Hard Scifi Lit stories?

[NightPorter]

Any good Hard Scifi stories on Lit?

Moon/Martian bases? Space stations? That sort of thing.

I'm thinking of writing one of my own and I want to see what's around on the site.

 

[StillStunned]

Not A Soul: What lurks in the shadows of Space Lab 8?

 

[Rob_Royale]

Boldly Cumming
Breeding a new colony.

 

[StillStunned]

I don't know if you include post-apocalyptic as hard sci-fi, but here's my series-in-progress The Dome: Man v. machine, in the struggle for humanity's future. With an anatomically correct cat-woman.

 

[TheLobster]

I don't always write erotic sci-fi but when I do, it gets very hard.

 

[AlinaX]

My Ship’s Whore certainly, and also Synthie and Xanadu. My Chastened is hard but a little daft.

 

[shelleycat1]

This is where English lets us down. Are you asking for traditional SF with rockets, jets, steely eyed spacemen, and so on. Or does the hard refer to something else?
Anyway tefler’s epic, which has over 100 chapters here is hard in both senses. You want dragons too, yes it has dragons. With force fields. It is not finished and may never be but it’s as epic as the Wheel of Time. If you want to skip ahead, look at Chapter 100, the battle for terra, if I recall correctly. The first few chapters aren’t as good as the rest, as tefler himself admits, since it was his first story. I spent weeks reading it, and now you have put me in mind of it agsin, I might reread it again.

https://www.literotica.com/series/se/7150087 Title is Three Square Meals

 

[StillStunned]

This is where English lets us down. Are you asking for traditional SF with rockets, jets, steely eyed spacemen, and so on. Or does the hard refer to something else?

I've always understood "hard" sci-fi to refer to stories where the sci-fi aspect is given physical shape, like spaceships, robots, laser guns, aliens, that kind of stuff. "Soft" sci-fi is oriented more towards the social or psychological aspects of sci-fi. Of course a lot of the genre falls somewhere in between.

 

[TheLobster]

I've always understood "hard" sci-fi to refer to stories where the sci-fi aspect is given physical shape, like spaceships, robots, laser guns, aliens, that kind of stuff. "Soft" sci-fi is oriented more towards the social or psychological aspects of sci-fi. Of course a lot of the genre falls somewhere in between.

I don't believe this is how most people view the distinction. The difference between hard and soft is typically about the attention and importance that the author puts on the scientific validity of the setting. Harder sci-fi puts a lot of emphasis on making the "sci" part believable and grounded in real physics, whereas softer one tends to handwave it, or at best excuse it with varying amounts of technobabble that may or may not make some logical sense.

Like most things in creative fiction, all of this is, of course, a spectrum. Some would even argue that the softer end of the scale doesn't even belong to sci-fi but constitute its own genre of "science fantasy." This is where e.g. Star Wars would fall into, as it's essentially a fantasy tale with robots and spaceship, and apparently so would Tefler's Three Square Meals. (Haven't read that one, admittedly).

 

[SimonDoom]

I think of "hard" sci fi as taking a more rigorous approach toward the science and technology underlying the story.

The Martian is an example of hard sci fi. The drama involves the interesting technological challenge of staying alive on, and being rescued from Mars. There are no aliens or fantasy elements.

Star Wars is an example of soft sci fi, so soft that it's barely "sci fi" in a meaningful sense. It's just a fantasy set in space.

I consider Loquisordidaadme's Time To Breathe an example of Lit hard sci fi. It's like The Martian in that it's a stranded in space/survival story, only it has a lot of sex (gravity free, which is interesting and erotic). It's well written, too.

 

[oneagainst]

+1 ... hard Sci Fi is concerned with the mechanics of the new world, self-consistent within the laws.

As to the OP's original question, I'm not sure how it works on Lit. I'm about to launch a 10 ch hard Sci Fi story, but let's just say, the SFF category is less than overwhelming. Can you tell a story that's balls to the wall Sci Fi/Fantasy without sex every thousand words and still find an audience?

Guess I'll find out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[StillStunned]

Can you tell a story that's balls to the wall Sci Fi/Fantasy without sex every thousand words and still find an audience?

If you're OK with about 2k views and 40 votes per chapter (after the first), yes, there's an audience. Vivid characters and strong worldbuilding are rated highly.

 

[oneagainst]

If you're OK with about 2k views and 40 votes per chapter (after the first), yes, there's an audience. Vivid characters and strong worldbuilding are rated highly.

Hmm. Maybe I just put it in Erotic Couplings and be done. That's a catch-all, right?

 

[StillStunned]

Hmm. Maybe I just put it in Erotic Couplings and be done. That's a catch-all, right?

My most recent standalone SF&F story is doing quite well with 4.3k views, 111 votes and 7 comments, but yes EC will get you more views. Probably lots of comments too, along the lines of "This should be in SF&F!"

