It's my opinion that "hard sf" is much more about technology than science.
It is, literally, about hard (and preferably shiny, and preferably sterile
i.e. not contaminated by anything remotely resembling an organism) things:
rockets, pipelines, dyson spheres, orbital stations, computers. Any novel
without one of these big dumb objects probably won't be lauded as hard sf by
those who read that sort of thing.
My novel, SLOW RIVER, isn't often called hard sf--even though it's all about
biology and chemistry (can't get much harder than chemistry, really)--because
sewage isn't shiny, hard, and metallic. It's icky and, well, too connected
with the body. Not all shiny intellect. Too close to the human, the
fallible, ungodly etc. etc.
The debate about whether or not science is sexist is, in my opinion, a red
herring. This is all about the classic mind/body split.
Just my two cents.
Nicola
Nicola Griffith
http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/
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