Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Straw Poll...

This is topic Straw Poll... in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

I have noted that when I post a hard sci-fi intro I get fewer comments than when I post a soft sci-fi intro which again gets fewer comment than a fantasy intro.

I wanted to see what the breakdown was among Hatrackers.

Please make comments if you wish to but could you at the end of your comment use this format for voting. It will make tallying the votes easier for me.

So, do you read the following? Please give an approximate percentage of your reading time spent on each. (It has to add to a hundred--for you fantasy types!)

e.g.

Hard Sci-fi: 50

Soft Sci-fi: 20

Fantasy: 30

Posted by Andrew_McGown (Member # 8732) on :

I can't make it add to 100 without creating a false impression.

Perhaps your hard sci-fi intros are less engaging.

In thirteen lines I doubt whether anyone is going to detect whether it is hard or soft sci-fic, (unless you do some pretty awful authorial intrusion ie: trying too hard). All they will know is whether they trust you to tell a good story, and whether they are interested.

ps: it's 'bifurcate'

[This message has been edited by Andrew_McGown (edited August 27, 2009).]

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

If you want to critique my intros, why don't you do it in the Short Stories section, rather than here?

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited August 27, 2009).]

Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :

Soft SciFi: 25
Fantasy: 50
Other Stuff Not Posted On Hatrack: 25

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

Skadder, perhaps it would be helpful if you could give brief definitions of what you consider hard and soft sci-fi or fantasy. I have a handle on fantasy (although not sure where alternative histories fall), but sci-fi is another story. Would Heinlein be hard and Asimov soft? Or are there certain subject matters that qualify for each?

Posted by Unwritten (Member # 7960) on :

fantasy: 85
soft sci-fi: 10
hard sci-fi: 5 (I think. This might change if your definition of hard sci-fi is different than mine. My definition is anything that causes me to get on wikipedia several times in the course of reading it)

Posted by Denem (Member # 8434) on :

Fantasy 90%
Hard and Soft Sci-fi 5% each. (Of course, I'm not that good at telling the difference between hard and soft sci-fi so it could be 10% of one and none of the other or any combination there of).

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

Hard sci-fi, IMO, is sci-fi with hard science facts in the prose, e.g. if you have a story set in interstellar space craft, the crew will know about radiation (different types) and gravity wells and relativistic flight etc., and so these facts will appear in dialogue, exposition and plot.

Soft sci-fi is, IMO, sci-fi set in a future, but the person (POV) doesn't 'live in the science' althought they may be surrounded by novel stuff, they don't (or the author doesn't!) know the priniciples of how it works. Explainations about tau-neutrinos and Hawking radiation never rear their ugly heads.

I am open to clearer definitions as mine feel a little muddy.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

Hard Sci-fi: 10

Soft Sci-fi: 55

Fantasy: 35

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

So excluding books that fall into other genres, I'd estimate:

Fantasy:30
Soft SF: 60
Hard SF: 10

I used to read much for fantasy, but it started getting to me after a while. So recently it's been mostly soft sci fi and other genres--historical fiction, mainstream, and nonfiction.

Posted by Andrew_McGown (Member # 8732) on :

quote:

(It has to add to a hundred--for you fantasy types!)

You were teasing and so was I.

Cheer up.

Posted by MrsBrown (Member # 5195) on :

Fantasy - 80%
Soft Si-Fi - 15%
Hard Sci-Fi - 5%

I used to be heavier on the sci-fi, both types. But I'm not one to care whether the technical details are realistic, so long as it sounds like it makes sense to the characters.

Posted by Corky (Member # 2714) on :

Wouldn't the percentage of each being published be a factor here, though?

I don't see a lot of hard science fiction out there (unless you count military science fiction, which I hardly ever read), so the percentage of hard science fiction, or even soft science fiction, of my total reading is going to be quite low, even though I might want to read more than that.

Since the beginning of this year, the only science fiction of any kind that I have read was THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. All of the other speculative fiction I've read (and I read a lot of other stuff, including what might be called "hard science" nonfiction) has been fantasy. (I have C. J. Cherryh's latest science fiction book in my to-be-read pile, but it would qualify as soft science fiction, as would THE HUNGER GAMES.)

