For short science fiction written for the major publications in 2015, we found all these claims to be false. In particular, we found 22 recommended hard SF short stories suitable for lovers of hard SF who plan to make nominations for the 2015 Hugos next month and want suggestions for things to read.

To determine what stories are "good" we went through our own year-to-date table , which contains all the stories we have awarded four or five stars plus all the stories that io9,, SFRevu, or SF Editor's Pick recommended. This is limited to short stories, novelettes, and novellas we actually read, which included all the ones published in, and, as well as a few anthologies plus selected stories from other sources.

Hard SF

The science must be accurate enough that an educated layman does not have to suspend disbelief for it. Some aspect of science or technology is key to the plot. It cannot merely supply the setting.

This is consistent with Ben Bova's definition , "the writer is free to use anything his or her imagination can invent and depict -- so long as no one can show that it contradicts the tenets of known science," and roughly equivalent to the TV-tropes levels 4 and up.

Situational SF A story that satisfies condition 1 but not condition 2 we called "situational SF." A murder mystery on the moon with beautiful descriptions of how the lunar city worked would be situational SF if none of those details was primary to the plot.

Soft SF A story that's not fantasy but which fails condition 1 we call "soft SF." A story where a black hole was sucking the atmosphere from hundreds of planets would be soft SF. Likewise stories that feature things like time travel, AIs with emotions, psionic abilities, etc. This is roughly equivalent to the

Fantasy We drew the line between soft SF and fantasy using

Other This is where we put Alternate history, steampunk, stories with a musical theme, and stories that had no speculative element at all.

The Breakdown With those definitions, our list of recommended stories breaks down as follows:







A few points to take from this chart:



Hard SF accounted for one-eighth of the good stories we read this year.

If you include situational SF, then hard SF accounted for over a quarter.

If you think of soft-SF as "fantasy science," then fantasy of one sort or another accounted for almost two-thirds of all the stories. A story that satisfies condition 1 but not condition 2 we called "situational SF." A murder mystery on the moon with beautiful descriptions of how the lunar city worked would be situational SF if none of those details was primary to the plot.A story that's not fantasy but which fails condition 1 we call "soft SF." A story where a black hole was sucking the atmosphere from hundreds of planets would be soft SF. Likewise stories that feature things like time travel, AIs with emotions, psionic abilities, etc. This is roughly equivalent to the TV-tropes levels 3 and below.We drew the line between soft SF and fantasy using George R.R. Martin's "furniture" rule : look for aliens vs. elves (or magic vs. forcefields, etc.) If there was no magic, no witches, no demons, etc., then we called it soft SF, not fantasy, even though it can be argued that soft-SF is really just "fantasy science."This is where we put Alternate history, steampunk, stories with a musical theme, and stories that had no speculative element at all.With those definitions, our list of recommended stories breaks down as follows:A few points to take from this chart:

Good Hard-SF Short Fiction from 2015

We aren't claiming that these were the only good hard SF stories, of course. The list would likely have been larger if we had read more sources. For example, we only read a single issue of Interzone, but we found a good hard-SF story in it, "Edited," by Rich Larson.



On the other hand, the list would be shorter if we eliminated stories that used technologies that aren't currently in the lab. (E.g. any of the stories like "Edited" that involve augmented human beings.) We're comfortable with where we've drawn the line, and we've tried hard to be consistent. Analysis One-eighth is a good chunk. We see no basis for the claim that "no one writes good hard SF anymore."



The story topics are quite varied. We see no basis for the claim that hard SF is all "



Of the 22 stories in our list, fourteen were written by men and eight by women. In a sample of 22, there is a 14% chance of having that few or fewer women just by chance, so this sample does not show a statistically-significant difference between the number of men and the number of women writing good hard SF for the major publications. One-eighth is a good chunk. We see no basis for the claim that "no one writes good hard SF anymore."The story topics are quite varied. We see no basis for the claim that hard SF is all " rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space ."Of the 22 stories in our list, fourteen were written by men and eight by women. In a sample of 22, there is a 14% chance of having that few or fewer women just by chance, so this sample doesshow a statistically-significant difference between the number of men and the number of women writing good hard SF for the major publications.

For our purposes, a hard-SF story has two key properties: