Talk:Soft science fiction

message: I don't think that hard vs. soft science fiction is a terribly useful distinction. Mostly it is used to denigrate the works someone doesn't like. Just because something is good doesn't make it "hard" science fiction, and just because something is bad doesn't make it "soft".  There is a distinction that could be made, often, in hard science fiction, the story is about the science; while often in soft science fiction, the story is not about the science, and the science is the means to tell the story. But it is a rather peculiar distinction, as we rarely divide other types of literature in such a way. A war movie might be about a war, or the war might be a means to tell the story. We don't talk about hard and soft war stories.--RLent 21:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mostly a club to beat each other with

message: :Dune generally maintains scientific and technical plausibility
Now come on, magical spice, prescience, and all human memory written into every cell of the body ? Even Star Trek was more hard science fiction than that. Taw 23:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dune 

message: Seeing as this article makes no references to any literature on science fiction, nor does it seem to reflect any understanding of the genre beyond the original authors hazy distinctions between what appears to be Star Wars/Star Trek-type sci-fi and the far more critically celebrated everything else that gets lumped in "soft science fiction", I suggest that this article be nominated for deletion.
I've NEVER seen a such a distinction among critics of sci-fi, and the fact that the article has no references leads me to believe that such a distinction does not really exist.
Almondwine 19:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion? 

message: The article as it stands is imprecise, unsourced, and much too long. Some of the points and examples are worth preserving, but it should be brought into line with the complementary article on hard science fiction (truth in advertising: current version edited my me) and the main article-in-progress on science fiction. The hard-soft pair really needs to be coordinated, and strong articles on those terms will also take some of the pressure off the science fiction article to cover every sub-term in detail. I will try to get to this sometime in the near future, but anyone else who feels up to it should pitch in. I strongly recommend starting with a look at the relevant articles in the Clute & Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Wolfe's Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy, and the example citations at the Jessesword SF lexicography site (http://www.jessesword.com).  RLetson 18:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Major revision in order

message: This is rough yet, but it does one thing I think is essential: to tie this article to the "hard SF" one.
:Soft science fiction, or soft SF, like its complementary opposite hard science fiction, is a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story. The earliest sense of "soft SF" is SF based not on engineering or the "hard" sciences (for example, physics, astronomy, or chemistry) but on the "soft" sciences, and especially the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and so on). (insert Jessesword/OED entry here as ref) Soft SF may also be less rigorous in its application of scientific ideas, for example allowing faster-than-light space travel in a setting that otherwise follows more conservative standards. A later-developed sense is that soft SF is more concerned with character, society, or other matters that are not centrally tied to scientific or engineering speculations, but this is not the sense in which the term is used by most critics and scholars. 
I'd like to add some examples of actual uses (earlier the better) for both senses of the term and then a short list of exemplary works. RLetson 06:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a lot better. :)  It brings it into context with hard science fiction, and defines both its early and more mature forms.  I've got a few suggestions, though...  Perhaps use the phrase "physical, or 'hard' sciences"?  I like the 'feelings/emotions' part of the current intro, but can't say it made it into here.  Also like the telepathy thing, although, as was noted on Talk:Science fiction, there's sod all citations for it.  Perhaps that could be reworded as being "The use of paranormal phenomena is also a literary device of the soft science fiction genre".  Can't say I like the phrase 'points to', but I can't think of an alternative atm.  alludes?  Why is the FTL space travel thingie an example of soft SF?  Is it because the only different thing in this setting would be the FTL travel?  Have added a couple of tags to it where it confuses me/is vaguely worded/needs a reference, and put some minor grammar tweaks.  -Malkinann 10:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure what you mean by "plain old taxonomy" but I heartily agree that the terms were used -- invented, some would say -- as an "artifact of cultural tensions".  The artifactual nature of the hard/soft distinction is one reason why it doesn't work very well as taxonomy -- and is in fact encyclopedic and part of the "definition". Lest we risk ahistoricity, we should surely explain why & how these terms were invented, used, and popularized, and gender dynamics was a significant part of that. I'll work on it ... next week after the job talk. --lquilter 00:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  (It's not even historical -- see, e.g., Joe Quirk's comment 1/19) --lquilter 19:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed new lead paragraph

