Chris Glock

Like most genres of literature, science fiction can be divided into sub-genres.  Of these sub-genres there is hard sci-fi and its opposite hard sci-fi.  Of these two genres there are many famous writers and works in each.  The line between the two is very grey with varying levels of hardness and softness as opposed to having just hard and just soft.

Science fiction is a fictitious genre that focuses on real and hypothetical science.  Usually science fiction takes place in the future, however there is a good number occurring in a modern setting and some even taking place in the past.  People often lump science fiction under the fantasy genre of which many sci-fi books could fall.

Hard science fiction had a focus on scientific fact or accuracy.  This definition however says nothing about the actual literary content of the book, which is why to many people it is not as alluring as soft science fiction.  Because of this hard sci-fi is sometimes scrutinized for putting scientific accuracy above all else.  People who aren’t fans of this sometimes see them as textbooks filled with knowledge rather than an entertaining story.

A great example of this hard science fiction is “Day Million” by Frederik Pohl.  This book tells the story of Don and Dora from the future, day one million to be precise.  While like all books it has a plot and main characters, they serve only to keep readers interested.  The book primarily talks about how different life is in the future.  Don is cybernetic and has a metal body, while Dora is some sort of modified human with gills and a tail.  At the end they both get married then never see each other again, this is because they both download the other’s personality into their minds so that they can see, hear, and feel, the other at any given moment.  That is the entirety of the plot; much more attention and detail goes into describing how this futuristic world functions.

Soft science fiction in contrast is any work of literature set in a fictitious scientific setting despite how inaccurate or realistic it is.  Many people prefer this, and for a good reason, too: without being held to the realism set by hard science fiction, the writers have easier times creating and interesting and captivating story for their audiences.  These books also tend to be better known as people who aren’t fans of the scientific side of them can still find the story fascinating.

A famous work of soft science fiction is H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man.  It tells how a man named Griffin turns himself invisible; while conducting research, Griffin gets himself in trouble with the town.  He is then chased down and killed by everyone in the town.  This is soft science fiction because, while it does have scientific principles, it is used as a backdrop to the rest of the story.  The book doesn’t even mention how Griffin had become invisible except for it had been an accident during an experiment.

Bibliography

Blish, James B. “Surface tension.” N.p.: Gnome Press, 1957. Print.

Clarke, Arthur C. “Childhood’s End.” N.p.: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print.

Pohl, Frederick G. “Day Million.” Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1979. N. pag. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/Sci-Tech-Society/stored/day_million.pdf&gt;.

Wells, Herbert G. The Invisible Man. N.p.: C. Arthur Pearson, 1876. Print.