HARD SF

   Item of sf terminology coined by P. Schuyler MILLER in ASF (Nov 1957) and since then widely used by sf FANDOM and readers; it has sometimes overlapped in meaning with "hardcore sf", often used in the 1960s and 1970s to mean the kind of sf that repeats the themes and (to a degree) thestyle of the GENRE SF written during the so-called GOLDEN AGE OF SF. Though still sometimes used in a way that implies the element of nostalgiaassociated with "hardcore sf", the term"hard sf" now seems to refer to something rather simpler, as summarized by Allen STEELE (in "Hard Again" in NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, June 1992): "Hard sf is the form of imaginative literature that uses either established or carefully extrapolated science as its backbone." Steele goes on to regret the association in many readers' minds of hard sf with "a particular political territory - usually located somewhere on the far right", an association which, while certainly sometimes justifiable, has cultural origins that cannot easily be elucidated. The commonly used distinction between hard and SOFT SCIENCES runs parallel to that between hard and SOFT SF. Theme entries in this volume which deal with the so-called hard sciences include, but are not restricted to, ASTRONOMY, BLACK HOLES, COMPUTERS; COSMOLOGY, CYBERNETICS, FASTER THAN LIGHT, GRAVITY, MATHEMATICS, NUCLEARPOWER, PHYSICS, POWER SOURCES, ROCKETS, SPACE FLIGHT, SPACE SHIPS, TECHNOLOGY and WEAPONS. All but the most puristic reader would probably accept also BIOLOGY, GENETIC ENGINEERING and TERRAFORMING as appropriate material for hard sf. But it is possible to write a kind of hard sf about almost anything, as can be exemplified by Brian M. STABLEFORD's rationalizing treatment of vampires in The Empire of Fear (1988). Hard sf should not, however, wilfully ignore or break known scientific principles, yet stories classified as "hard sf" often contain, for example, ESP, SUPERMAN, FASTER-THAN-LIGHT and TIME-TRAVEL themes (see also IMAGINARYSCIENCE). While a rigorous definition of "hard sf" may be impossible, perhaps the most important thing about it is, not that it should include real science in any great detail, but that it should respect the scientific spirit; it should seek to provide natural rather than supernatural or transcendental explanations for the events and phenomena it describes.

   PN