Hard science fiction for all the other sciences

[sqbr]

So I was thinking about the scifi that doesn't get the love it deserves, and had an idea for a con panel: Hard science fiction for subjects other than physics, maths, and computer science.

Where here by "hard" I mean "Fairly scientifically realistic (given one or two "what-if"s etc), someone with a degree in that field would think it was cool rather than painfully innaccurate". Normal (ie mathsy) examples in this field are people like Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter ("Raft" had me doing 3d intergration to figure out the gravity field of his space ship :)), some Asimov etc.

The problem is: I have a degree in maths and computer science, so what the hell do I know about these other subjects :D On the other hand, nico_wolfwood (who has volunteered to co-panelise it) has the right sort of degree but couldn't think of many examples :)

So, for those of you with a background in one of these other sciences what books do you feel make a genuine effort to explore the ideas of your field in an informed and inventive way? Any objections to our current suggestions?

The ones we can think of are:
Linguistics:

• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel has a very clever alien language (pity the characters are so annoying..)
  
• Mother Tongue has a "women's language" and features linguists and language very prominently as it relates to dealings with aliens and subgroups of people. Unfortunately, it also really annoyed me :)
  
• The story of your life by Ted Chiang: a language which changes the way you experience time.
  
• The Language of Pao by Jack Vance uses the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (that your language affects your thinking)
  

Biology:

• Some of Greg Bear's stuff ("Darwin's Radio", "Vitals" etc) but I have no idea how accurate it is, I get the feeling not very :)
  
• I found www.sciencefictionbiology.com but it's not clear which of these are good
  
• Seventy Two Letters "hard" sf using 18th century biology etc. Bizarre but cool :)
  
• Peter Watts books (starting with Starfish) I haven't read these myself
  
• Melissa Scott Maybe?
  

Psychology:

• Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon extrapolates the future of autism
  
• Some fiction about artificial intelligence skirts the boundary of cognitive science/psychology. Greg Egan's stuff has some interesting ideas about what the psychology of AIs and augmented minds might be like.
  

Sociology/Anthroplogy:

• There's lots of books which play around with these ideas, I have no idea how you'd classify them as "well informed" or not. See Social science fiction.
  
• Asimov's foundation series?
  
• Sleepless series by Nancy Kress: the sociological effects of having a genuinely superior subset of society. I didn't like her conclusions, nico_wolfwood did, and she is the one with an anthropology degree :)
  

Geology/environmental science etc:

• Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Detailed description of terraforming Mars. Characters irriated me too much, I stopped after a few chapters, but the science was interesting :)
  
• Kim Stanley Robinson's Capital Code series, doggedly explores the actual consequences of global warming
  

Other:

• William Gibson's Count Zero deals with Joseph Cornell's box constructions
  

Right. Now both my panel ideas are out there I feel much better. They're both doing ok in the panel voting and I at least feel semi-prepared for it if they do get taken up. And if I'm sick on the day nico_wolfwood etc have my notes to work from, should they feel the need :)

EDIT: More discussion here.

Comments

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel has a very clever alien language (pity the characters are so annoying..)

Hmmm. You know I was wondering why I'd put it down and never finished it...

[alias_sqbr]

Trust me, you didn't miss much. The "unnamably terrible thing" he spends the whole book angsting about is painfully contrived in it's pointless tragedy.

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you can have hard SF without hard science. :P

The soft sciences certainly have SF based around them (the 'New Wave' movement is based around psychology, sociology, anthropology etc) but the lack of general agreement in these fields means that there can't really be a 'scientifically accurate' depiction.

Asimov's Foundation would be an example of SF based on sociology (even if he calls it psychohistory), but the mathematical aspect makes it unconvincing.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that, post-chaos theory, the mathematical aspect of Foundation is unconvincing.

However, I'm not sure that it would not have qualified as hard SF at the time it was written.

Larry Niven was famously burnt by this once - he wrote a story set on Mercury which included accurate science when he wrote it only to have the accepted scientific position change due to new information between submission and publication.

[alias_sqbr]

From my ignorant-about-social sciences POV I agree they seem to be hard to build informed books around that stand out from ignorant speculation, but for example this soesn't seem to be a problem for biology and linguistics. And I can't see that geology, say, has a lot of controversy around it, it's just that people seem more interested in writing about The Journey To The Centre Of The Earth than anything well researched :)

[col-ki.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's all maths anyway.

[warpwind.livejournal.com]

is it strange that when I first saw this i imagined a geologist beneath the graph with a geopick saying "oooh shiney" and picking up a rock.

Also I'll have a think geology "hard science wise". At the moment all I come up with is Kim stanely Robinson's Red/blue/green Mars series but it's hardly the best example and I can't remember much of it..

