In light of recent “hard” scifi discussions in r/scifi, I was wondering more broadly about “truth” in fiction and if there’s any good way to evaluate that and access it.
To use SciFi to expound, “Hard”/True Scifi at an extreme can be described as basing the story in scientific facts. The story may then fictionalize extrapolations of that, say harnessing Quantum Entanglement even if it’s not believed to currently be possible, or what it would look like if we took our current understanding of Spiders and extrapolated it out 10000 generations as in >!Children of Time.!<
To view this idea through other fiction, Let’s take a book like Game of Thrones set in some version of Medieval Europe. I know nothing about Medieval Europe but possibilities are put into it by reading this and other similar books. While the story is fiction, it is set in something resembling possible historical reality. So a similar “hard fiction” question might arise: How much does Game of Thrones depect Medieval Europe accurately? and should I actively be telling myself all depictions are not truth, or allow myself to derive some understanding from it?
As it turns out I stumbled upon Life in a Medieval City which says George R. R. Martin used it as a source for Game of Thrones.
Take another example: Charlotte’s Web, can I “learn” anything about actual animal behavior from it? What about A Beautiful Truth?
So I’m curious if the idea of “hard” fiction is well defined/discussed and also what is available to understand where books sit on that spectrum of Complete fiction versus True roots in fact? It seems like without access to this understanding, we should go into fiction with a strong belief that it’s pure metaphor and not a useful real depiction of reality despite fictional circumstances.
Historical fiction is often evaluated as more or less historically accurate, but sometimes the most accurate is a worse story.
I believe the most valuable truths found in fiction have less to do with facts like (for example) conditions in medieval Europe and more emotional and relational truths about people, and society. I don’t think any other media can compare to how well fiction books can do that at their best.
Absolutely, however those presentations of a “real” world ARE there. Which opens the question of how real or fictional is that presentation when it purports to be a real time/place?