Perhaps this would have been a thread more suited to the Fiction forum but that place seems dead. I'm wondering if anyone has any links to sites with information on how to write hard science fiction. With information on stuff that is realistic or a future possibility (spaceflight, realistic technology and settings.)
I've scoured the web, but all I seem to find are stupid semantic arguments on what hard sci-fi is.
Orion's Arm (a hard SF universe with detailed explanations)
Atomic Rocket (suggestions for respecting science in SF)
You could also try Simple English Wikipedia and parts of TV Tropes regarding science fiction.
GURPS: Space, GURPS: Ultra-Tech and GURPS: Spaceships can be downloaded from the SJGames site (Spaceships takes their desire for strict technical accuracy a bit too far but the other two are great resources)
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Last edited by Symmetric Chaos on Jan 7th, 2010 at 06:05 AM
Fantastic site for backstory. Terrible site on how to actually write a story.
If you're interested in actually writing a story - not just looking for cool stuff to put in it - read. Read, read, read: not just scifi (preferably by the masters), but also other genres. One of my personal, non-scifi favorites is Hemingway. His ultra-lean style is an excellent example of emphasizing verbs and nouns (good), not adjectives and adverbs (bad).
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The trick is to study a lot of the great hard sci-fi writers and tie it in with real research and theoretical physics as well as known laws.
Freeman Dyson is probably the best place to start.
I would also recommend a lot of JG Ballard's sci-fi novels like
"the drowned world"....The interesting thing about his work is that it isn't set too far into the future but still contains interesting and plausible sci-fi...Some of which isn't all that far off being true...Drowned world being an example of global warming even though he wrote it in the 60's.
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Jan 7th, 2010 05:49 AM
