What happens with Science Fiction?

On 6/10/06, Omar E. Vega wrote:
(...)
> I believe in the past SF in the past was really a fiction based in
> scientifical facts. Today almost all science fiction is just
> childish fantasies.
>
> In the past one could "see the future" reading Science Fiction.
>
> Today, however, we just see the crap of bad writers and biological
> artificial realities, radioactive societies, drugs, guns and torture.
>
> What happened? Why a bunch of people does not have a clue of science
> hijacked our favorite fantasy readings? How we allowed to happen?
(...)

Well, I disagree completely, and I think that perhaps you
unfortunately had no contact with recent good authors of hard science
fiction. Have you ever read Vernor Vinge or K.S. Robinson? Indeed
their SF tends to be *harder* than old classics of the genre from
authors like Asimov and Clarke.

As for the bad stuff, there is that saying telling that "90% of
anything is crap", or something like that, and that also applies to
science fiction. In the old times classics of science fiction were
produced, but also lots of pulp science fiction with ludicrous
content. Of course, "natural selection" by readers preserves only the
good stuff, and that may give the that false impression of "good old
times".

Finally, a science fiction can be "soft", having no connection with
the known reality of science, and nevertheless be good. See a classic
like H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", for instance. Wells did not bother
to invent technobabble or find physical justifications for the
artifact, but nevertheless he constructed a timeless story about a
machine able to travel through time.

Indeed, I think that a good author can take any absurd premise, build
suspension of disbelief and write a good story. That's why good
fantasy - not science fiction - literature works. And the same happen
with the genre known as fantastic realism.