Science Fiction and its many Sub-genres
Science Fiction has a knack for tackling the big themes. Socioeconomic conflicts, corporate overreach, and oppressive governments pack the science fiction genre. But it also seems that for every ten books dealing with some sort of riff on these big themes you get a hundred pulpy space marine action books.
The science fiction genre is so vast it can be broken down into several speculative fiction sub-genres. And it seems like there are more sub-genres in science fiction than stars in the sky. But first you have your two main branches of science fiction that everything flows from. Hard science fiction and soft science fiction. Hard being the fiction that goes out of it's way to adhere to actual fact based science. These can be tortuous to read if you're not the most patient with explanations of how science works. Soft science fiction all but throws science into the garbage compactor. These can be just as tortuous if you can't as easily suspend your scientific mind to accept the giant space whale flying along side the spaceship.
These overwhelming amounts of science fiction are the glory of the genre. The reason that there are so many sub-genres in this genre is because that science fiction is malleable. Meaning that the genre itself is one of the tools the writer can bend to their will. It's harder to do in other genres, but in sci-fi we generally deal with the future and with the future anything goes. Example: militant cyberpunk garden gnomes fight humans to save the planet from global warming. Here we have a military, cyberpunk, fantasy, climate science fiction story. And the amazing thing is, if this world was described in an absolutely unique way by the author the genre may morph into something completely new. Now answer me this. Does this fall under hard science fiction or soft science fiction?
Did you answer hard science fiction? No? How about soft? Seems like we've thrown all science out the window for this sci-fi story. Well you'd be wrong there too. Even for fiction about militarized garden gnomes it could be either or. Apologies for the trick question, but we'd have to actually read this story to find out if it was hard or soft science fiction. If the author goes into detail explaining the natural science behind how the garden gnomes were genetically modified children and how the scientists who did this heinous deed went about it, well, that would be hard sci-fi. If they just sprout out of the ground because a truck carrying corporately designed "ooze" was in a wreck on Mrs. Flanders yard(which happens to be home to her vast collection of garden gnomes) then this would be soft sci-fi.
To say the most about a huge genre in the least amount of words, science fiction is a broad and growing genre that is worthy of exploration from anyone who designates themselves a reader.
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| Pictured: Fact based science stuffs |
From hard and soft sci-fi the multitude of sub-genres grows exponentially. You have: apocalyptic, biopunk, cyberpunk, climate, military, and many more. All of these genres have their merits and I'd wager most of them don't fall into just one category. There are many books that could be apocalyptic and cyberpunk at the same time. The sub-genres are there to help a potential reader navigate the massive amounts of science fiction out there.
These overwhelming amounts of science fiction are the glory of the genre. The reason that there are so many sub-genres in this genre is because that science fiction is malleable. Meaning that the genre itself is one of the tools the writer can bend to their will. It's harder to do in other genres, but in sci-fi we generally deal with the future and with the future anything goes. Example: militant cyberpunk garden gnomes fight humans to save the planet from global warming. Here we have a military, cyberpunk, fantasy, climate science fiction story. And the amazing thing is, if this world was described in an absolutely unique way by the author the genre may morph into something completely new. Now answer me this. Does this fall under hard science fiction or soft science fiction?
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| Militant Garden Gnomes Prep for an Ambush |
Did you answer hard science fiction? No? How about soft? Seems like we've thrown all science out the window for this sci-fi story. Well you'd be wrong there too. Even for fiction about militarized garden gnomes it could be either or. Apologies for the trick question, but we'd have to actually read this story to find out if it was hard or soft science fiction. If the author goes into detail explaining the natural science behind how the garden gnomes were genetically modified children and how the scientists who did this heinous deed went about it, well, that would be hard sci-fi. If they just sprout out of the ground because a truck carrying corporately designed "ooze" was in a wreck on Mrs. Flanders yard(which happens to be home to her vast collection of garden gnomes) then this would be soft sci-fi.
To say the most about a huge genre in the least amount of words, science fiction is a broad and growing genre that is worthy of exploration from anyone who designates themselves a reader.
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