[michfull]

What are people's opinions on the best hard sci-fi novels? I've read a few, but my selections have been a bit random. I'd like to be a little more organized in my selections.

thanks

[vortexreader]

Have you read Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence? That's pretty mind-blowing in its complexity and attention to scientific detail...never at the expense of plot or character development though.

[Valeyard]

I've never really found the "hard" and "soft" division particularly helpful. A sci-fi book needs aspects of both to really work for me.

[fluffy bunny]

My sentiments exactly- or the 'hardest' sci-fi book would be the physics textbooks out there.

[vortexreader]

Hard SF is just another sub-genre. If you split the term 'Science Fiction' into it's two components then there are very few works that are good 'Science' as well as being great 'Fiction'. So there is a natural evolution towards works that are more 'Science', that is Hard SF (like Stephen Baxter), and works that are more 'Fiction', maybe called Soft SF (like Anne McCaffrey, for example). I think the 'divisions' being discussed are very helpful: for example, I'm not a fan of Cyberpunk or SciFantasy so I don't want to waste my time reading them just because they come under the generic heading of Science Fiction. I like Hard SF and Space Opera so I want to know which books are seperated into those categories.

[Corwwyn]

For best HARD SF, it would be very difficult indeed to find better than Hal Clement.

In particular Mission of Gravity, and it's sequel, Star Light.

I think these set the benchmark for hard SF that is also very good reading.

[Keyoke]

I guess my biggest problem with the scifi genre is when people/critics use the term 'Hard' scifi. What exactly is hard scifi? I actually get discourage is a book say hard scifi cause I assume that the book is chalked full of tech/scifi theories that may cause the book to become dry, and at time impossible to understand.

So, what is Hard Scifi? Hyperion? Or Star Trek? Etc.. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks..

Keyoke

[Elessar]

I think "HARD SF", as was said already, is anything that deals more with Science than with Fiction...
I think most of Asimov falls into this category ;-)
read Asimov! ;-)
The Foundation Series, the Roboter Series, or The Gods Themselves, as Hobbit would probably suggest :-)

-- Elessar

[Monty Mike]

Iain M Banks is a great author if you can keep up with him :D

[Archren]

My understanding of the Hard SF term was that it was fiction that stays withing extremely narrow constraints: not allowing any inventions in the future that aren't currently believed to be very possibly given the understanding of today's science. Thus no faster-than-light drives, no psychics or telepathy, no teleportation, no going through black-holes. Quantum computers are generally allowed, and other extrapolations from what we can do now in terms of rockets, solar-sails, ion drives, etc.

The best that I have ever read that was done this way is Greg Egan. Pretty much all of his stuff is the hardest Hard SF I've ever read. I particularly liked "Schild's Ladder," even if I didn't understand a large chunk of it, it had some great moments (BTW, I didn't understand a *lot* of the science involved, and my bachelor's degree is physics, so that tells you something). I also enjoyed "Diaspora," although the characters weren't quite as interesting in that one.