[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 39 KB, 266x430, Ringworld(1stEd).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
844985 No.844985 [Reply] [Original]

This is the only good hard sci-fi there ever has been.
Discuss.

>> No.844986

OP doesn't know about Dune.

>> No.844987

How do you differentiate the "hard' from the "soft"?

>> No.844991
File: 104 KB, 304x500, masseffect_revelation.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
844991

>> No.844992

Sage for Halo bullshit.

>> No.844994

>>844986
>Dune
>Hard sci-fi
>>844987
Generally, hard sci-fi is more concerned with being scientifically accurate. Soft sci-fi is more concerned with characterizations.
Hard sci-fi: Ringworld
Soft sci-fi: Foundation.

>> No.844995

and it wasn't even that good

>> No.844998
File: 2 KB, 126x99, 1276809941874s.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
844998

>>844992
>He thinks Ringworld and Halo are the same thing

>> No.845003

Hard sci-fi = Grumpy authors trying to purge all fantasy elements from their stories in some confused crusade against wonder and merriment

>> No.845004

>>844991

Uh, read 2 of the Mass Effect books. They aren't that good.

>> No.845010

>>845003
Scientists and Scientist wannabes trying to write fiction and not realizing that storytelling encompasses more than just accurately explaining how things work.

>> No.845012

>>845003
That's what's different about Ringworld. It's actually imaginative. I usually can't stomach hard sci-fi but when the real science ADDS to the story (like it does in Ringworld/Known Space) it's awesome. I think it comes down to the author.

>> No.845016

OP:

Ringworld is, indeed, a great book. I was reading it a few weeks ago, and blew through the pages rather quickly, on account of how exciting the story was. I made a thread about it on /lit/. but nobody cared or read it.

>> No.845021

>>845012

Not just that, but Larry doesn't explain stuff to you.

Now, I may be autistic in that special way, but I like infodumps. I love the way Neal Stephenson slams you with descriptions and explanations of gadgets. I read Tom Clancy to get my fix of that.

Ringworld had almost none of this. To quote Steve Jobs, IT JUST WERKS. But in a tangible, believable way.

>> No.845022

>>845016
Op here. It was the best space-set sci-fi I've read since Dune. I had trouble putting it down. It was awe-inspiring.
Also /lit/ just hates sci-fi in general.

>> No.845023
File: 34 KB, 299x500, Rendezvous.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
845023

My hard sci-fi vote goes to Rendevous with Rama

>> No.845029

>>845021
I'm not good at science, really, and I failed physics the one time I took a shot at it in school, but I found his occasional explanations believable, at the very least, and more often than not understandable. I don't usually get hard SF, but this was different somehow.

>> No.845027

>>845022
>/lit/ just hates sci-fi in general.

Hardly.

>>845023

Finished RWR a few days ago. Decent but I sure missed character development in that novel.

>> No.845036
File: 36 KB, 221x246, 1277389748876.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
845036

>>844994
>Sci-fi
>Scientifically accurate
>40 year old book

Oh well, this one is actually in the mail for me. . . I'll withhold judgement until it's read.

>> No.845038

>>845027
I've seen no evidence to the contrary. What sci-fi does /lit/ like? I know it has a boner for the Hyperion Cantos and Dune and Foundation have at least a grudging respect from many people. I've found that generally sci-fi is looked down upon here.

>> No.845043

>>845036
Well later editions corrected the errors. You'll get one that WON'T have the Ringworld doing stuff it shouldn't.

>> No.845046

>>845038

/lit/ likes a lot of sci-fi! From the literary Pynchon stuff to the cyberpunk of Gibson.

>> No.845049

>>845038

Yeah I checked this board for like months and rarely found anything positive about sci-fi/fantasy but now that it's summer I've pleasantly found many more threads about some of the better sci-fi. . . I like this change.

>> No.845054

>>845049
That's because there aren't as many literary snobs on here in the summer. It's a positive change for us. It's awful on /mu/, though. Unless they're all trolls in which case it's no worse than usual.

>> No.845058

>>845038

I like space-operas, action-adventure laden stories with lots of gunfights, explosions, drama, hot girls, alien encounters, flashy starships, heroic pilots, and whatnot.

Understandably, the Star Wars Expanded Universe got me into sci-fi. Specifically, The Thrawn Trilogy, Shadows of the Empire, X-Wing, and so on.

Then I moved onto mil-sci-fi like Starfist, The Honorverse, and so on. I also started getting into Clarke, Vonnegut, Dick, Asimov at around that age.

>> No.845062

>>845058
>the Star Wars Expanded Universe got me into sci-fi
I think this happens for everyone. I can't read any of the ones that have come out in the past year though, they're just too out there at this point.

>> No.845072

>>845058
I started on x-wing too. I loved that shit. Gave up on sci-fi for a while
Iain M Banks Excession got me back into sci-fi.

>> No.845080

>>845062
Star Trek was got me into science fiction in general. Finding the Star Trek Encyclopedia and a bunch of crappy old next gen novels pretty much cursed me to the 13 subsequent years (so far) of reading sci fi and fantsay.

>> No.845082

Meh, I was thought /lit/ was always good to sci-fi and fantasy. How many fricking GRRM / ASoIaF threads do we need? And the SF / F recommendation images were among the first done, as I recall.

>> No.845083

I haven't read this. I'm not a big Sci/fi fan, but I've read Ender's Game (and the rest of the series, it was amazing), and Vonnegut has some amazing Sci/fi. And what about Orwell and Huxley?

>> No.845088

>>845080
Trek has its moments. I think it's all a bit cheesy, even for a genre where everything has to be over-the-top to an extent. The franchise in general improved greatly after Gene Roddenberry beamed up to the great engine room in the sky, if you ask me. But it's still not as good as the hardcore fans make it out to be. I think there's hope if it continues along the lines of the recent movie, though.

>> No.845090

>>845083
1984 and Brave New World aren't even in the same sub-genre as this but are both pretty much the standards by which dystopian literature is judged. I haven't read anything else by them, though, except Animal Farm, which is god-tier.

>> No.845091

Ben Bova, Stephen Baxter, and Arthur C. Clarke are all prime examples of hard sci-fi that is also entertaining as well as factual

>> No.845202

>>845036

The physical concepts that Niven bases his tech on in the book, i.e. orbital mechanics and the behavior of objects within a conservative field (in this case gravity) haven't really changed much in about 200 years.

For me the pull of this book was the very interesting concept of the book, a continuous strip of mass constructed about a singularity and the feasibility of such an arrangement in terms of supporting life. It's the devil in the details. There are points where Niven had to make things up simply because they don't exist. For instance the density of the material to make up the Ringworld in order to keep bad shit out and good shit in and not have the whole arrangement fall apart simply don't exist, and the proposed methods for construction of the Ringwold are beyond ridiculous. In the end it was one hell of a mind trip and I'd recommend it to anyone.