Hard Science-Fiction: the 1950s to the 1970s

Hard sci-fi as it is known (for hard core) is probably what most people think of when they think of science fiction (Clayton, 1986). Technology is often the raison d'être for these stories. In a great deal of hard sci-fi, the technological aspect overwhelms any character or plot development, leading to a simplistic, often militaristic message at the core with little reflection on the implications of the technology. An example is Geoffrey Landis' Mars Crossing (2000). As a former NASA scientist, Landis gets the science right, but characters are not well drawn and evoke little sympathy.

Another example is an expansive story by Robert Reed (2000) called Marrow which contains a number of promising ideas. A billion year old space ship, the size of a giant planet, enters our solar system. Earth ships land on it and find a way into it. Other aliens attack to steal the technology on the huge ship. After this complication is taken care of, a civilization that has been cut off for 5,000 years on a planet inside (!) the ship is discovered. Aside from the cursory treatment of these three plots in only 340 pages (oh, and the conquering of aging too), the characters are dull. A similar theme is handled in much better fashion by Arthur C. Clarke (1973) in perhaps his best book, Rendezvous with Rama . You never actually see the aliens in the story, just their technology, as a giant ship flies through our solar system. Unfortunately, Clarke wrote 3 sequels of declining quality.

The science in many of these works is often quite good and sometimes can make you forgive other shortcomings. Asimov is famous for his I, Robot collection (Asimov's publisher "appropriated" the title from a 1939 short story by Eando Binder). The first appearance of Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics", which were to be a part of his writing till his death, had a wide influence on the hard sci-fi field:

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