Sci Fi trends over the decades
I've just finished The Sirens of Titan from 1959 (after seeing it recommended here, actually) and something struck me compared to more recent books. A lot of the more technical stuff is kind of hand-waved away. It's not a criticism, just something that stuck out as I was reading. Is this a trend? Do readers demand more details these days? I've read a bunch of sci fi from the 60s until the present day, but I've only really gotten back into it more recently with Sirens.
Perhaps I've read too much Neal Stephenson, who has likely never hand-waved anything away! The Martian also springs to mind, but that's very deliberately focused on the details and keeping it realistic, IIRC.
Spoilers
I'm mostly thinking about the radio-controlling of the Martian army beyond "there is a little box in their pocket" and most of the atmospheric questions beyond how they breathe.
Apples to Oranges, IMO. You're comparing a comedic scifi from the late 50s to a select few examples of modern hard scifi... but plenty of hand-wavy scifi is still being created these days, and back in the day there was still plenty of hard scifi available as well (e.g. Huxley, Clarke, Asimov, Crichton, etc).
And in general there is a ton more scifi being produced these days, so I suspect that may just be giving you the impression there is more hard scifi now than there was back then, even though the ratio of pulp/schlock to hard scifi being produced is probably still about the same (though I have no hard evidence to back that claim up ;).
Good point! I definitely don't have a good sample size, either.
If a larger sample size (or broader experience with the genre) is what you're after, the person to ask about this is probably @Algernon_Asimov. He has far more knowledge of Golden Age-ish scifi than I do. I've read a decent amount of it, but I am more of a modern scifi/cyberpunk fan like yourself, so am kinda just spitballing here about the older stuff. ;)
I think that's likely an important factor.
Interesting. One complaint I've seen from people who read old science fiction is that the old writers go into too much detail about the technology! I've noticed this myself. There's more emphasis on how things work in older science fiction than in newer science fiction. Also, in older science fiction, it was more acceptable to stop the narrative and devote a whole paragraph to explaining how a particular device works. These days, readers expect science fiction to be well-written, and for the exposition to be done more adroitly. Maybe that's it. Maybe there's the same amount of exposition in classic and modern science fiction, but it's done more artfully in modern writing, so it's less obvious.
'The Martian' is renowned for being basically an engineer's handbook in novel form. It's an extreme case. (I found it very tedious in places!) Meanwhile, there are also modern writers who hand-wave the tech - some to extremes (not looking at anyone in particular, Mr William Gibson...). It's not an absolute trend either way.
cc: @cfabbro
Our general familiarity with tech, basic science, and our ready access to a wealth of information these days may be a factor with that. Back in the day, an author having to take a few paragraphs to explain a bit of basic science, or what a real (but perhaps obscure) piece of tech was and how it worked, was necessary since otherwise the reader would have no way to know what was going on... but now that knowledge is just a quick google search away.
It's not only that. This trend started long before Google existed.
You're right that part of it is just a general improvement in knowledge about science. Authors can take readers' knowledge about basic science for granted.
But, also, the audience for science fiction has grown a bit more mature over the decades. Back then, it really was written mostly for (and by!) nerdy little white boys, who cared how the rocketship flew or how the nucleonic whip worked.
These days, the audience (and authorship) is broader than that, and science fiction has had to change with it. The New Wave back in the 1960s "broke" science fiction forever. It shifted the focus from primarily machines and technology to include people and society. Those nerdy little white boys are still around (I'm amazed how many people watch 'Star Trek' primarily for the cool starships and the big explosions), but they're not the only demographic reading and watching science fiction any more. And modern readers expect science fiction to do more than just explain how the gadgetry works.
Um, Arthur C Clarke would like a word. As would Asimov, Niven, Anderson, Heinlein, Dick and even H G Wells.
Proper hard sci-fi doesn't go out of date in the same way Newton's Laws don't go out of date. Read Clarke's Islands In The Sky (pub 1952, considered a children's book) and tell me that any of it's main plot device is out of date (it's all orbital mechanics and the lack of available delta-V). Same for the Rama books, Tau Zero, Ringworld, Red Mars even (blech) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (I detest Heinlein, personally, but he's on point with the science) - the writing style may be dated, but the science is not. I would argue that the handwaving stuff is far more likely to date badly than the stuff with good solid science behind it. How many pulp sci-fi stories with gleaming pointy rocket ships do we remember today? But the classics are still strong.
Also, reading H G Wells will remind you that a good story is a good story even if the moon didn't turn out to be made of cheese and full of monsters. The science can be utterly wrong and still make for an enjoyable story - another good example would be the famous "Star" stories - both Wars and Trek. Both complete trash, scientifically (Trek's later attempts to retrofit some science to their magic I find particularly hilarious), but a lot of people love the stories.
Finally I'm not sure why you are trying to draw a line between sci-fi and space opera. I would argue no such division exists. Space opera is a subgenre of sci-fi. Some space opera is hard, some soft. Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence is as epic as space opera gets but it's nails hard in the way that only a professional mathematician with a second degree in engineering can write. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time could quite fairly be described as space opera but it could equally not be - although it's definitely sci-fi.