Reddit mentions of The Hard SF Renaissance: An Anthology

People are kind of circling around the definition of hard scifi. So let's turn to Wikipedia

>Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy.

Basically, a lot of hard scifi tries to use our current understanding of physics, astronomy, technology, and other sciences as foundation for the story. Sometimes going into more technical detail on these features, but not always.

>The heart of the "hard SF" designation is the relationship of the science content and attitude to the rest of the narrative, and (for some readers, at least) the "hardness" or rigor of the science itself. One requirement for hard SF is procedural or intentional: a story should try to be accurate, logical, credible and rigorous in its use of current scientific and technical knowledge about which technology, phenomena, scenarios and situations that are practically and/or theoretically possible. For example, the development of concrete proposals for spaceships, space stations, space missions, and a US space program in the 1950s and 1960s influenced a widespread proliferation of "hard" space stories. Later discoveries do not necessarily invalidate the label of hard SF, as evidenced by P. Schuyler Miller, who called Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust hard SF, and the designation remains valid even though a crucial plot element, the existence of deep pockets of "moondust" in lunar craters, is now known to be incorrect.
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>There is a degree of flexibility in how far from "real science" a story can stray before it leaves the realm of hard SF. HSF authors scrupulously avoid such technology as faster-than-light travel (of which there are alternatives endorsed by nasa), while authors writing softer SF accept such notions (sometimes referred to as "enabling devices", since they allow the story to take place).

Film examples: 2001, Solaris, Blade Runner, Contact, Gattica, Moon... I'd also add The Martian and Gravity to those.

For TV today, The Expanse is likely close in early seasons, but maybe not later. Humans is pretty hard scifi, as are many episodes of Black Mirror. There's also some hard scifi in the Philip K. Dick anthology series on Amazon.

I'd suggest the anthology The Hard SF Renaissance: An Anthology for some awesome hard scifi stories.

You could read novels, but I personally think you're going to get a better intro to SF and more enjoyment, and a better chance of finding "your thing" if you read short stories. You can then read the novels you know you'll enjoy. I love SF anthologies, not only because you get a collection of pre-selected awesome pieces, but also you get to sample a ton of different authors with different styles in the same number of pages as reading a novel would get you just a single story and a single author. Also, many consider the short story the ultimate and best form for science fiction.

I suggest anthologies that collect stories over multiple years instead of just "best of the year" collection. For obvious reasons, you get better stories. Here are the best I know of:

• The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy
  
• The Hard SF Renaissance (One or two stories from this will answer the question of whether you like Hard SF.)
  
• The Science Fiction Century
  
• Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (sort of a sequel to the previous one)
  
• Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 1, 2a, and 2b (This is kind of a survey of historical SF, ranging from the '20s to the '60s.)
  
  So you could go historically starting with old stories and working your way more contemporary, in which case you'd start with SF Hall of Fame. But it might be a better idea to start with the most contemporary stuff and go backwards. In that case, you'd start with Locus Awards and start in the back of the book.
  
  In terms of specific authors, I would be amiss not to encourage you to read Ted Chiang. He has written only 13 short stories between 1992 and now, but he's won more awards for them than most SF authors do in their lifetime including the prestigious Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards, among others! READ. HIS. STORIES. He has an awesome anthology Stories of Your Life and Others plus you can buy his more recent stories on amazon.
  
  You should also read Greg Egan. And Enders Game if you somehow missed it. There's also the classic Arthur C. Clarke, either his short stories, or a novel like City and the Stars.
  

The Hard SF Renaissance is a book of shortish stories by the modern masters of hard SF. It is a good way to get to know many authors that might interest you.

Marrow and its sequel The Well of Stars by Robert Reed are both fucking fantastic.

I discovered Marrow via the short story anthology The Hard SF Renaissance, which I whole-heartedly recommend. It's a monster of an anthology that doesn't have a single bad story in it (IMO).

Another great anthology, in fact, the one that got me started on hard SF and led me to discover many of the authors I enjoy reading today is The Hard SF Renaissance.

I recommend The Space Opera Renaissance https://www.amazon.com/dp/0765306182/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FR8oxbYX4DN3P Although I did not enjoy every story, I feel that this anthology gave a good example of sci-fi through the years. I got more enjoyment from The Hard SF Renaissance https://www.amazon.com/dp/031287636X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fU8oxbBV8VXN7 partially because I'm a fan of hard sci-fi but it doesn't do as good of a job of describing he historical context of the short stories.