Over-analyzing Science Fiction

To be clear, this is not a post about science fiction that tends to over-analyze stuff. Because I'm pretty sure I could write an entire post on that topic without too much difficulty. No, this is a post in which I continue my mission to over-analyze the genre of sci-fi in ways that are fundamentally useless to most people. But the basic gist here is that I find these distinctions useful, and who knows, maybe someone else out there will too. So to that end, let's talk about hard vs soft sci-fi.

You may have heard these terms before and wondered what exactly the difference is. Some folks will draw the line between shorter stories (movies, TV... short stories) and longer stories (books) and pretend that just because one is longer it's somehow "harder" and more "pure" science fiction. Others, and this seems to be the most common distinction, will draw the line between what is popular and what is not among fiction that features technology more advanced than what we have today. Star Wars would be soft sci-fi, while 2001: A Space Odyssey would be hard. Interstellar would be soft, while Contact would be hard. Etc.

I have issues with both of those methods, because they tend to draw the line based on factors external to the actual fiction. Which seems kinda useless. There are other definitions that attempt to draw the line based on more internal metrics, but for the most part people playing in this camp don't seem to have any good way of explaining why something is hard or soft. Like, Ender's Game isn't difficult to get through, but it's considered hard sci-fi, while Shadow of the Hegemon is kinda difficult to get through, but it's considered soft.

So I spent some extra grey-cell juice to try and define what makes one sci-fi story 'hard' and another 'soft', and I've landed on the following distinction that holds up in all the cases I've thought of so far. It has the added benefit of helping to simplify the line I draw between sci-fi and other space-based stories that aren't necessarily sci-fi, like space operas in the vein of Star Wars. Sci-fi stories all feature story elements and major plotlines that revolve around science of one form or another; hard sci-fi stories use that science as a lens through which the story is viewed, while soft sci-fi stories use that science as a background to a story about something else.

Let's run through some examples. Star Trek is a big franchise but, setting aside the occasional episodes that are more space opera than anything else, it is generally sci-fi. Typically it tends to be soft sci-fi, featuring a plotline that hinges around some sort of science and a parallel story that is character focused space opera. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan features the Genesis effect and its ability to create and destroy as a backdrop against which to tell a story about getting older. Star Trek First Contact uses time travel and an alien invasion as a backdrop against which to tell a story about coping with trauma. These are all examples of 'soft' sci-fi; the science is behind the story.

Dune is a movie that just came out, but also a book I rather enjoy and another movie you should all avoid. Dune qualifies very much as hard sci-fi, because while the book explores themes of faith, social hierarchies, and the basis of the human condition in the lives of its characters, all of that is done by looking through the ecology of the planet Arrakis and the sociology of galactic society. Ender's Game is another book turned movie that I would define as hard sci-fi, because a story that is fundamentally about childhood and tolerance is told through a lens of zero-g battleschools and space combat training regimes featuring weapons that unmake planets. These are 'hard' because the science sits between the audience and the story; if you can't parse the science, the story won't be clear.

This distinction is somewhat arbitrary I admit, but any distinction of genre is kind of arbitrary when you think about it. My goal here is to give myself (and others) writing in the genre of science fiction a tool they can use to analyze their own stories and tailor the way they're telling them. Soft sci-fi stories tend to be easier to digest, and as a result they tend to have more mass-market appeal. That's not to say hard sci-fi stories can't have mass appeal, because stuff like Interstellar exists. But when I consider the massive success of movies like Avatar and the fact that Avengers: Endgame is mostly soft sci-fi, I feel pretty secure with my generalizations.

If you're still having trouble with my arbitrary distinctions here, ask yourself the following questions about the story you're looking at:

1. Can I set this story in 17th century England using historically accurate setting details and still tell the whole thing with minimal content changes?
2. If I were to find-and-replace the name of my science here with microbiology, would I be able to continue without having to re-write a significant chunk of the story?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, it's probably 'soft' sci-fi. The science is important, but it's more of a setting detail than a crucial pillar of the story. Settings matter, of course, and will change the audience the story appeals to, the breadth of the story you tell, the types of characters you're able to integrate, and so-forth. But the reason stuff like "Romeo and Juliet in 50s New York" West Side Story works is because stories can usually exist agnostic of their settings. That's what soft sci-fi is, a story where the science is a part of the setting. It's science fiction, but it doesn't have to be in order to work.

Hard sci-fi puts the science as a major player in the story itself, more like a character or mcguffin than a setting detail, such that it can't really be removed without changing the story fundamentally. It's structural; it can be replaced, but the story will be quite different if you do. Imagine trying to tell the story of Interstellar without black hole physics. Can you? Probably, but I'm genuinely not sure what that would look like. Or maybe try to imagine Jurassic Park without dinosaurs. Can you tell a story about man's control vs chaos without dinosaurs? Yeah. But nobody would recognize it as Jurassic Park.

I guess maybe the biggest revelation of this whole distinction may very well be that Jurassic Park is hard sci-fi. And frankly, I'm okay with that.