Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
"I hate time travel." -Kathryn Janeway
I personally don't consider time travel and traveling to alternate realities Hard SF... and especially when accomplished by ships made out of quartz by Victorians using "Platternite." (Not that the story isn't good, mind you--I haven't read it.) Time travel and alternate realities are wonderful and inventive theories, with obvious attractions, but without any concrete basis... which makes them Soft SF.
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With respect, I have to disagree. I put the dividing line a little further down the road. Time travel, if done right, examining it in the light of what is considered plausible within the scope of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity should be considered a reasonable playground for a Hard Science Fiction Story.
In my opinion, the dividing line occurs if there is no scientific basis, or if the scientific basis for something is so thin as to be beyond plausible. If we limit ourselves to what is known to be true, then an awful lot of science fiction stories that are currently considered Hard will have to be labeled as soft scifi.
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Bill