanderson and/or Swann's works mentioned above could be
termed "hard fantasy".
Wayne Throop throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://sheol.org/throopw
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