Just saying.

SF -- 5%

fantasy -- 95%

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I don't know that I'd break it down by percentages---and, also, it ignores the vast amount of material I read that is not SF or fantasy. Also it's hard to pigeonhole some of the stuff that's passed my way---Silverberg's stuff, say, would be scientifically accurate but you wouldn't call it "hard" SF.

That being said:

50 percent "soft" SF.
30 percent fantasy
20 percent "hard" SF.

(In the writing of it, more likely than not, "soft" SF is what I turn out. I try to keep the science accurate but it's not the be-all and end-all of the stories I write. I've only rarely dipped into "hard" SF, and it's been some years since I've done anything that's straight fantasy.)

Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :

My fiction reading is as follows:

Non-speculative: 50%

Speculative: 50% broken down as follows-
Fantasy: 60%
Soft SF: 30
Hard SF: 10

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

Another thing to consider is cross-over. Would you call Star Wars a Sci-fi because it's in space and involves futuristic technology, or a fantasy because it has strong elements of fate and destiny and a system of magic called the force?

I bet many of us, if not most, read crossovers like this a lot.

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

quote:
Cheer up.

I wasn't down.

And smileys annoy me.

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited August 27, 2009).]

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

I call it soft sci-fi. Yes, it is fantasy too, but they use starships to get from A to B, not magic.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

OSC has said he doesn't write science fiction--he writes fantasy with science as the magic. And I submit that a lot of so-called "science fiction writers" do the same.

STAR WARS could qualify as fantasy with science fiction trappings (such as spaceships) and some "science" as the magic.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

In fact, there used to be a tendency to write "science fiction" stories that weren't much more than "westerns" with horses translated into spaceships, guns into lasers (or phasers), and "injuns" into aliens. There was even a term for these: "Bat Durstons."

I wrote an article once in which I discussed the claim that STAR WARS was actually a "western in space," by trying to translate STAR WARS into western motifs. I came to the conclusion that it was more like the televison show WILD, WILD WEST than a typical "western."

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

I agree, but I think it also has to with the perception of the peice. Some stories seem 'harder' sci-fi than others, despite the fact it is made up science (although likely based on real theories or facts).

When an author uses science to explain how the FTL drive works and talks about accelerating micro-black holes to create the inertial mass required for...(blah, blah) I am more convinced about the realistic quality of the story. Although, I know it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light.

Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :

The fantastical genre marketplace makes distinctions that don't directly comport with more exacting standards, if there is any such thing oustide of individual standards. What's hard or soft science fiction according to the marketplace is a loose standard with no either/or, black or white division. The continuum ranges across infinite possibilities.

A working definition of hard science fiction might include plausible science and/or technology's influences on a story's characters and its dramatic and imaginative premises.

Soft science fiction tends to have psychosocial influences on a story's characters and its dramatic and imaginative premises.

I label the bulk of science fiction as fantasy for the wealth of incorporated fantastical imaginative premises.

A majority of Michael Crichton's stories are in my estimation hard science fiction. Ray Bradbury's, largely soft science fiction.

My reading and writing preferences don't follow genre or mode. I prefer stories that have focal characters suffering insuperable struggles in dramatic contexts that depict meaningful insights into the human condition, especially ones oriented on alienation.

I'm an omnivorous reader, as much because I like to keep as current as I can with what's what and who's who as because what's accessible and entertaining ranges across a broad spectrum. However, the stories that entertain me most must be character oriented. Stories with heavy milieu, idea, or event emphasis hold me at an uncomfortable arm's length.

Lately, the fantasy genre has dominated in the fantastical genre marketplace, so a large fraction of my reading is in fantasy. The pendulum swings though; about a year left of the Potter pall. In the fantastical genres, I prefer character oriented hard science fiction. Soft science fiction comes a close second in my priorities, but there hasn't been a lot of surpassingly good hard or soft science fiction of late. I'm starved for a surpassingly good hard science fiction story.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited August 27, 2009).]

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

I find that made up tech talk gets old fast. I would rather read story than some fantasy of the details of how ftl works. A few bits (beats) for versimilitude are great, but don't pretend to lecture me on science you can't know. Don't replace story and character with fake "as you know, Bobs."

I find it very hard to find sf among all the fantasy on the bookshelves. I try to buy one a month but it's hard. A lot of the published sf novels aren't as well-written as the mystery-thrillers I otherwise read. I rarely read fantasy. I think the last new fantasy I bought was somebody's THE MAGICIANS AND MRS. QUENT. Good book, by the way.

So, my reading is more
fantasy 2
sf 10 (because of rarity)
mystery-thrillers 80
social fiction 8

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited August 27, 2009).]

Posted by satate (Member # 8082) on :

I'm fantasy

Fantasy - 80
sci/fi - 10
all others - 10

Posted by Corky (Member # 2714) on :

I'd be willing to bet money that Marion Zimmer Bradley would have considered THE MAGICIANS AND MRS. QUENT science fiction because the crazy climate/night-and-day-length part clearly indicated that it was happening on another world than Earth (hence it would have been, to her, clearly science fiction).

Though I guess it would qualify as that "science as the magic" kind of fantasy, too.

Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :

I used to read about 50% fantasy and about 50% what's lumped into the "horror" category.

Now, realistcally, the breakdown is:

Historical - 40%
Fantasy - 30%
Soft Sci-Fi - 10%
Hard Sci-Fi - 1%
Horror - 5%
Thriller - 10%
Crime - 4%

My problem with hard sci-fi is that most of it I've read is slow, and doesn't focus as much on the story as the science. The only "Hard Sci-Fi" book I've read that makes me want to read on is Ben Bova's Mars.

I like Space Opera/Space Fantasy the most of the sci-fi-ish genres (Star Wars, Firefly/Serenity, The Man Who Never Missed, The Saga of Seven Suns, etc.).

The good horror writers are now starting to show their systemic approaches...they're getting predictable.

Thrillers seldom live up to their names, but I do enjoy spy thrillers.

Crime (which I also bundle Mystery in) has become more and more predictable.

Fantasy is making a resurgence, and my natural propensity toward history keeps me hunting new historical authors.

It's funny, as I mature as a writer, I find that it doesn't much matter what the genre is, as long as it's a good story. (I'd have thought that would have been backwards, but it isn't.) If I care about the characters, and they are believeable, I'll follow them through whatever genre they travel.

I haven't commented on any of your stories, skadder, because I've been very distracted lately. Besides, if you want me to check something out for you, you have my email addy.

Posted by Crank (Member # 7354) on :

Hard SF - 40%
Soft SF - 30%
Fantasy - 5%
YA (contemporary) - 10%
YA (fantasy) - 5%
crime / thriller / mystery - 10%

NOTE: in times when I'm in the middle of researching for a new project (such as I am now), non-fiction beats out fiction; currently, I'd say I'm running about 75%-25% in favor of non-fiction.

S!
S!

Posted by MrsBrown (Member # 5195) on :

Since this thread started with crits in F&F, I'll add that I rarely comment on short stories; my focus is the novels forum.

Posted by micmcd (Member # 7977) on :

quote:
(It has to add to a hundred--for you fantasy types!)

Dude. Burn.

Anyhow...
HSF - 30ish
SSF - 30ish
F - 40ish

Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :

quote:
Since this thread started with crits in F&F, I'll add that I rarely comment on short stories; my focus is the novels forum.

It was started because of a pattern I noticed in F&F Short Stories, but it wasn't meant to be a complaint. I wanted to see how peoples reading habits broke down, with regard to genre and if it supported my hypothesis.

I know that fantasy outsells sci-fi in bookstores, but I didn't know if that held true with regard Hatrackers--as we are writers.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

Traditional Fantasy - 10 (fantasy geared for adult audiences)
YA Fantasy - 20 (mostly contemporary stuff, set in worlds like today but with magic - harry potter, lightning thief)
YA Sci-Fi - 20 (hard to find but well worth it)
Hard Sci-Fi - 20
Soft Sci-Fi - 30

Not including what I read in other genres, though I'd estimate less than 5% of what I read is in other genres. I'm reading a book right now that I'd include in my YA fantasy category - speculative fiction - set in WWII, told from the POV of Death (kdw - yes, I'm still reading The Book Thief, great book but really quite long!)

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

I wonder if Zusak considers THE BOOK THIEF speculative fiction.

I know (from having asked him in person) that Ray Bradbury didn't consider himself a science fiction writer (at the time I asked him, anyway).

I have heard that Margaret Atwood doesn't consider her HANDMAID'S TALE science fiction, and that Michael Crichton never considered anything he wrote as science fiction, either.

Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :

quote:
I know (from having asked him in person) that Ray Bradbury didn't consider himself a science fiction writer (at the time I asked him, anyway).

First, major envy for having met Ray Bradbury in person. He's one of my major influences. Second, I have heard/see him say this many times...that he does not consider himself a science fiction writer and that the only thing he's written that he'd call sci fi was farenheit 451. I seem to remember reading him say the Martian Chronicles despite sci fi trappings were more like mythical stories.
I consider most of Bradbury to be Fantasy or unclassifiable.

quote:
and that Michael Crichton never considered anything he wrote as science fiction, either.

Well honestly, although I definitely sympathize with not wanting to be pigeonholed into being a ----- writer (be it sci fi fantasy horror whatever, I personally think of myself simply as a storyteller) trying to say that Sphere and Jurassic Park aren't sci fi is, to me a little silly. I mean, everybody has their own genre definitions, but I think time travel, spaceships and genetically engineered dinosaurs would be "sci fi" from just about anybody's perspective.

I consider Star Wars fantasy with sci fi trappings. It has outright magic, and its story structure is very much that of epic fantasy. It just happens to be set in a time/place with advanced tech and extraterrestrials.

My definition of "hard" sci fi, and the one I've seen used most often in things I've read or conversations I've seen, is that "hard" SF usually includes only science that is either verified, or extrapolated very much from current proven scientific theory and/or that hard SF stories tend to be more focused on the science than the story.

I'm rather surprised by this actually, skadder, since from my experience I'd have thought there was a bias toward SF in general on Hatrack and possibly even to hard SF specifically...and if there were a bias against anything, it'd be horror/anything dark, somewhat toward straightforward medieveal style high fantasy, and toward anything genre bending. And although i guess it doesn't really pertain to intros the biggest bias I find regard specific story types and structures rather than genres.

That being said as far as my own reading I'd say probably something like

50% Fantasy of one kind or other.
28% "horror" of one kind or other
20% things I don't consider to fall into a specific genre (this would include Lovecraft, Simon Logan's industrial stuff, and for me most of Ray Bradbury)
2% assorted sci fi (although I haven't really read much actual sci fi recently.)

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

quote:
I'm fantasy

Whose fantasy are you, satate?

I have heard that Star Wars and Herbert's Dune is falling under a new catergory, Science Fantasy.

I do have a hard time determining what is hard and what is soft Science fiction. I prefer both and gravitate toward somewhere in the middle. So I guess my preference would be more of a semi-e....
You know, I better stop right there.

A catagory I haven't heard yet is Alternate History. Is it Sci-fi, fantasy, or other?

The fantasy genre I think is more muddy than sci-fi. A lot of fantasy stuff is set in modern times with little to do with traditional fantasy themes. Is there a name for that?

Here are my preferences

Sci-fi 40%
Fantasy 30%
Alternate History 25%
Anything by Colston 5%

Posted by MAP (Member # 8631) on :

quote:
A lot of fantasy stuff is set in modern times with little to do with traditional fantasy themes. Is there a name for that?

Urban fantasy?

Fantasy 90%
hard SF 5%
Soft SF 5%

Posted by Unwritten (Member # 7960) on :

I'm one of those "fantasy types" so I'm not going to do the actual math, but if you were going to break down the type of fantasy I read, it would be:

85% YA fantasy
15% regular adult fantasy (and most of that would be books in a series, or the number would be even lower).

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited August 28, 2009).]

Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :

The problem with categorizing alternate history is it depends SO much on that particular author's take. E.g. 1632 is a VERY different type of alternate history (I would call it sci-fi) than The Shadow of the Lion, which I would categorize as fantasy. And then there are some straight-up alternate histories which I wouldn't categorize as either - they just ask "what if" and shoot off straight from there without any element that I would call sci-fi or fantasy.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

quote:
A lot of fantasy stuff is set in modern times with little to do with traditional fantasy themes. Is there a name for that?

The term I use most often for this is contemporary fantasy, since urban fantasy implies a limitation to an urban setting, which contemporary fantasy is not always doing. Think of modern-day retellings of fairy tales set in suburban high schools, etc.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I remember thinking how much the movie Apollo 13 came across as science fiction, except that it portrayed events that actually happened. (From my own research into the matter, I know there was some compression of incidents.) I classified Crichton and Bradbury as SF, filing their books in that section of my library (along with books by Orwell and Golding and a few others.)

On Bat Durston...a while back, I read a collection of George Railroad Martin where he published (or reprinted) an essay rebutting the concept---I'm inclined to agree. Your "injuns" might be aliens, but they might (or, really, should) have their own history and biochemistry and reason for hating the cowboys (or whatever they are.)

Posted by NoTimeToThink (Member # 5174) on :

Hard SF: 20
Soft SF: 50
Fantasy: 30

Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :

Fantasy - 90%
Soft Sci-fi - 10%
Hard Sci-fi - 0% if I do, its an accident.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

Wow, is anyone else astonished at the lack of Sci-fi on people's lists?

Is it interest? Is it nobody's publishing anything good anymore? My library's "new" shelf for Fantasy/Sci-Fi is definitely heavy on Fantasy. Very little sci-fi, and even less that is standalone (true for fantasy as well, seems everything is book 3 or four in a series of who knows how many it'll end up being. Not my cup of tea unless I have started the series at the beginning...)

I personally really like Scalzi, and Westerfeld (YA) for contemporary/near-future sci-fi, stuff that has been published lately. I like the OSC Ender series (even though he views his work as fantasy where technology = the magic, I still put him in sci-fi, LOL.)

Those works are all definitely in the "soft sci-fi" category for me.

For harder stuff, I've enjoyed the Clark RAMA books. I've read one of the Ringworld books but haven't dived into the others. Yes, older stuff for hard sci-fi for me. I tried a few more recent ones (BEYOND INFINITY, by Benford and REALITY DYSFUNCTION by Hamilton) and found one really hard to read/understand, the other to be filled with a bit too much violence, mostly sexual in nature, for my tastes. Have to read more reviews before buying hard sci-fi/new authors is what I have decided.

But what else? Is nobody reading Stephenson anymore? Or going back to golden-age guys like Heinlein and Asimov and the like?

Meanwhile, skadder, I also wanted to address your point from the original post, which was that you don't get as many comments on your hard sci-fi intros. I've been particularly delinquent in reading in F&F lately. I think those of us who do actually read the genre should make a more concerted effort to read fragments and post comments. I'll try to get better about that, I'm just not much for full crits these days so I've stopped even doing the partials because I feel bad. But any feedback is good feedback, IMHO, so I'll try!

Posted by aspirit (Member # 7974) on :

Here is my breakdown of the published sci-fi and fantasy books I've read this year. I track neither unpublished work nor short stories, but according to my (rather unreliable) memory, I'm more likely to finish reading a short story if it's sci-fi.

Hard Sci-fi: 0
Soft Sci-fi: 25
Fantasy: 75 (Of that, 60% was The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher)

My loose definition of hard sci-fi: Fiction more about established/theoretical physics/technology than characters.

Posted by alliedfive (Member # 7811) on :

Hard Sci-fi: 0

Soft Sci-fi: 5

Fantasy: 95

Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :

Okay, given that only about 70% of what I read fits into the speculative genre(s), I'd break down that 70% like this:

Fantasy 95%

Soft Sci-Fi 4%

Hard Sci-Fi: 1%

Note that in fantasy I include horror with some sort of supernatural/mythological content.