Hard Scifi Lit stories?

[AwkwardMD]

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.

Labor of love to get Long Haul across the finish line, but totally worth it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

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

I agree with this definition, as does Wiki: "a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic". Hard SF can have aliens, but since it's usually restricted by pesky things like the speed of light, meeting them takes a bit more effort; Rendezvous with Rama involves some very long flight times.

Something like Star Wars or Firefly that's heavy on the space ships and special effects, but doesn't pay much attention to RL science, would be "space opera".

Clarke wrote the full spectrum from Rama-style hard SF to soft space opera, the latter more in his early career. He also dabbled in Lovecraftian parody at least once.

 

[ruddygore]

+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.

If it's a good story, yes. "The Tatooed Woman" by Gort Mundy and "Mine ... Yours" by Payenbrant both have decent rating, over 4.5, and don't have much sex in them. However, both are more fantasy the SciFI.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Songs of Seduction - Fire and Ice

An astronaut encounters an alien angel on Titan. Features a HAL 14000 computer (Athena - a nod to Kubrick's original name for the HAL9000), the latest generation after they sorted the 9000 class problems out; references to Kurt Vonnegut, J.G.Ballard; the entire Apollo 11 moon landing sequence; the AI gets all interested in human sexuality, and has body monitors feeding her data, so attempts to reconstruct a path to orgasm using nanobots. The alien entity flies, and copes with sub zero temperatures, and gets it on with the astronaut, Eve Fleming.

Probably qualifies as hard sci-fi.

 

[NightPorter]

I have the germ of an idea.

The idea is that we're about a decade into colonization on Mars. The era of space agencies is coming to an end and the commercialization of the planet has begun. Total number of humans is in the triple digits and growing on the one real base on Mars. Big space companies are moving in and with the influx of new astronauts, standards are beginning to fall from the lofty expectations of the space agencies. With that has come problems.

I'm basing the concept on the real world and very disturbing events that have taken place at Mcmurdo station in Antarctica. Where the combination of isolation, stress and a predominantly male population was led to cases of harassment and worse. (I'll need to be careful navigating this theme but it's realistic.)

The Elon Musk-esque space billionaire has come up with a novel program to head off any issues. An interpersonal Relationship Specialist aka a company prostitute.

Main character is a grad student at one of the big colleges like MIT, who has recently gotten involved in a scandal when her classmates found out that she moonlights as a stripper for extra cash. With a degree in something like Astrobiology/Sociology/Physics and with her work in sex work, she seems like the perfect candidate for a five year contract to move to Mars and set up shop.

I need to work out the details but I think I'm going to call the series, The Martian Courtesan.

 

[AllenWoody]

Shameless plug for Lost Colony, which sticks to hard science to the extent that I could manage. Adventure on a distant world where a colonization effort went awry.

 

[AlinaX]

I have the germ of an idea.

The idea is that we're about a decade into colonization on Mars. The era of space agencies is coming to an end and the commercialization of the planet has begun.

Main character is a grad student at one of the big colleges like MIT, who has recently gotten involved in a scandal when her classmates found out that she moonlights as a stripper for extra cash.

If you have Amazon Prime, you should be able to read Colony One Mars for free. It’s a pretty good read and has some nice insights into colonisation of Mars.

The trope of young female student coerced into sex work is certainly a popular one here on Lit, but maybe you could play it a little differently.

The colony is now in triple figures, but the population is ninety percent men for reasons, and recruiting new volunteers for what is increasingly regarded as a one-way trip to a hard life is a struggle.

One mining consortium hits on the idea of targeting young women specially, with its “Mars Needs Women” campaign, but… what makes such a life attractive? Freedom, perhaps. Maybe the consortium quietly encourages its new volunteers to be a little slutty to attract male volunteers. Maybe the consortium injects some experimental nanites that help against radiation, but also boosts libido…

 

[StillStunned]

One mining consortium hits on the idea of targeting young women specially, with its “Mars Needs Women” campaign, but… what makes such a life attractive? Freedom, perhaps. Maybe the consortium quietly encourages its new volunteers to be a little slutty to attract male volunteers. Maybe the consortium injects some experimental nanites that help against radiation, but also boosts libido…

Maybe it's the idea of weighing a third of what they do on Earth...

 

[THBGato]

Maybe it's the idea of weighing a third of what they do on Earth...

Definitely not your finest moment.

 

[StillStunned]

Definitely not your finest moment.

My sense of humour was spawned in the darkness of the 1970s and forged in the fires of the 1980s. It might slumber, but mere time cannot stop it from raising its ugly head.

 

[AlinaX]

The trouble with losing weight, so to speak, is that muscle atrophy and a whole host of other medical complications rear their ugly head.

That said, I can certainly imagine a consortium selling low gravity as an attraction and even designing new spacesuits that emphasise certain attributes…

 

[NightPorter]

Maybe the consortium injects some experimental nanites that help against radiation, but also boosts libido…

I actually looked into this to see if there was a female viagra I could use in my story. In the name of keeping the story rooted in hard Scifi I didn't want to just invent one. Addyi (filbanserin) is an approved treatment for hypoactive (low) sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women. It's supposed to increase libido and sensitivity in woman. Good idea, thank you.

I'm 7k into the first chapter and it's going very well so far. Hopefull the dreaded writers block doesn't set in before I have something to publish. My 80% completed folder is already WAY to large. I have a bad tendancy to enjoy the research portion of writing more than the actual writing.

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

The distinction between hard SF is like Will Rogers talking about economists. "You put them end to end and they point in all directions. " Space opera is often considered "soft" SF. Stars Wars is often called space fantasy. Hard SF is a pretty big tent.

My penal slavery universe is alternative history with hard SF elements. As others have posted, there's some good erotic SF on Lit. It's tough to market without being tossed into the erotica ghetto of Amazon. You also have to distinguish it from sf romance, which often, but not always, glosses over the science.

 

[SmokingFap]

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 believe in the Big Time published literary world, hard sci-fi refers to stories that incorporate actual technical aspects. I recently read The Three-Body Problem (not remotely erotic). It got heavy into quantum physics, as well as astronautics. I think it would be hard to write a truly hard-science erotic story, as all of the technical details would ruin the mood.

 

[THBGato]

I think it would be hard to write a truly hard-science erotic story, as all of the technical details would ruin the mood.

Hold FeatherWatt's beer.

High Voltage Mittens (especially bottom of page 2: using hard science details to up the tension)

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

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.

My latest story, AI Era: Fusion Tug Clara Solti , is hard Sci-Fi, set in interplanetary space. No aliens or fantasy.

Fusion power and superconductors are the main technological leaps, plus another more intimate technology - but I won't give a spoiler here.