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

My First Contact series is only two chapters, but might fit the bill.

I'll apologize up front, chapter 3 is kicking my butt. Had it almost done but realize it as just a rehash of chapter 2 in a different setting, so, I let it go for a while. It's on my short list for this fall.

 

[THBGato]

I'm on Chapter 4 of The Long Haul by @AwkwardMD

It's brilliant. I'd highly recommend it. It reminds me a lot of The Expanse (The books - not seen the adaptation) though with a smaller cast. Also Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks.

Very well developed and convincing characters, lots of action (meant as both a euphemism and literally), and plausible plot-lines.

 

[THBGato]

I'd also recommend the triology The Future in Our Stars by @WaxPhilosophic

Much shorter, and more in the vein of Arthur C Clarke and Kazuo Ishiguro, but very moving.

 

[AlinaX]

I'm on Chapter 4 of The Long Haul by @AwkwardMD

It's brilliant. I'd highly recommend it. It reminds me a lot of The Expanse (The books - not seen the adaptation) though with a smaller cast. Also Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks.

Very well developed and convincing characters, lots of action (meant as both a euphemism and literally), and plausible plot-lines.

Consider Phlebas and Player of Games have had such an influence on me.

 

[NightPorter]

The Martian, both the book and the movie are a good example of hard Scifi. No aliens, no fantasy elements. Hard scifi is grounded in what is possible in the real world with some allowance for 'small' technological leaps, especially if the story takes place in the near future.

For example, The Martian takes place a few decades from now. So while most of the technology is stuff that we're already capable of, Andy Weir kind of hand waves the issue of radiation exposure with his magic "Hab Canvas." This is fine because it's completely reasonable that we'd be able to come up with better radiation shielding in the next 20-30 years.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think there's a ton of opportunity for good erotic hard sci fi stories. Specifically, where the sci fi element itself involves erotica, not just where the author adds sex to a sci fi story. Two film examples I can think of are Her, where a man falls in love with the AI on his phone, and Ex Machina, were a man is involved in a Turing test with an android that takes on erotic aspects.

 

[StillStunned]

No aliens, no fantasy elements.

If that's what you're looking for, you'll probably want to scrap my suggestions from your list.

 

[THBGato]

The Martian, both the book and the movie are a good example of hard Scifi. No aliens, no fantasy elements. Hard scifi is grounded in what is possible in the real world with some allowance for 'small' technological leaps, especially if the story takes place in the near future.

I stand by my two recommendations then: both fit that.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I've tried writing a few, and they're definitely hard in the male physiological sense, and I believe also hard in terms of the plot and setting dependent on SF premises. I believe that the specific sex acts could, in fact, only happen in these SF-informed situations. (Note: There are NO aliens or nonhumans, nor is there any virtual reality.)

This is the first of a five-part series:

https://www.literotica.com/s/weightless-ecstasy-ch-01

It's the first large mission to Mars, with several people, and their use of what amounts to a big rec room to explore sexual interactions in free fall. The story isn't vast, by Lit SFF standards, and all of the chapters have been finished and published.

This one is a standalone:

https://www.literotica.com/s/endless-summer-or-is-it

It's set about thirty years in the future, when much of the world (including parts of the U.S.) are becoming uninhabitable, and rich folks have relocated to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. One of the rich folks has an opportunity to throw nearly all of his money into a project that would get humanity through the worst of it--but there are two entirely different projects, and he'd have to choose one. There's a fair amount of sex, all of it (of course) relevant to the story.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

The Martian, both the book and the movie are a good example of hard Scifi. No aliens, no fantasy elements. Hard scifi is grounded in what is possible in the real world with some allowance for 'small' technological leaps, especially if the story takes place in the near future.

For example, The Martian takes place a few decades from now. So while most of the technology is stuff that we're already capable of, Andy Weir kind of hand waves the issue of radiation exposure with his magic "Hab Canvas." This is fine because it's completely reasonable that we'd be able to come up with better radiation shielding in the next 20-30 years.

I got aliens, so my stuff wont work for what you're looking for.

 

[SimonDoom]

The Martian, both the book and the movie are a good example of hard Scifi. No aliens, no fantasy elements. Hard scifi is grounded in what is possible in the real world with some allowance for 'small' technological leaps, especially if the story takes place in the near future.

For example, The Martian takes place a few decades from now. So while most of the technology is stuff that we're already capable of, Andy Weir kind of hand waves the issue of radiation exposure with his magic "Hab Canvas." This is fine because it's completely reasonable that we'd be able to come up with better radiation shielding in the next 20-30 years.

I don't think aliens necessarily take it out of the realm of hard sci fi. A good example is Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, which is about a human encounter with an alien probe that enters the solar system for a little while. It's done in a very thoughtful and realistic way, with no sensationalism or silly fantasy. The author makes it seem plausible. He fully explores the concept in an intelligent way. And he doesn't completely resolve things, which makes it interesting.