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#hardsf

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Ray Ingles

#PennedPossibilities 632: What originally inspired your WIP’s plot?

I'm upfront about how the premise of Naomi Alderman's THE POWER was a 'seed crystal' of sorts that SECONDARY congealed around.

My brain is soaked in #ScienceFiction tropes and concepts, especially #HardSF, though. So the plot has a bunch of of elements from Andy Weir's THE MARTIAN, too.

It's like a dish with disparate ingredients that work together better than you'd expect. 🤷

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Niele

"Studien haben gezeigt, dass Leser*innen von SF und anderer phantastischer Literatur wie Horror eine größere Resilienz für Ausnahmesituationen wie Pandemien besitzen und besser mit Krisensituationen umgehen können. Wer schon Bücher über weltweite Seuchen gelesen hat, kann sich das Ausmaß und die Auswirkungen besser vorstellen, ist weniger überrascht und geistig flexibler im Umgang damit."

tor-online.de/magazin/science-

TOR OnlineTor OnlineWarum finden sich immer weniger Science-Fiction-Bücher in den Verlagsprogrammen und Regalen der Buchhandlungen? Verkauft sie sich wirklich so schlecht? Wenn ja, woran könnte das liegen? Dafür hat unser Redakteur Markus Mäurer in Verlagsredaktionen und Buchhandlungen nachgefragt.
#ScienceFiction#scifi#hardSF
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Ray Ingles

#WritersCoffeeClub 19: Do some stories resonate as a call to action, like “do something like this, but in a different way” or “adapt this for the screen”?

My debut novel's concept was inspired by a speculative literary fiction novel that I wanted to tackle #HardSF style. I guess that counts?

As for adaptations - it's just a shame that John Varley's TITAN/WIZARD/DEMON trilogy isn't a big-budget series already.

Public
Ray Ingles

#WritersCoffeeClub 25: Do you have a worked-out magical system?

SECONDARY is *almost* #HardSF. There's just a little magic. Some light #TimeTravel and genius bioengineering sets up the inciting incident. After that, it's as real as I can manage.

But I thought carefully about how they worked, and how they'd likely be applied.

(What would geologists give for precise infrared temperature measurements down to Earth's core, for example?)

#SFF #SciFiBooks

#SciFi
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Ray Ingles

#PennedPossibilities 561 — Give us your thoughts on the genre of your WIP. Do you love it, is there not enough stories written within it, are you an avid reader of the genre, etc.?

"Hard-ish SF" isn't as common as I'd like. The author gets 'one impossible thing' but has to work out its realistic consequences. Technical, social, political, medical, economic, etc. effects. Tropes get naturally subverted.

They say "write what you want to read." So I did.

#SFF#ScienceFiction#HardSF
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Vincent Waciuk

Man Plus (1976) by Frederik Pohl is hard science fiction at its best. As good as the science aspect of the story is, where Man Plus truly shines is in the human drama. And Pohl also adds a mischievous twist that appears near the end. It’s a mystery not for the characters but for the reader. Without question, Mars Plus is one of Pohl’s greatest efforts in his long career.

Mars. It’s inhospitable, cold, and very far away. The human fascination is unquenchable. And the idea of colonizing Mars is one that never seems to go away. But what would it take to become a true Martian?

The world is in turmoil. Countries are collapsing. Nuclear war is imminent. The unrest in the United States has put the country under martial law. Yet despite these obstacles, the U.S. President has deemed that America must send a mission to colonize Mars.

Roger Torraway is a hero astronaut and his life is almost perfect. His job is to create a monster. A monster capable of surviving on Mars. Will Hartnett is that monster. A cyborg capable of amazing feats, Hartnett is ready to survive the Martian environment. That is until catastrophe happens.

The Man Plus project is effectively dead but the President insists that it continue at all costs. That means they need a new monster. Roger Torraway is that monster and he will discover the true cost of becoming a Martian.

Man Plus is a chimera of a story. Many differing parts come together to make up an unexpected whole. Where Pohl to focus his efforts mostly on the technical side of the story it would be good. However, Pohl devotes equal, if not greater effort to make the characters real and believable.

Pohl focuses on the human cost of making a man into a monster. However, Pohl doesn’t just focus on the monster, Roger Torraway. Pohl shows what it does to the people around Roger and how his change affects them. Unsurprisingly, the costs may be higher than anyone expects.

Yet, despite the high cost, everyone is willing to continue with the project. This is, perhaps, the one drawback in Pohl’s thinking. This idea that everyone is willing to do whatever it takes for the mission to succeed is a little naïve. However, this probably stems from the 1960s effort to put a man on the moon and this extreme optimism carries over into Man Plus.

Pohl’s world-building is excellent. He takes the social and political situations of the mid-70s and extrapolates them into a not-unfamiliar future. Pohl may get some technical details wrong but the story does not feel technologically or socially quaint.

Toward the end of the story, a narrator begins to insert itself. This mysterious narrator doesn’t take over the story but adds a new line of reasoning to the story. Pohl uses the narrator as a mystery for the reader to solve. Leaving clues throughout the text Pohl expects you to figure out what is going on before he reveals it. I expect most readers today would pick up on it quite quickly but perhaps not so readily in the 1970s.

Frederik Pohl (1919-2013)

There is a lot of pain in Man Plus, both physical and emotional. This thread of pain is the most motivating reason to read Man Plus. The idea of colonizing Mars is secondary to the struggles needed to get there.

Roger Torraway’s journey from man to man plus is a terrible one. In the end, his sacrifices change not only him but everyone around him. Not one person escapes the process unscathed. The scars may be subtle and invisible but they are there. But most change is hard and damaging in some way.

Pohl does something that a lot of hard SF fails to do. He balances the technical needs of the story with the human reactions beautifully. There are very few stories of similar style that wield as much emotional weight as Man Plus. If you’ve not read Man Plus, read it. If you have read Man Plus, read it again. It’s worth your time.

https://incompletefutures.com/2024/11/04/man-plus-remains-a-classic-of-hard-sf/

#BookReview#FrederikPohl#HardSF
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