Quote from: LimperWhat do you concider Simmons books?

I would consider his books soft sci-fi.  David Webber would be hard sci-fi.  I love them both but would rather play in a Webber like world.

I would concider it fairly hard sci fi even if his estrapolation of tech is a bit mystical in nature.

Ilium was more fantasy in nature than Hyperion.

How do you rate Dune then?

Quote from: LimperHow do you rate Dune then?

In my opinion Dune would be fantasy or Space Opera if you prefer.

Quote from: LimperI would concider it fairly hard sci fi even if his estrapolation of tech is a bit mystical in nature.

I don't agree per se but I respect your opinion.

I can't say I agree with you but I can see where you are coming from.

Where would you put Donaldsons Gap Cycle?

I'm conflicted about where David Weber's "Honor Harrington" books would fall on the hard/soft spectrum. On one hand, he goes into great detail about the science behind a lot of stuff in his setting, from Warshawski sails and the related FTL drive to medical advances. There is a detailed essay on the history of the discovery of FTL propulsion which seems like he really thought it all through (I'd guess with some help). But then he seems to handwave away the sheer number of habitable planets in his universe. There have been vague mentions of terraforming here and there, but just as often there are mentions of native life on planets that are very similar to that of Earth, or planets with easily breathable atmospheres. I guess I'd place his stuff more towards the hard end of the spectrum.

Quote from: LimperI can't say I agree with you but I can see where you are coming from.

Where would you put Donaldsons Gap Cycle?

I don't believe I have read them.

Quote from: VarajI don't believe I have read them.

Some of Donaldsons darker works... I loved them although I hated every character to some degree or another.

Quote from: LimperSome of Donaldsons darker works... I loved them although I hated every character to some degree or another.

I will have to check them out.

Quote from: VarajI tend to like my science fiction to be hard sci-fi. If I want soft sci-fi I will just play a fantasy game. Fantasy doesn't have to be medivial setting but can be future setting.
So what do you prefer?

Honestly, I like all kinds, depending on my mood.

In general, I prefer my novels to be harder sci-fi rather than softer, though there are quite a few space fantasy and space opera books that hold a special place in my heart.

In general, though I like sci-fi RPGs that try to use sensible science, I prefer space opera and softer sci-fi for my RPGs...  Mainly because, hard sci-fi in an RPG gets tedious.  My players, especially, simply don't care about the nitty gritty of how a hyperdrive works, or why an ion cannon shouldn't be able to short out electronics without damaging the ship.  They just want to have fun saving the galaxy.

For me, the worst are the movies/novels/games that are psuedo-science fiction...  They try really hard to be scientific, but fail.  Star Trek, and occassionally Star Wars are especially bad at this at times.  If you're going to use Science in your sci-fi, then get it right.  If you aren't going to get Science right in sci-fi, then don't use it.

I am definitely a middle of the ground to hard sci-fi. I don't want to spend half the session calculating trajectories but I would like it to be more than flowery speech about a ship entering the atmosphere. Go too soft and you run the risk of the game being indistinguishable from the last fantasy game you played in, too hard and I get flash backs to my astrophysics classes in college.

Bill

Quote from: ColonelHardissonBut then he seems to handwave away the sheer number of habitable planets in his universe. There have been vague mentions of terraforming here and there, but just as often there are mentions of native life on planets that are very similar to that of Earth, or planets with easily breathable atmospheres.

We feel that sometimes writers just need to hand-wave away certain bits of realism.  If an author spends a lot of time describing alien worlds, this can drag the actual story to a halt.  It is like the problem on TV sci-fi where every alien race speaks English  -- it is silly, but constant scenes about translation would get very boring very fast.

Quote from: RedcapWe feel that sometimes writers just need to hand-wave away certain bits of realism.  If an author spends a lot of time describing alien worlds, this can drag the actual story to a halt.  It is like the problem on TV sci-fi where every alien race speaks English  -- it is silly, but constant scenes about translation would get very boring very fast.

Sure, but that's not precisely the discussion at hand. I wasn't making a judgement about Weber's universe creation beyond trying to hash out where he lies on the hard vs. soft spectrum. Hard scifi does a lot less handwaving than soft scifi. Weber seems to go to both extremes.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonHard scifi does a lot less handwaving than soft scifi.

That's wrong...

Hard sci-fi simply has far more believable handwaving than soft sci-fi.

Quote from: CyclotronThat's wrong...

Hard sci-fi simply has far more believable handwaving than soft sci-fi.

I guess that's a way of looking at it.

What I find interesting is that, when you actually go back and read what many people consider to be "hard" science fiction, you find just as much hand-waving of scientific impossibilities, and just as much reliance on the litary/genre tradition for believability as you often find in so-called "soft" science fiction. The main differences stem from which branches of science are emphasized--"hard" stories tend to turn on physics and the mechanical sciences, where "soft" stories often incorporate the social sciences, psychology, and concepts from the humanities as well. So it isn't so much about "one has more science than the other" so much as "one uses one scientific tradition rather than another."

As a final irony, I often find that cyberpunk stories are often more fully grounded in scientific possibility than either hard or soft science fiction, but many traditionalists can't stand cyberpunk anyway.

Personally, I want to see good execution of a story, with something done exceptionally well, and I don't really care to make some sort of one-size-fits-all expectation about it.