This BBC article got me thinking about broad sub-genre classifications in sf. That is "hard" vs. "soft" sf as opposed to the more specific sub-genres of Robots, Time Travel, Cloning, etc. It's interesting that the article states that soft sf tends to be more character driven, but I disagree. Being "character driven" is a property of storytelling, not of the sub-genre. Certainly it's possible to have a character-driven hard sf story, isn't it? Anyway, it's an interesting article.
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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 09, 2004 at 5:28 PM
© 2008 SF Signal
I always defined "Hard SF" as being driven more by the "technology/science" (e.g., the planetary setting, the fact you use FTL travel etc.). Examples of hard SF authors range (for me) pretty widely--Clarke, Asimov, Pournelle, Flynn, Foster, Anderson, Cambell, Smith and many others.
"Soft SF" for me was more "social driven", looking at society. Whereas Hard SF might have clones, you'd concentrate more on the techniques of cloning in Hard SF and the effects on society that cloning would have in Soft SF.
Hard SF can certainly have well developed characters. So can Soft SF.
And there's a allowed amount of mixing. You can certainly have authors who switch between Hard SF and Soft, or mix the two together. For example, I would say that Asimov's "Caves of Steel" (to pick one example out of the hat) would be a mixture. He talks about the technological aspects of the positronic brain and the Three Laws, etc. But, he also describes the society of the future Earth.
Ditto with Clarke and something like "Childhood's End". Lots of Hard SF stuff about the Overlord's stardrives, the end of the world etc. But, lots of Soft SF stuff about the last generation before the "odd children" join the "Overmind".
Just one man's opinion.
Posted by Fred Kiesche on Sunday May 09, 2004 at 8:49 PM at 8:49 PM