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HARD AND SOFT SCIENCE FICTION; WHAT ARE THEY

June 3, 2024 at 12:49 pm 1 comment

                 HARD AND SOFT SCIENCE FICTION

I’m sure science fiction addicts are well aware of the difference between hard and soft science fiction. But the occasional science fiction reader may not.

For soft science fiction, think Star Trek. The story line is science fiction but the scientific facts driving the story are not true science facts. The author creates the facts, and once created, must be adhered to them.

Hard science fiction is fiction where the story is created around actual science. The currently popular science fiction novel, The Three Body Problem, is a prime example of a hard science fiction story. Science using scientific facts to tell a story.

Soon I will offer a short story, The Ultimate Experiment, which is a hard science fiction story. As you read the story you will find fiction entwined with science fact.

Another story I wrote, The Universe in Balance, a hard science fiction story which, not long ago, I submitted to a publisher, and it was rejected. I did not mention to the publisher that it was a hard science fiction story. The publisher said that the story contained too much physics.

The story centered arounf the Big Bang which I consider the most mysterious subject in science.

To help explain the Big Bang Peter Higgs predicted the existence of the Higgs boson also known as “the God Particle”. Stephen Hawking proposed that “the God Particle” was the source of all the mass in the universe.

The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed in 2012. Higgs won the Nobel Prize for his work the following year.  

I submitted The Universe in Balance to another publisher explaining that it was a hard science fiction story, and it was accepted for publication by the Corner Bar Magazine. To find the story go to the Corner Bar Magazine website and to the Home page, then to Ostarablot, March 21, volume 9 issue 4. Hope you enjoy the story.

So, there you have it, the difference between hard and soft science fiction.

Entry filed under: PUBLISHED WORKS, Walt Trizna, Walt Trizna's Stories, WALT'S OBSERVATIONS. Tags: Big Bang, books, experimentation, fiction, hard science fiction, Higgs boson, Nobel Prize, Peter Higgs, sci-fi, science fiction, soft science fiction, the God Particle, Walt Trizna, writing.