[alias_sqbr]

One could say that maths is just a narrow subset of philosophy :)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I have't got around to reading them myself, but Peter Watts books (starting with Starfish) are supposed to be excellent hard SF, with both unusual physics (deep sea high pressure etc) and lots of biology.

[alias_sqbr]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for them.

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

This is probably just me, but in my head Social Science Fiction does not match up to Hard Science Fiction based in the social sciences. Social science fiction seems to involve the author being very interested in a social science concept and using it in the plot. Hard science fiction seems to be about writing a plot that matches the physical universe in every detail. I kind of agree with the people who suggest that since people are (at this point) not accurately describable this might be kinds of hard to do with a social science. How do we write a plot that matches human society in every concievable way? Alternatively, it can be suggested that every science fiction novel makes an attempt at this just matching the author's view of human society in every way.

I kind of like your description of it as 'Books which don't make the people who have degrees in the respective fields squirm upon reading' (paraphrased slightly) though...

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I think I need a better term than "hard science fiction", because it gives people the wrong idea of what I mean.

So, what books with a heavy sociological etc component haven't bugged the heck out of you with their stupidity? :)

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel has a very clever alien language (pity the characters are so annoying..)

Hmmm. You know I was wondering why I'd put it down and never finished it...

[alias_sqbr]

Trust me, you didn't miss much. The "unnamably terrible thing" he spends the whole book angsting about is painfully contrived in it's pointless tragedy.

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you can have hard SF without hard science. :P

The soft sciences certainly have SF based around them (the 'New Wave' movement is based around psychology, sociology, anthropology etc) but the lack of general agreement in these fields means that there can't really be a 'scientifically accurate' depiction.

Asimov's Foundation would be an example of SF based on sociology (even if he calls it psychohistory), but the mathematical aspect makes it unconvincing.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that, post-chaos theory, the mathematical aspect of Foundation is unconvincing.

However, I'm not sure that it would not have qualified as hard SF at the time it was written.

Larry Niven was famously burnt by this once - he wrote a story set on Mercury which included accurate science when he wrote it only to have the accepted scientific position change due to new information between submission and publication.

[alias_sqbr]

From my ignorant-about-social sciences POV I agree they seem to be hard to build informed books around that stand out from ignorant speculation, but for example this soesn't seem to be a problem for biology and linguistics. And I can't see that geology, say, has a lot of controversy around it, it's just that people seem more interested in writing about The Journey To The Centre Of The Earth than anything well researched :)

[col-ki.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's all maths anyway.

[warpwind.livejournal.com]

is it strange that when I first saw this i imagined a geologist beneath the graph with a geopick saying "oooh shiney" and picking up a rock.

Also I'll have a think geology "hard science wise". At the moment all I come up with is Kim stanely Robinson's Red/blue/green Mars series but it's hardly the best example and I can't remember much of it..

[alias_sqbr]

One could say that maths is just a narrow subset of philosophy :)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I have't got around to reading them myself, but Peter Watts books (starting with Starfish) are supposed to be excellent hard SF, with both unusual physics (deep sea high pressure etc) and lots of biology.

[alias_sqbr]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for them.

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

This is probably just me, but in my head Social Science Fiction does not match up to Hard Science Fiction based in the social sciences. Social science fiction seems to involve the author being very interested in a social science concept and using it in the plot. Hard science fiction seems to be about writing a plot that matches the physical universe in every detail. I kind of agree with the people who suggest that since people are (at this point) not accurately describable this might be kinds of hard to do with a social science. How do we write a plot that matches human society in every concievable way? Alternatively, it can be suggested that every science fiction novel makes an attempt at this just matching the author's view of human society in every way.

I kind of like your description of it as 'Books which don't make the people who have degrees in the respective fields squirm upon reading' (paraphrased slightly) though...

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I think I need a better term than "hard science fiction", because it gives people the wrong idea of what I mean.

So, what books with a heavy sociological etc component haven't bugged the heck out of you with their stupidity? :)

[muse-books.livejournal.com]

You might add Kim Stanley Robinson's Capital Code series: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below and Sixty Days and Counting.

All environmental-themed and marketed as hard science fiction - set in near future not off planet.

[alias_sqbr]

Huh, ok, I'd never heard of them, all I knew of his books was the Mars series. Thanks.

[muse-books.livejournal.com]

You might add Kim Stanley Robinson's Capital Code series: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below and Sixty Days and Counting.

All environmental-themed and marketed as hard science fiction - set in near future not off planet.

[alias_sqbr]

Huh, ok, I'd never heard of them, all I knew of his books was the Mars series. Thanks.