Re: Hard Sci-fi?

throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Wayne Throop) wrote in
news:1208894549@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

>: Remus Shepherd <remus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>:   You left out L. Sprague de Camp's Compleat Enchanter series,
>:   where magic 
>: is explained with well-defined rules and logical outcomes.  In
>: my opinion it doesn't matter.  It's still magic, still 'soft',
>: no matter how detailed and baroque the description, if it is
>: based on principals that are provably absent in our universe.
> 
> Yes, but what you *said* was, the tropes are left unexplained. 
> Further, even if you take it to mean "tropes obviously not
> intended to be taken the least bit seriously", calling that
> "fantasy" is far too coarse, since it includes lensmen, skylark,
> zones of thought, positronic brains, warshawski sails, and lots
> of other things, which are certainly not reasonably "fantasy" in
> any normal sense. 

They certainly aren't science fiction in any normal sense, either. 
Perhaps that's why we have a term for "science fantasy." To cover 
stuff that's clearly fantasy, but has a futuristic, techno theme to 
it.

-- 
Terry Austin

"There's no law west of the internet."
    - Nick Stump

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