I've only read "The Left Hand of Darkness". It's a very well written book, but it didn't emphasize enough technology/science/engineering for me to consider it even soft science fiction. I guess she's doing the work of expanding the scope of what technology could be used in science fiction. I'm not sure that's super useful, since by her definition, almost every work of fiction will involve technology.

Now I want to write a science fiction story where the core technology is never written about explicitly and can only be inferred from its effect on the characters :P

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Planktonne a day ago | parent | next [-]

I think you have a misapprehension of the genre here; science fiction isn't 'fiction with lots of science in it'; it's fiction that deals with potential future possibilities [1], and--deeper than that--fiction which uses those possibilities to explore explore current society/ideas.

There's no requirement to centrally feature technology, and it would be a weaker genre if there was.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction

	▲	romanows a day ago \| parent [-]
		Your link talks about how hard it is to define science fiction, so in some ways, I'm just putting my opinion out here on the internet as a data point. I'd say the Left Hand of Darkness is more science fiction than Little Women, but it's also more like the Hobbit than it is like Foundation, Ender's Game, Snow Crash, or even 1984.

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gavmor 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It takes place on another planet, and isn't alien biology "science" speculation, enough?

Besides, it's not even her best work.

Looking forward to reading your story! You might consider Ted Chiang.

	▲	romanows 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Having something like another planet or alien biology is necessary but not sufficient to make something science fiction. There is some fuzzy amount of focus on science/technology, style, and tropes that are needed to make something more science fiction than fantasy or speculative fiction. The Left Hand of Darkness read more like fantasy to me, and I don't think it would have been any different at all if the setting was Middle Earth and the ambisexual species were Hobbits. I think I wouldn't have blinked if it had been described as "science fantasy" to me rather than "science fiction". I'll bump up Chiang on my reading list, I have heard a lot of good things!

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titanomachy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I kind of disagree, but also, I guess, who cares if it’s sci fi or not? Is it a good story that matches your tastes? Then great. The bookstores lump all the “speculative fiction” stuff together, anyway, and I don’t usually look for my next book by genre.

	▲	romanows 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's great that works for you but there is a reason we have these labels. I've definitely had the experience where I want to escape into some hard sci-fi, and so there's a reason I pick a book from that genre over Anna Karenina. And if someone told me that Anna Karenina was hard sci-fi, it'd color my experience with that book.