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

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

And lets not discuss those early Asimovs (and many others) with aquatic Venus etc.

Paul Krugman, this years Nobel prize winner for economics, said he wanted to be a psychohistorian, but economics was the closest he could get.

Aquatic Venus

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, you would bring those up...

I know Heinlein had those in his future history, did Clarke or Van Vogt also fall for that one?