From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: Diamond-hard SF
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 10:22:59 GMT

In <41400@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike) writes:

>In article <4f3NKmW00WBO88d71X@andrew.cmu.edu> Elistan+@CMU.EDU (Mark Alan Lang) writes:
>>
>>    Have you read much by Larry Niven?  From what I've seen and heard,

>	You might want to include Pournelle in there as well.  For
>me they're nearly synonymous :)

Aack!!!!   Gag!!!

Please *don't* include Pournelle in there.  Let's at least limit the
discussion to people who *can* write their way out of a paper bag!  :-)

It's a curious phenomenon that one of the greatest hard SF writers
around can team up with a completely third-rate hack, and sometimes
produce work that is better than *either* writing alone.  But it doesn't
make the hack any less of a hack.

>>he's considered one of the best hard science fiction authors there is. 

>	Really?  I will admit that he and Pournelle both love to
>play with technology in their books, but they lack something which
>would put them in my "diamond-hard SF" category.  Perhaps not enough
>imagination or something, can't tell.  Give me a few days to mull it
>over...

"Hard SF" is a term that is usually applied to SF that focuses heavily
on physics and technology and the "Hard sciences".  There's a lot of
"Hard SF" that is remarkably lacking in imagination.  OTOH, I don't know
exactly what "your" category is.  But if it differs too much from the
standard definition of "Hard SF", you're just gonna confuse people.

>>I agree - he certainly has a LOT of really interesting ideas.  He also
>>has some of the best characters and plots I've ever come accross.

>	You're kidding right?  His and Pournelle's books tend to
>revolve around a central idea (Invasion of Earth [Footfall], First
>Contact [Mote in God's Eye], etc) and then they just show off right
>and left.  Neither of their books are as serious as I wish they
>were.
>	Both of them seem to lack some really interesting ideas that
>would really interest me.  Gibson and Sterling both strike me as
>more "hard SF" for some reason (flame me, I know.  They're both
>getting to be cliches, but they're the ones who come first to my
>mind).

Gibson and Sterling (especially Gibson) lack one of the cornerstones of
what is normally called "Hard SF"--rigour.  Gibson makes up his
technology as he goes along.  Most of it might as well be fantasy for
all it relates to Real World science and technology.   Writers like
Niven and Anderson and Clarke tend to actually design their hardware,
and make sure that it's all theoretically feasible before they add it to
their books.

Gibson and Sterling, though they write about computers and other
high-tech topics, are much more "style" writers.  The Hard SF types
often eschew style for the more fascinating (to some) gorey details of
how that new space drive works, and just how fast *can* a signal bounce
across three sattelites and back to another computer.  I'm not even sure
that Gibson knows what light-speed is, let alone the fact that it might
be a facter in the operation of world-spanning computer networks.  :-)

Not to disparage the cyberpunk writers (a *very* different breed from
the "cyberpunk hackers").  I love Gibson's work--but I don't consider
him to be at all a hard SF writer.

[list of Niven/Pournelle collaborations elided]

>	Ringworld had a single good idea (the ringworld), but beyond
>that, what was so exciting so far as technology was concerned?

Note that Ringworld was the only book you listed that actually had a
technological concept as its central theme.  And it was the only one
written by Niven alone.  :-)

And gee, you want technology?  What about General Products Hulls, Tasps,
the various breeding experiments (what, breeding's not a technology?),
the construction of the "Puppeteer fleet", etc., etc.

Ringworld's getting to be a pretty old book, and some of its ideas now
seem almost mundane.  But at the time it came out, it was pretty
amazing!

I wonder how well Gibson will hold up, especially with regard to his
ideas (the weakest part of his stories, IMO), rather than his style
(which will probably hold up just fine).
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | "Don't you boys know NICE songs?"
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers |                 -- Mrs. Borg
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk,rec.arts.sf.written