Ask Lemmy

My preference is for when the sci-fi setting is so fundamental to the story that the same story could not be retold in another setting. Like the basic story of star wars could be reframed as a cowboy epic with a few wizards or a scientist instead of jedi and it'd still work. Those kind of sci-fi books tend to not get filmed tho.

I have recently got myself into hard sci-fi and I am having a blast. My last books were The Hot Zone, Jurassic Park and Lost World. I have now started The Martian. There are so many science facts you can learn from these while being wonderfully entertained along the way. So in conclusion I am more into the sci part where the fi part is just a careful extrapolation of an actual scientific basis.

Both as long as they are not in the same setting.

The Martian is great Sci.

Dune is great Fi.

I wouldn't want Dune to get all nitty and gritty about how Spice or space witch powers work scientifically and I wouldn't want the Martian to have sand worms. Both are great for different stories, and as long as they are internally consistent they won't break immersion.

Star Wars is Fi and shouldn't have had an attempt to explain where the Force comes from, and any description of tech is just 'ok sure, as long as we are consistent' when it comes to hyper drives and Kyber crystals.

I wish Star Wars had leaned more heavily into the fantasy side of things for the prequels and sequels. I never really noticed as a kid, but you could honestly replace most of the science stuff in the originals with fantasy aspects very easily.

Giant floating sphere that destroys kingdoms, dragons the rebellions rides, hell even the lightsabers are just magic swords.

Part of the reason the prequels feel so goofy is that they feel like they should be grounded in reality, but the writing is still using fantasy logic. Tell me the Anakin/Padmè romance wouldn't have felt better if they were in a fantasy movie. You don't feel the pull of "The Dark side" like you do in the originals for the same reason, you're just like "dude you just genocided a native tribe, chill the fuck out."

I like heavy sci, heavy fi and balanced sci-fi as long as its good storeytelling.

I think, personally, its less about how hard or soft the sci-fi is and more about how fleshed out the sci and the fi is. Im a big fan of science coming into contact with the unexplained, in an Event Horizon or Doom 3 type of way. The audio logs and background stories of Doom 3 are fantastic and really makes the world feel real and fleshed out.

Not really an answer to the question, but whatever The Expanse is. It's right in the sweet spot.

This is a long-running conflict.

Rock-hard science fiction for me.

I like both to be honest.

With that said, I actually lean more toward the Fi end of things, because when a book or movie gets something obviously wrong it's really grating. Where as with technobabble it's true in that universe, so who am I to contradict it. It's easier to stay in the moment.

As a case in point, I actually turned Prometheus off at the point when it's stated the ship traveled a billion miles... Or you know, out to Jupiter. The writers could have taken 10 seconds to educate themselves that as far as distances in space go, a billion miles isn't even out of your own yard yet. Much less an interstellar distance. Given the reviews on the rest of the movie, I apparently didn't miss much. Yes, I'm aware that Prometheus is solidly in the Fi end of the spectrum, but come on... Some one actually thought a billion miles was an interstellar distance? JFC education is really going down the tubes.

I like harder sci-fi. Very often it will explore "what if it's like now, but this one thing is different?" You get to explore the human condition a bit more that way.

Softer sci-fi tends to be just fantasy that refuses to say the word "magic" out of pure marketing, and they end up being either the same old hero's journey told and retold in current generation's slang, or sloppily handled allegory.

What I realized I like is the world building.

Mostly depends on my mood. But generally I'd prefer fiction element, it's more enjoyable.

Star wars is more sci- drama/fantasy, than scifi, DISNEY just ruined the franchise. sg1 and trek is more like sci-tech, adding elements of all the other stuff.

i prefer them leaning into the sci-tech side, with element of good writing story telling. instead of tropes like with nutrek.

sci-fantasy books might be different from film.

stargate trys to develop the stories behind certain tech, how they work.

I like a good story, with interesting characters, multiple coherent worldviews, and interesting conflicts. The sci-to-fi spectrum certainly grabs my attention and holds it while I learn about the characters and world, but ultimately, it's about compelling people, from James Holden and Jean-Luc Picard through Cassian Andor to Taylor Hebert.

I do enjoy when the science is accurate, but it feels more like an impressive artistic flourish to me. I realized a while back that if I insist on accuracy in my media, I'll miss out on a lot of good, fun, even classic entertainment. It irks me when something isn't internally consistent, but a miss on scientific accuracy is more like spotting the boom mike in a shot - mildly annoying, but usually worth focusing on what they're trying to say.

If it is too technically grounded and plausible where the more fiction part is that they got their shit together and actually did it, like The Martian I see it more akin to the adventures genre.

Also the opposite, with Star Wars or Dune more closely related to fantasy, but in space.

