/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20405549]

Can hard science fiction have deep and compelling characters? Or is it strictly a vehicle for speculative concepts?

[Anonymous No.20405561]

>>20405549
You can do anything in fiction.

[Anonymous No.20405584]

Theres a division of labour in sci-fi, you get ideas men like the big 3 who write influential works with excellent ideas and worlds like Starship troopers or Foundation and then you get the smaller more human artists that use those ideas and fill them with humans, like the Forever War or the Culture novels.

[Anonymous No.20405605]

>>20405549
Solaris is pretty hard in terms of its science and has compelling characters compared to sci-fi standards. But I fear zoomers will be bored by this novel.

[Anonymous No.20405635]

>>20405549
No, scientists are boring

[Anonymous No.20405686]

>>20405549
it CAN but I never seen it done well

[Anonymous No.20405919]

>>20405686

Then how do you know?

[Anonymous No.20406181]

I thought Dua, from part 2 of "The Gods Themselves" by Asimov, was deep and compelling...despite having no fixed physical form, even.

[Anonymous No.20406262]

>>20405605
Solaris had such a tense, glum, anguished atmosphere from beginning to end. Like being trapped in a feverish delirium.

[Anonymous No.20406284]

Slippery Jim is compelling.

[Anonymous No.20406297]

>>20405549
The one major plus at this book is that Niven's imaginative writing is very clear. However, that's not enough to save the book from it's hideous misogyny -- Niven frequently refers to the female members of both alien species as being non-sentient and the only two human females in the whole book are dimensionless characters that are often referred to as "unintelligent." The Teela Brown character in particular only joins the mission because she is "bred for psychic luck" and serves basically no other purpose other than to be a courtesan to the protagonist. One can try as hard as they like to look past these negative aspects of the book since it was written in the 70s, but the frequency with which these issues pop up make it unreadable and disappointing.

[Anonymous No.20406341]

>>20405549

Legend of The Galactic Heroes. It's incredibly character driven, and I think the sci-fi stuff is honestly the weakest part of the series itself.

[Anonymous No.20406358]

>>20406284

[Anonymous No.20406565]

>>20406297
It's a little jarring today, true. However the fundamental progressive lie that females are as capable as males in literally all things will make current works as unreadable in the future.

[Anonymous No.20406598]

>>20406358
Brilliant shot. Director knew what he was doing.

[Anonymous No.20408417]

>>20406297
Seething

[Anonymous No.20408475]

>>20405549
Lem does it constantly.

>Or is it strictly a vehicle for speculative concepts?
They are necessarily vehicles for speculative concepts, but that doesn't mean that they can't be deep and compelling.