Soft science fiction, or soft SF, is a category of science fiction that uses less probable or realistic science elements. It either (1) explores the "soft" sciences, and especially the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and so on), rather than engineering or the "hard" sciences (for example, physics, astronomy, or chemistry), or (2) is not scientifically accurate, or (3) both of the former. Soft science fiction of either type is often more concerned with character and speculative societies, rather than scientific or engineering speculations. It is the complement of hard science fiction. The term first appeared in the late 1970s.

Definition

In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Peter Nicholls writes that "soft SF" is a "not very precise item of SF terminology" and that the contrast between hard and soft is "sometimes illogical." In fact, the boundaries between "hard" and "soft" are neither definite nor universally agreed-upon, so there is no single standard of scientific "hardness" or "softness." Some readers might consider any deviation from the possible or probable (for example, including faster-than-light travel or paranormal powers) to be a mark of "softness." Others might see an emphasis on character or the social implications of technological change (however possible or probable) as a departure from the science-engineering-technology issues that in their view ought to be the focus of hard SF. Given this lack of objective and well-defined standards, "soft science fiction" does not indicate a genre or subgenre of SF but a tendency or quality—one pole of an axis that has "hard science fiction" at the other pole.

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas." It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have at least a faint grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection has become tenuous or non-existent in much of science fiction.

Definitions

Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it", a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you do not know what it is, but you know it when you see it.

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology.

Science Fiction may also refer to:

Music

Publications

Recursive science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, which itself takes the form of an exploration of science fiction within the narrative of the story.

Analysis

In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer describe recursive science fiction as, "science fiction about science fiction". In the work, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Gary Westfahl comments, "Recursive fantasy fiction – that is, a fantasy about writing fantasy – is scarce;" one potential example of recursive fantasy, however, would be Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicle.

Examples

Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cite Typewriter in the Sky by L. Ron Hubbard as an example of recursive science fiction. Gary Westfahl writes, "Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) offered a non-genre model." Westfahl noted that Hubbard's book was "an early genre example, perhaps inspired by Pirandello".

Hard science and soft science are colloquial terms used to compare scientific fields on the basis of perceived methodological rigor, exactitude, and objectivity. Roughly speaking, the natural sciences are considered "hard", whereas the social sciences are usually described as "soft".

Definition

Precise definitions vary, but features often cited as characteristic of hard science include producing testable predictions, performing controlled experiments, relying on quantifiable data and mathematical models, a high degree of accuracy and objectivity, and generally applying a purer form of the scientific method. A closely related idea (originating in the nineteenth century with Auguste Comte) is that scientific disciplines can be arranged into a hierarchy of hard to soft on the basis of factors such as rigor, "development", and whether they are "theoretical" or "applied", with physics, and chemistry typically being the hardest, biology in an intermediate position, and the social sciences being the softest.