I like science fiction that requires technologies that don't exist that make the story possible, I don't care if it not based in reality and it is not well explained how it supposed to work, I care more about what it does and how it shapes the lives of those around it.

I like hard-science, which is well researched and any future tech tracks a plausible path from current tech.

Always appreciate fiction with world-building that weaves strong cultural undertones, and believable nuances about the motivations, failings, and history of the fiction.

eg. Snowcrash, Permutation City, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon S1

Science fiction should be based on science. Most of the things you list are fantasy, not science fiction.

If you want some great science fiction check out Neal Stephenson. Anathem and Seveneves are both fantastic.

I prefer it not to be fantasy. The two genres are inexplicably merged in how books are classified. If your setting is modern or near modern, or at all in the past - it’s not fucking science fiction. Probably a hot take… zombies - not science fiction, plague - not science fiction, horror / mystery - not science fiction.

I understand what you're trying to ask, but the "fi" in sci fi doesn't refer to how non science-y it is. It's fiction that is themed by science.

Fiction element, definitely.

Zero interest in stuff like The Expanse. I enjoy more speculative stuff with some room for weirdness and fun, saving a modest helping of gritty details for the characters and political developments over the actual science.

I like hard science fiction. Things seem more real and possible when they are grounded on real science.

I prefer the fi.

Fi with only a little sci is still entertaining.
Sci without only a little fi is just a fictional service manual.

I'm all in on military science fiction grounded in near-future tech and greebly space ships. However I'm a sucker for stories where the actual "sci fi" is just a backdrop for a more nuanced human story, like "Dr Bloodmoney". Rather than just stories where the sci fi itself is driving the story.

Can't stand shops that have a combined "Sci Fi / fantasy" section. These are different ends of the spectrum and I am completely uninterested in fantasy fiction

I just don't like a lame middle ground.

Hard science sci-fi can be great. Three Body Problem and Andy Wier's work is wonderful. And I love me some sci-fi so loose on the sci, it's bordering on fantasy. But pick a lane.

It's never either-or. Sometimes, it is neither.

IMHO, a good Sci-Fi story has a well built world against which a story will play. I loved the 'Parable' series by Octavia Butler. The science level is basically the sameas ours (heck, it even plays 'now') and is not particularly important to the story itself. However, this series is one of the best dystopian Sci-Fi series I have ever read.

sci. all the way. make it like a documentary.

Definitely the Sci side. If I want to read fantasy, there is always the Fantasy genre.

There is nothing worse that Grimms Fairy Tales put in space like Star Wars.

I enjoy both. I switch between fiction/fantasy heavy and science heavy. Sometimes I'll do a run or a series of one and get a hankering for the other. Usually I prefer my sci-fi more science than fiction. I love the expanse and the martian for example. But I also enjoy the culture and the Polity books which are more fiction than hard sci-fi.

I like both, but if it doesn't at least aim for realism, then I see it as very much futuristic fantasy. Star Trek and Star Wars are both very much fantasy.

Overtime my opinion on this has changed.

20 years ago my answer was the FI. Now it is really more the SCI.

I see your point, but I think I tended to aim for a middle ground of sorts. For example, a big reason I fell in love with PKD's stuff is because he relentlessly imagined realities in which some new tech(s) was added to the mix, then we imagined how that would play out in real life. The tech didn't need to be super-grounded in science, just something plausible. Which more or less bypassed the kind of conundrum you're proposing.

Btw, I'm not sure I agree about Star Wars completely bypassing plausible science. The unique idea there ( The ~~Schwartz~~ Force ) is fairly consistently explained in metaphysical terms, not unlike levels of consciousness that can be unlocked by dedication to meditation and certain martial arts. That sort of thing, anyway.

There was also the later pseudo-science idea about "midichlorians" being analogous to mitochondria, FWIW. Perhaps better explained in some of the novelisations and other works, I guess. I didn't really see the need for all that myself, but I guess it may have satisfied some folks' burning curiosity. (cue Triumph)

You're basically asking about "Hard" and "Soft" science fiction.

For me, at least, I lean a little bit more towards the "Soft" (what you call 'Fi') side of things. But I've also always found this a little bit of a false dichotomy; a story can go fully fantastic and explain nothing about its spaceflight, but lean heavily on actual psychology or other social sciences to drive its characters; so is it "Hard" or "Soft" sci-fi? Turns out it doesn't matter; it's Sci-fi and if it's a good story, then it's good.

I also have to somewhat push back on the idea that Star Wars "doesn't even try to explain" its tech. A lot of people put a good bit of effort into laying out how the technology worked, up to and including calculating the energy involved in things like Turbolaser bolts (turns out, it's a metric shitton of energy).