message: I suggested a revision for this article a while back, and here is a more finished version of what I've come up with to replace the current first two paragraphs. I would  also propose cutting nearly all of the long body of material that follows those paragraphs--it's not sourced and in fact sounds like someone's own working out of the issues. There is probably a place for a brief set of examples of writers and texts that exemplify the various senses of "soft SF," but this should be compiled from existing criticism and commentary rather than pulled out of one or more of our own heads. In any case, here's the draft--
:Soft science fiction, or soft SF, like its complementary opposite hard science fiction, is a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story. The term first appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s and indicated SF based not on engineering or the "hard" sciences (for example, physics, astronomy, or chemistry) but on the "soft" sciences, and especially the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and so on).REF HERE Science Fiction Citations: Soft Science Fiction REF END A sense that may have developed from this hard/soft opposition is that soft SF is more concerned with character, society, or other speculative ideas and themes  that are not centrally tied to scientific or engineering speculations. Soft SF may also be seen as less rigorous in its application of scientific ideas, for example allowing faster-than-light space travel in a setting that otherwise follows more conservative standards. 
:Peter Nicholls writes that soft SF is a "not very precise item of sf terminology" and that the contrast between hard and soft is "sometimes illogical."REF HERE "Soft SF," Encyclopedia of Science FictionREF END In fact, in all senses of the term, the boundaries between "hard" and "soft" are not definite or universally agreed-upon, and there is no single standard of scientific "hardness" or "softness." Some readers might consider any deviation from the possible or probable (for example, including faster-than-light travel or paranormal powers) to be a mark of "softness." Others might see an emphasis on character or the social  implications of technological change (however possible or probable) as a departure from the science-engineering-technology issues that ought to be the focus of hard SF. Given this lack of objective and well-defined standards, "soft science fiction" is not a term for a genre or subgenre of SF but for a tendency or quality--one pole of an axis that has "hard science fiction" as the other pole.
Comments, questions, objections, clarifications, and so on encouraged. RLetson 03:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: An actual draft proposal

message: Because they were unsourced and not connected to the understanding of "soft science fiction" that is being developed in the article. Exemplars need to be drawn from authorities ("says who?" is always an appropriate question here) and ideally should illustrate the abstract definition--and, if appropriate, lead to a more refined and precise definition. (I suspect that this is not going to be easy, since there is no single, sharp-edged definition of the term. . . .) RLetson 03:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reverted examples

message: I think the idea that soft science fiction is that which is based on social sciences isn't really true, despite what that one cited source may say. While science fiction based on social sciences is usually soft, not all science fiction based on physics or biology is "hard". Social science fiction is already a term, and it's just part of soft SF. Soft science fiction is simply used to denote works that aren't "hard" (i.e. works where the focus is on the technology itself, and the rigorous detail put into it, with usually little focus on traditional plot or character development). For example, Back To the Future isn't based on psychology or sociology, but it's very much soft science fiction. From what I've seen soft SF falls into three main categories: Social SF, Space Opera or Adventure/Pulp SF, and Literary SF focused more on character development than on the technology itself, all of which may or may not involve made up science, time-travel, or things such as psychic abilities. Brc2000 (talk) 12:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading 

message: I'll like to see a list of prominent examples of soft science fiction, like that in Hard science fiction#Representative works. Dough34 (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need list of examples 

message: Surface Tension (1952) is listed as an example of both hard SF and soft SF.  Which is it? 2603:3024:1C01:5C00:311D:8763:AEA3:E5C9 (talk) 19:25, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surface Tension both hard and soft SF?