Some of my favorite Hard Sci Fi.

Is Iain M. Banks' Culture universe hard sci-fi?

Hard SF is a fluid concept. Personally I wouldn't call Iain Banks's books hard SF, not the ones I've read anyway, but I don't think there is a hard-and-fast rule for what is hard SF and what isn't.

Also, this list is not really a place to post your own books. I have a self-published SF list for that. Feel free to add your books there.

Sure - and thanks for the tip. I appreciate it. I find Goodreads a bit hard to navigate sometimes.

I'd also agree that Iain Banks isn't really hard sf. I'm sort of surprised not to see the Heinlein juveniles on here. It might just be me, but I figured those were sort of considered the gold standard of hard sci fi.

Just added another Kim Stanley Robinson book to the list.

Added M. John Harrison's Light and Empty Space. Feel free to remove them if they don't match your idea of hard sf.

I'm not really the person to police what is hard SF and what isn't. I know that some people have pretty strict ideas about this, but I don't think this is the place for that discussion.

If you think it's hard SF, it is.

Not enough Stephen Baxter here, just added a few.

Some great stuff there, and plenty I've not read, but I can only assume that you've not read any Peter F Hamilton.....cracking hard SF, the 'Night's Dawn trilogy and 'Pandora's Star'/'Judas Unchained' being absolute corkers.

Can't trust this list with "Altered Carbon" so far at the top.
It's clearly NOT hard science fiction.

HSF = a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy or technical detail, or on both.

~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_sc...

Added The Invincible to the list - even though it's not as much Hard SciFi as some of e.g. Greg Egan's stuff is.

stRe4Ddm wrote: "HSF = a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy or technical detail, or on both."


With the permission of the list creator this can be added to the list description.

Not understanding how these lists work. I'm seeing scads of duplicates on the list. Any mechanism available fir culling? Otherwise enjoying the many fond memories and interesting new (to me) treats!

Peter F. Hamilton? Lois McMaster Bujold? Hard Science? Not by any definition I'm aware of. That's not to say hard science is the only kind of science fiction or even that it SHOULD be, but if this list is of Hard Science novels, then that's what it should be restricted to. I LIKE Bujold's works (Hamilton not so much) but I'd never call them hard science.

Alastair Reynolds "Pushing Ice" duplicates twice even in top-100. Is it possible to remove duplicates somehow?

Thanks, I love Hard SF

Grady wrote: "I just threw my book, OCCUPY SPACE, up on this list. I don't think hard sci-fi gets any harder than this (redneck rocket geeks launch a spacecraft into low earth orbit) and I just wanted to be on a..."

Why haven't you 'unvoted' your book (#155) yet? You are the only voter... It's like Patty said, very politely by the way, "...this list is not really a place to post your own books". Your initial comment, as well as your reply to Patty's, was made over a year ago but your book is still on this list...

Okay, I have read most of the books in the top 100 of this list. Not bragging; just saying. Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1) by Dan Simmons was a great book, but it is the antithesis of a hard SF book. It's all mystic and religious. If you think hard SF means hard to understand, then okay this book belongs here. Otherwise it's got to go.

Why are the Dune books on this list? Dune is not hard science fiction.

Does anyone remember a book with a nuclear ship from earth to outer solar system where the engine coolant was liquid sodium sprayed outside and then collected after it had solidified and re-used? I loved it but can't remember name or author. Good physics and hard Sci-Fi!