No. It is not an answer to a waiter’s question about doneness at a fancy restaurant in downtown Las Vegas. Those of us who cut our literary teeth reading science fiction novels understand a reference to the genre of hard science fiction.
Hard science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes scientific accuracy and technical detail, using established or extrapolated scientific principles as the foundation for its stories. I gleaned that from Google. Soft sci-fi focuses more on the societal human connection impacted by said technology. Then it breaks down into subgenres such as dystopian, utopian, military, cyberpunk, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, alien-invasion, time-travel, and the ever-popular space opera. Star Wars, anyone?
I became nearsighted at the early age of ten from reading sci-fi novels late at night beneath the covers with a poor excuse for a flashlight. My first sci-fi novel was Robert Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky. He was the first author to invent the word astrogater, and I devoured everything he wrote, along with Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, among others. Then came Herbert’s Dune, Crichton’s Andromeda Strain, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and many more. Yeah, I was a geek and remember well the pen-laden pocket protectors and fear of school jocks.
After earning a degree in biology/chemistry, I moved into the real world, got married, and lost that zeal for rousing sci-fi novels in favor of mainstream fiction. I always had time for Stephen King. It wasn’t until my daughter began reading YA fantasy and science fiction that I rediscovered a long-lost passion. I also discovered I was no longer a fan of space operas featuring bridge captains, faster-than-light travel, and otherworldly encounters with humanoid aliens who shared our behavioural traits. I couldn’t understand why sentient alien reptiles or insects with advanced star-traveling technology would grunt like alligators in heat or burst from the ground like a swarm of beetles without any advanced weaponry. Cue the titles Super 8, Starship Troopers, and Ender’s Game. At least Star Wars gave them real weapons. Space opera is popular because it can make things up, tends to be fast-paced, and who doesn’t love a Trek-ish premise where humans can fall in love with an alien species and have children. Blame the biology education.
I prefer to read compelling stories that don’t stray from the tenets of Einstein and Hawking (until proven otherwise). I’ve read a few lesser novels that followed the rules, but the characters were often as thin as a sheet of paper, and the author spent more time dumping technobabble than developing a captivating plot. Such novels needed a little soft sci-fi to balance them out. Science is great, but intrigue, tension, and strong characters still drive a good yarn.
I also like apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic works, which imagine the many ways our little blue dot in the galaxy can fall prey to any number of cosmic, natural, or human-instigated calamities. Cue the end of the Holocene era, which began with the rise of human civilization. Or a good dystopian tale like The Handmaid’s Tale. Fun stuff if you disregard the possibility that some of it could actually come true.
In recent years, original ground-breaking novels that cut outside the edge have been few and far between. Here are four that impressed me.
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (first of a three-book trilogy)
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (first of the current three-book trilogy)
Anyone who has read Kim Stanley Robinson knows he is no stranger in the halls of excellent hard sci-fi. His epic three-book series, Mars, made him an icon in the genre. Aurora captured the science and the social transformation of what happens to a seventh generation on an interstellar Noah’s ark over 165 years (cryogenic hibernation wasn’t a thing until later in the story). Though some reviewers considered it just another generational starship story in a well-established trope of science fiction, I agree with Lee Billings of Scientific American, who said the story “mixed equal parts ecology, sociology, and astrophysics. Robinson’s heart-wrenching, provocative tale makes plain that even though humanity may someday reach the stars, we can never truly escape the pull of Earth.” Set in the year 2545, the concept of recycling the basic components of matter that incur incremental losses over time was unique. Missing a Star Trek replicator (“Computer, Earl Grey tea, hot”), the periodic table of elements in deep space was a tad limited. Terraforming a supposedly habitable planet twelve light-years from Earth that came with unanticipated microbial hazards added realism to the premise. Who’d a thunk the landing team didn’t take into consideration that it took many thousands of years of evolution for hominids to acquire immunity from microscopic wee beasties in Earth’s biosphere. It’s the little things that’ll kill ya. Predictable human chaos ensued, resulting in a percentage of discontented crew members deciding to use theoretical, untested cryo-sleep technology and return to a vastly changed, hostile Earth society.