“Niven made a name for himself as a hard SF author, which is to say, someone whose SF provides enough technical detail that the reader can be certain that various mechanisms and events couldn't work the way the author has them working.”

—  James Nicoll

review of All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/remember-when-niven-was-fun, 2015
2010s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Niven made a name for himself as a hard SF author, which is to say, someone whose SF provides enough technical detail t…" by James Nicoll?
James Nicoll photo
James Nicoll 69
Canadian fiction reviewer 1961

Related quotes

Terry Pratchett photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Vladimir Voevodsky photo

“A technical argument by a trusted author, which is hard to check and looks similar to arguments known to be correct, is hardly ever checked in detail”

Vladimir Voevodsky (1966–2017) Russian mathematician

Univalent Foundations, Vladimir Voevodsky, IAS, March 26, 2014 http://www.math.ias.edu/vladimir/files/2014_IAS.pdf p. 8

Philip K. Dick photo

“SF is a rebellious art form and it needs writers and readers and bad attitudes — an attitude of "Why?" or "How come?" or "Who says?"”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Introduction to The Golden Man (1980)
Context: That was my problem then and it's my problem now; I have a bad attitude. In a nutshell, I fear authority but at the same time I resent it — the authority and my own fear — so I rebel. And writing SF is a way to rebel. … SF is a rebellious art form and it needs writers and readers and bad attitudes — an attitude of "Why?" or "How come?" or "Who says?"

Caitlín R. Kiernan photo

“I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(24 July 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: There are many words and phrases that should be forever kept out of the hands of book reviewers. It's sad, but true. And one of these is "self-indulgent." And this is one of those things that strikes me very odd, like reviewers accusing an author of writing in a way that seems "artificial" or "self-conscious." It is, of course, a necessary prerequisite of fiction that one employ the artifice of language and that one exist in an intensely self-conscious state. Same with "self-indulgent." What could possibly be more self-indulgent than the act of writing fantastic fiction? The author is indulging her- or himself in the expression of the fantasy, and, likewise, the readers are indulging themselves in the luxury of someone else's fantasy. I've never written a story that wasn't self-indulgent. Neither has any other fantasy or sf author. We indulge our interests, our obsessions, and assume that someone out there will feel as passionately about X as we do.

Carl Friedrich Gauss photo

“Spherical trigonometry and certain other theorems, to which the author has added a new one of frequent application, then serve for the solution of the problems which the comparison of the various directions involved can present.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

"Gauss's Abstract of the Disquisitiones Generales circa Superficies Curvas presented to the Royal Society of Gottingen" (1827) Tr. James Caddall Morehead & Adam Miller Hiltebeitel in General Investigations of Curved Surfaces of 1827 and 1825 http://books.google.com/books?id=SYJsAAAAMAAJ& (1902)
Context: In researches in which an infinity of directions of straight lines in space is concerned, it is advantageous to represent these directions by means of those points upon a fixed sphere, which are the end points of the radii drawn parallel to the lines. The centre and the radius of this auxiliary sphere are here quite arbitrary. The radius may be taken equal to unity. This procedure agrees fundamentally with that which is constantly employed in astronomy, where all directions are referred to a fictitious celestial sphere of infinite radius. Spherical trigonometry and certain other theorems, to which the author has added a new one of frequent application, then serve for the solution of the problems which the comparison of the various directions involved can present.

George Borrow photo
Carl von Clausewitz photo
Vātsyāyana photo

Related topics