Welcome to the world of science fiction, where anything is possible. There are many branches of science fiction and can be difficult to navigate. There is something for everyone, if you know where to look. Whether you want hard science fiction which is backed up by science or you want something a little more fantasy, the possibilities are endless.

If you are looking to get started or if you are relatively new to the genre, it may be kind of overwhelming to shift through all the categories and genres of science fiction. Today, I want to talk about the major categories of science fiction and what you may find within.

First, you’ll want to note that science fiction needs to be somewhat believable when reading but whether or not they are considered hard or soft science fiction depends whether the science is accurate and can be backed up by scientific studies or if its more of a scientific fantasy.

Hard Science Fiction

What you’re going to find in hard science fiction is that it is a lot more STEM focused. This is great for those into the natural sciences and wonder what it would be like to say, terraform a planet?

Still of Matt Damon from The Martian film

As scientists work on getting us to the stars, we also need to worry about how are we going to feed ourselves? Novels and movies like The Martian (2015) are a good way to imagine, realistically, what it will be like to live on another planet.

The stories in these drama need to be able to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Otherwise, they may delve closer to soft science fiction or even science fantasy. Magic and science will not be seen together, usually, in novels like these because magic is not realistic. There won’t really be any vampires or dragons or any other supernatural beings because they are not scientifically plausible.

Artificial intelligence movies, like Ex Machina (2014) are considered hard science fiction due to their accurate believably of the evolution of artificial intelligence.

As our scientific understanding grows, so does our artificial intelligence. We may have a future with self-aware robots, androids, or even artificially created synthetic humans. While these are more theoretical, they are becoming more of a reality every day. Now, if those robots had superpowers like the X-men, then I would not consider them hard science fiction because magic is not possible within our own understanding of the universe. That’s when it you get more into the science fantasy.

I could go more into the different areas of hard science fiction but the important thing to remember is: is the science possible now or plausible in the future? If the answer is a resounding “no,” then it is not hard science fiction.

Soft Science Fiction

There are three very important parts to soft science fiction. First being that the science does not need to be proven, nor does it need to be explained. Just needs to be believable. Second, this genre often focuses more on the humanities, like politics and psychology. Lastly, this may have elements of fantasy. The term soft science fiction tends to work interchangeably with science fantasy.

The thing is with soft science fiction is that it doesn’t have to be possible, just plausible. For example, the BiFrost from Thor. There has been science based around wormholes and many science fiction writers use it to get around the problem of it being scientifically impossible to go faster than light. However, it is impossible at this time to travel or create a wormhole, nor was it explained all that well in the movie besides some technobabble.

Another very popular form of impossible but seemly possible faster-than-light travel is warp drive. Scientists believe it could be possible but we are not there yet. More can be found at The Conversation.

Here’s a sampling of some of the subgenres of soft science fiction with popular books and movies.

  • Space Fantasy (ex. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams)
  • Space Opera (ex. Star Wars)
  • Dystopia (ex. The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood)
  • Post-Apocalyptic (ex. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson)
  • Time Travel (ex. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon)
  • Alternative History (ex. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick).
  • Near Future (ex. Ready Player One by Ernst Cline)

Authors and Book Recommendations

Let’s start with hard science fiction. I would, of course, recommend my all-time favorite science fiction author: Issac Asimov. From Foundation to the Caves of Steel, you will not be disappointed. Second, Arthur C. Clarke is a highly rated classic science fiction writer. For a more independent author, I’d recommend The Starborn Heir by D.J. Bodden which I have reviewed and recommend highly. Goodreads has an excellent list for other excellent and highly praised hard science fiction novels.

If you are looking for an author who writes for both categories, I’d recommend Ted Chiang who inspired the movie Arrival (2016).

For soft science fiction, I’d recommend Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick which is in the dystopian subgenere. If you want some alien themed novels, I would definitely look into Octavia Butler’s Xenogensis trilogy, which starts with Dawn. For more, check out this list on Goodreads.

Do you agree with our break down of hard vs soft science fiction? Is there one you prefer? Let us know in the comments!