Science Faction

What makes good science fiction?

I’m serious. As a female, I picked up science fiction books a lot later than many of my male counterparts. When I was an adolescent, I was more interested in books that talked about romance or other interpersonal situations, or mysteries. (As a kid, I mostly read Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and whatever other random paperbacks I could find at the library). It took me until I was just bored by those (usually somewhat formulaic) books to even consider branching out to something more science-y. And, while I love a good science fiction read, there are still the days when I regress to the comforts of a good romance novel.

I had a conversation today about “hard science fiction” – comprised of those books dealing more with plausible, or semi-plausible, science as the focal point of the books, and how those contrast with “soft science fiction” comprised of stories set in some kind of unrealistic setting – either a fantasy one, or a technologically advanced one, but one that could for all intents and purposes take place in any setting.

Thinking about the huge variety in types of science fiction made me realize that there are probably a variety of reasons people read it. It also made me consider exactly how difficult it is to be truly forward-looking, much less forward-looking in a realistic manner. Will there ever be another Asimov? Many people would say that it’s not likely, but I think that the human race has enough generations left to produce a few more visionaries.

Why do you read science fiction? Are you interested in thinking about ways that humans might thrive and survive in new settings? Curious about potential technological inventions? Curious about the implications of those inventions (or alternately, completely disinterested in the implications?) Are you really just looking for a good story in a unique setting? Given whatever your focus is, how much of the other ingredients would you enjoy (or tolerate) before you lost interest?

Some people would even argue that science fiction is, contrary to what one’s assumptions might be, truly about distilling down human nature to its very essentials and using unique settings to expose and explore humanity.*

And at the risk of opening the gender debate (once again) – do you think that girls are more disposed to like “certain types” of science fiction? (That’s just drawing primarily on my own experience ... and I’m wondering if that’s at all common, at the risk of drawing fire for generalizing based on a social construct. Good for me!)

For what it’s worth, I tend to read science fiction primarily for technology, and secondarily for the exposition of human nature. I don’t do well with fantasy – I tend to get numb trying to remember complicated names, settings, and social rites, and usually end up putting them down in favor of something more practical.

*This is similar to a discussion we had in my digital satellite communications class last week, wherein the professor discussed the difference between using a spectrum analyzer to measure a signal, and using a signal to measure the frequency response of the spectrum analyzer’s selector filter.