i.e do you prefer:
- technically grounded and plausible science elements (e.g The Martian)
or
- stuff so fantastical that it doesn’t even warrant trying to explain it (Dr Who, some Marvel/DC stuff, Star Wars)
Another way to look at this would be Sci-Fi versus Science Fantasy, perhaps.
- Old-School Sci-Fi like HG Wells centers around a core scientific idea and the consequences arising from that,
whereas
- Science Fantasy (more prevalent nowadays) only looks to science - or the impression of some science - to serve the fantasy devices it uses.
So which is better?
You’re basically asking about “Hard” and “Soft” science fiction.
For me, at least, I lean a little bit more towards the “Soft” (what you call ‘Fi’) side of things. But I’ve also always found this a little bit of a false dichotomy; a story can go fully fantastic and explain nothing about its spaceflight, but lean heavily on actual psychology or other social sciences to drive its characters; so is it “Hard” or “Soft” sci-fi? Turns out it doesn’t matter; it’s Sci-fi and if it’s a good story, then it’s good.
I also have to somewhat push back on the idea that Star Wars “doesn’t even try to explain” its tech. A lot of people put a good bit of effort into laying out how the technology worked, up to and including calculating the energy involved in things like Turbolaser bolts (turns out, it’s a metric shitton of energy).
I like heavy sci, heavy fi and balanced sci-fi as long as its good storeytelling.
yes this, thats why old trek and stargate were good, not sgu 1st season though, thats why the original showrunners for stargate were hesitent to make another show/series, because of things like what amazon wanted , to turn into something like nutrek is what im guessing, good thing it never went through, otherwise it would be a disaster worst than sgu.
Rock-hard science fiction for me.
Ah. An Arthur C. Clarke man of wit and discretion, I see.
🥴🥴🥴
This is a long-running conflict.
Woke up this morning thinking about Bradbury. The Martian Chronicles is kind of an Edda for Mars, and an obvious point of inspiration for the Big Man folklore in KSR’s Mars trilogy.
I like both to be honest.
With that said, I actually lean more toward the Fi end of things, because when a book or movie gets something obviously wrong it’s really grating. Where as with technobabble it’s true in that universe, so who am I to contradict it. It’s easier to stay in the moment.
As a case in point, I actually turned Prometheus off at the point when it’s stated the ship traveled a billion miles… Or you know, out to Jupiter. The writers could have taken 10 seconds to educate themselves that as far as distances in space go, a billion miles isn’t even out of your own yard yet. Much less an interstellar distance. Given the reviews on the rest of the movie, I apparently didn’t miss much. Yes, I’m aware that Prometheus is solidly in the Fi end of the spectrum, but the come on… Some one actually thought a billion miles was an interstellar distance? JFC educations is really going down the tubes.
My kids and I still talk about the Prometheus school of running from things. “Oh look, a giant wheel of death is rolling towards me! Surely if I stay on the exact path it is following I will be safe! And I can certainly outrun the giant wheel of death, so why wouldn’t I?” Proceeds to get crushed by the giant wheel of death. This scene is representative of much of the film. Pretty pictures, lots of destruction, check your brain at the door.
Overtime my opinion on this has changed.
20 years ago my answer was the FI. Now it is really more the SCI.
It’s never either-or. Sometimes, it is neither.
IMHO, a good Sci-Fi story has a well built world against which a story will play. I loved the ‘Parable’ series by Octavia Butler. The science level is basically the sameas ours (heck, it even plays ‘now’) and is not particularly important to the story itself. However, this series is one of the best dystopian Sci-Fi series I have ever read.
I like hard-science, which is well researched and any future tech tracks a plausible path from current tech.
Always appreciate fiction with world-building that weaves strong cultural undertones, and believable nuances about the motivations, failings, and history of the fiction.
eg. Snowcrash, Permutation City, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon S1
Both as long as they are not in the same setting.
The Martian is great Sci.
Dune is great Fi.
I wouldn’t want Dune to get all nitty and gritty about how Spice or space witch powers work scientifically and I wouldn’t want the Martian to have sand worms. Both are great for different stories, and as long as they are internally consistent they won’t break immersion.