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is a sprawling sci-fi epic about humanity’s near-extinction and rebirth, beginning when the Moon shatters, triggering a “Hard Rain” of meteorites that makes Earth uninhabitable. Douglas Wolk of the Los Angeles Times described the novel “as hard as ‘hard science fiction’ gets: cool bits of science and speculation about the future of technology, space and culture, with a plot and dialogue bolted on to make it more enjoyable to follow.” The first half of the story focuses on the frantic effort to build an orbiting “Cloud Ark” in space to preserve humanity. A very real upheaval unfolds when most of the population realizes that only the rich and connected have a ticket. The violent sociological aftermath of feuding factions in space leaves only seven surviving women. Their independently biased strong wills nearly complete humanity’s extinction. They agree to utilize semi-intelligent robotics to rebuild and expand what’s left of the International Space Station, impregnate themselves without men (take notice, guys), then go their separate ways in seven new space condos. The story then leaps five thousand years into the future to a geosynchronous ring world around a nearly recovered Earth, populated by seven distinct races that evolved from each of these seven women. Yes, males included, if you were wondering. As they prepare to return to a healed Earth, bridging the gap between a fragmented past and a complex future civilization, old behavioral habits of vying for sociological dominance never went dormant inside humans’ DNA.
Children of Time was Adrian Tchaikovsky’s first venture into science fiction after finding success in the fantasy genre. Recognizing that Earth would eventually become uninhabitable due to humans fouling the nest, a brilliant scientist leads one of several terraforming expeditions to a planet twenty light-years away, intending to plant monkeys and a virus to accelerate the evolution of intelligent beings to serve future colonists. A strong-willed crewmember decides humans shouldn’t play God, resulting in the destruction of the terraforming station and crew, of which only the lead scientist survives by uploading her consciousness to the ship’s AI. Unfortunately, the monkeys burn up before reaching land, but the virus endures. When colonists arrive a couple of thousand years later, they discover an unexpected advanced society of spiders inhabits their new home. Not just any spider: Tchaikovsky based the civilization on the Salticidae family of arachnids, or jumping spiders, known as the most charismatic here on Earth. As one review noted, “They often come across as human while the reader is still reminded that they are evolved spiders.” It rings this old biologist’s bells for a unique sci-fi novel. The series continues with Children of Ruin, with another terraforming vessel that leads to another retrovirus and the evolution of intelligent octopuses, creating a new society on an ocean planet. Children of Memory is the third in the current series, and a fourth installment, Children of Strife, is due in 2026.
As described by Thomas Wagner of Book Marks, 2015’s Hugo Award winner, Cixin “Ken” Liu’s The Three Body Problem, is “a unique tale of first contact and alien invasion set against the tumultuous political history of Liu’s homeland and the most mind-bending speculative frontiers of theoretical physics.” The story begins during China’s Cultural Revolution, with a disgruntled astrophysicist who discovers a way to amplify radio signals using the sun. A civilization in the Alpha Centauri galaxy, doomed by the unpredictable orbits of three suns, or three bodies, heard the message and determined Earth to be a good place to move. Not your pulp fiction story like Mars Invades or Independence Day, the story delves into the complexities of a unique alienexistence, and Earth’s reaction when the “Trisolarians” answer back years later. The Trisolarians develop real-time communication by using protons to convert into sentient computers, without the restrictions of light delay. A novel, theoretical concept I was unaware of, they will use it to establish four nodes near Earth called sophons to send false information disguised as helpful technology to sabotage human scientific development. Humans, being notoriously susceptible to well-orchestrated ruses, will view the distant messengers as benevolent saviors. When the truth is finally realized, Earth has little time to prepare. It was a powerful enough story to become a Netflix series. The intrigue and discord continue with two sequels, The Dark Forest and Death’s End.
I could add more titles to the list, but word count prevents me from waxing poetic on many more. If you’ve got a favorite hard sci-fi novel that kept you reading until four in the morning several days in a row, feel free to leave me a message at dtkrippene@gmail.com.
And since we’re talking about good speculative fiction, a new contest for the 2026 Speculative Fiction anthology opens January 1.
~ D.T. Krippene