In a message dated 97-05-01 08:59:40 EDT, you write:
<< If a woman writes a work which is consistent
with received knowledge from the hard sciences, she is practicing
"hard sf." If, however, she writes a fiction which relies heavily on
magic and the occult, she is writing science fantasy. So to me, the
question really is: what women write hard SF and what women write
science fantasy? >>
It goes beyond this division you're talking about, and I think, even beyond
the division everyone else is talking about. You're splitting writers who use
science and magic in their fiction, the others are splitting those who use
"hard" science and those who use "soft" science. In my own mind, I split a
lot of sf into that I like and that I don't like, and often this split occurs
not over the hard/soft issue, or the science/magic issue, but the
humanity/technology issue. There's no bigger waste of trees, in my opinion,
than fiction that has flat characters and rich, three-dimensional technology.
I read to learn about people, and this can be accomplished even in very
"hard" sf, where the science aspect of the fiction is not upstaging the
people aspect.
I think Robin got it right on when she wrote:
<<Dystopias allow the author to explore a
new technology or political or social trend or change and say something
intelligent about it by extrapolating possible future consequences.>>
And also Martha: <<The old, knee-jerk crticism of "hard SF" always included
"cardboard characters" but I thought a whole lot of excellent writers had
dumped that
idea. And I also hope that relating any technology/science in the story to
well-developed characterizations and believable social situations does not
automatically exclude the work from any consideration as "hard SF." >>
Hope Cascio, throwing in her $ .02
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:09 PDT