Re: Hard Sci-fi?

Tue Sorensen <sorensonian@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Star Trek included. Star Trek
> features a lot of imagined physical phenomena ("anomalies" - a new one
> every week!), but they virtually always save the day by being
> rigorously rational, and having confidence in their scientific
> knowledge. Star Trek actually presents an amazingly scientific world
> view, most of the time, 

   I'm curious how you define 'scientific worldview', because I wouldn't
have said that Star Trek represents one.  I'm not even sure you can say 
that Star Trek has a logical worldview, because the illogical humans 
always win and usually by sheer luck.

> So that's my view: a scientific *attitude* is even more important that
> featuring specifically scientific (technological, mathematical,
> whatever) content. So for me the entire hard and soft categories are
> extremely fuzzy. I guess I would describe sci-fi with a poor
> scientific attitude and/or poor scientific content as "soft". This
> would include time-travel and other silliness, which is blatantly
> disregarding basic scientific tenets and hence often ought to be
> described as fantasy.

   See, this is the kind of definition with which I cannot agree.  It
categorizes _The Compleat Enchanter_ and _Perdido Street Station_ as
hard sci-fi, because the characters in those stories deduce and follow
strict logical rules about how their magic works.  I don't care if you
have a story-consistent reason for allowing a character to fly whenever
he's in danger -- that's *not* science fiction.

   The attitudes of the characters are not what separates 'hard' and 
'soft' sci-fi stories, to me.  It's the attitude of the author that 
matters.  Authors either say, "Accept this and I will tell you a story",
or "Here's what could happen and I'll tell you how and why."  Those
are the defining differences, IMHO.

....                                                                  ... 
Remus Shepherd <remus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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