Star Wars is Fi and shouldn’t have had an attempt to explain where the Force comes from, and any description of tech is just ‘ok sure, as long as we are consistent’ when it comes to hyper drives and Kyber crystals.
I love star wars, but don’t know even if it’s even nominally SF, which, hard or soft, should be exploring some ideas. Soft SF can explore psychology or sociology or religion in a futuristic setting. Dune, for instance, has plenty of thematic exploration of politics and economics and religion.
Star Wars, however, is just glorified set design. The elements of society and technology don’t interact in any meaningful way. Things are just sort of there because they look cool without any thought to the impact they would have. The ur-example of this is droids–which are just exist, though their social, religious, and economic ramifications would be enormous.
Star Wars is fantasy that happens to be set in space.
Now, it’s been a long time since I read the book, and I’ve never delved anywhere beyond the original novel, so treat this accordingly, but I think completely writing off the “science” of Dune is doing it a minor disservice. However, I’ll grant you that it isn’t “hard” sci-fi as that genre might typically be defined, either. Rather, the sciences that Herbert applied to his space opera were the social sciences, e.g. geography, sociology, history, and political science. I recall frequent digressions in the text talking about the ecology of Arrakis and how that has influenced interstellar politics, the most prominent example of this of course being the spice melange. Heck, the Liet-Kynes character was explicitly an Imperial Planetologist stationed there to learn about the Arrakis environment.
In fact, while checking my memory against the wiki article to make sure I wasn’t forgetting something, I saw this quote, which succinctly sums up my argument here: “the attention to ecology is hard, the anthropology and the psychic abilities are soft”.
All of which is to say, I agree with your main point: different stories require different approaches to scientific faithfulness. I liked all of the hard science of The Martian because, despite the fictional premise of an astronaut being stranded on Mars, I would largely expect an astronaut in that situation to think in terms of physics and biology and so on. I do not feel similarly about Han Solo. Right or wrong, I feel like authors with rigidly-held ideas about the value of hard vs soft science fiction tend to be insufferable pedants, and they write accordingly.
None is better and I prefer the one with the well thought out, engaging, smart, thought-provoking story with interesting characters (by which I obviously mean Doctor Who).
the last doctor was pretty weak(ncuti), as was whittakers run(not the actor but the showrunners had shitty writing)
So which is better?
Does the book/film/show/whatever entertain you? Great, glad you enjoyed it! No? Oh well, try something else next time.
Yes but I’m interested in other people’s views on this. Thought it would cultivate interesting discussion
I see your point, but I think I tended to aim for a middle ground of sorts. For example, a big reason I fell in love with PKD’s stuff is because he relentlessly imagined realities in which some new tech(s) was added to the mix, then we imagined how that would play out in real life. The tech didn’t need to be super-grounded in science, just something plausible. Which more or less bypassed the kind of conundrum you’re proposing.
Btw, I’m not sure I agree about Star Wars completely bypassing plausible science. The unique idea there ( The
SchwartzForce ) is fairly consistently explained in metaphysical terms, not unlike levels of consciousness that can be unlocked by dedication to meditation and certain martial arts. That sort of thing, anyway.There was also the later pseudo-science idea about “midichlorians” being analogous to mitochondria, FWIW. Perhaps better explained in some of the novelisations and other works, I guess. I didn’t really see the need for all that myself, but I guess it may have satisfied some folks’ burning curiosity. (cue Triumph)
If it is too technically grounded and plausible where the more fiction part is that they got their shit together and actually did it, like The Martian I see it more akin to the adventures genre.
Also the opposite, with Star Wars or Dune more closely related to fantasy, but in space.
I like science fiction that requires technologies that don’t exist that make the story possible, I don’t care if it not based in reality and it is not well explained how it supposed to work, I care more about what it does and how it shapes the lives of those around it.
My preference is for when the sci-fi setting is so fundamental to the story that the same story could not be retold in another setting. Like the basic story of star wars could be reframed as a cowboy epic with a few wizards or a scientist instead of jedi and it’d still work. Those kind of sci-fi books tend to not get filmed tho.
I understand what you’re trying to ask, but the “fi” in sci fi doesn’t refer to how non science-y it is. It’s fiction that is themed by science.
