When writing science fiction, one can run into some interesting situations where choices must be made. I like hard science fiction quite a bit, and I write what many might consider to be hard science fiction at least part of the time. One thing the hard SF writer must occasionally do is break with the rigid adherence to science in order to tell the story more effectively.
Hard Science Fiction
Before we go into that, let’s get some common ground. What, exactly, is hard science fiction? It’s not hard, meaning difficult to understand, (though possibly difficult to write). Hard, in this case means rigorously adhering to known or easily extrapolated science.
Hard SF does, unfortunately, have a reputation of being difficult to understand. When done well, this doesn’t have to be the case. A good author can educate and entertain you at the same time.
In this way, the hard science fiction novel is a cousin to the technothriller. Both can be heavy on details, only the technothriller generally happens in present day and hard SF generally happens in the future, but there is some overlap.
I’ve empirically noticed that often people who read technothrillers claim they do not like science fiction, but what they consider science fiction tends to be what they see on television. Give them the real stuff, like Ben Bova or Kim Stanley Robinson, they discover they enjoy it.
Cutting Corners
The hard SF author is allowed to cut a few corners. You’ll notice this typically when rigidly adhering to real science would come at the expense of story. Let’s use an example from my first novel, Neanderthal Swan Song.
One Amazon reviewer commented that the political situation surrounding the cloning of a Neanderthal would be significantly more that I portrayed, and he is absolutely correct about it.
That said, the typical reader is trying to make the novel conform to their own world view. They complain about things that decrease the enjoyment of the novel for them. The author, on the other hand, must make decisions between adhering to the reality, or keeping readers in the book.
While it’s true I oversimplified both the cloning process and the political environment in Neanderthal Swan Song, some readers get bored by those details and might not finish the book at all if that kind of section dominates the page.
Choices
In a situation like this, the author must take both kinds of readers into consideration, and make the best choice for the story. Sometimes, real things, events, technology, people aren’t the best option for a given novel. In mine, I wanted to move through the plot quickly, so the technology and politics occurred off=stage. I brought some of it on stage to be seen, to ensure that the readers know it’s there. Had I made it rigid, I’d probably still be working on the thing.
ButThey Were Based on Rea Aliens
Which reminds me of the old joke, where a short story manuscript is rejected by Asimov’s magazine because the aliens are not believable. The angry author writes back to complain that the aliens in the novel were based on real aliens. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is story. Story needs to come first, before the details, otherwise you end up with a pile of details with no story.
This is one of the painful choices the hard SF writer must confront.