Re: (ReacTor) Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?
 
Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping
varieties of story to which the label applies...
 
https://reactormag.com/defining-our-terms-what-do-we-mean-by-hard-sf/

"deliberately fudges the science...my least favorite flavor"

I don't mind some of these, as they are literally fictions about science,
but they have to be in the right spirit. One example I can think of
is when the Autarch in tCotA explains how a mass of antimatter iron
negates the weight of the flyer, but the lift diminishes over time due
to leakage of air via the insulation of the wires levitating
the anti-iron in its magnetic bottle. Which is why they stay in the
upper atmosphere until pulled down by a rope.

Elsewhere Wolfe explains that destriers run at, presumably,
a couple of hundred mph, thus allowing cavalry charges against
"high-energy armaments".

Cheers, David Duffy.