The Expansion of Nerddom and the Decline of Hard Sci-fi

[Arthmail]

I'm not that into poop jokes. But I also realized what a prude I was after I heard about some of the weirder porn out there.

Poop jokes are the only thing that keeps the barbarians from the gates. The only fucking thing.

Dude, it wasn't the swearing. It was the golf.

Ah, i can understand. That being said, the three games constituted my 2,3, and 4th time playing in my life. It was mostly an excuse to drink beer, drive golf carts, smoke cigars and make dick jokes while talking about poop.

Sciborg2, you will like the poop jokes or i will consider you dead inside. Poop jokes are the shit.

[Datepalm]

I can see the appeal of golf carts (like giant little toy cars!)

Hard SF - Done right, the science/technology can be interesting. I don't remember a thing about the characters in Blood Music, but the whole sentient microbes (or something) is what stays.

Anathem, by Stephenson, i'd also rate as having at least a major hard SF component, since the logic of the dimensions and the theories behind them and so on were actually important, and at the heart of the narrative. I found them pretty interesting, even though the actual science was above my head and i'm not sure it's even strictly right, but that matters less, to me at least, then that it's a book about a big scientific theory. (the other major component of the book is actually Soft SF, with the social structure of the monastary things. Not a character or plot driven story any way you spin it.)

i'd make a case for The Quiet War/Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley as well - much of the story focus is on getting stuff built (like, say, Fountain to the Stars, by Clarke) grown, terraformed, etc, with lots of technical detail. But it's more than that - it's got this whole major thread of theories about human driven evolution via genetic engineering and changing space by seeding it with plants and so on. So it's about a scientific theory. Maybe a far fetched, even inaccurate one, but that's the fun - it's extrapolative, speculative, fictional science. Let's call it....Science Fiction.

[Nukelavee]

Yeah, I barely remember teh characters, but the bacteria as sentient...

hell, it also creeped me out.

[SpaceChampion]

To go back to the original topic, rephrased as "nerddom's interest waning in regards to stereotypical nerdy topics like science and engineering". I don't really buy it that interest has waned. It's just that SF is an art, and there are more dimensions of human interest than the myth of the older fandom community of SF's autistic little ghetto. And honestly that little ghetto never existed. SF fandom was already interested in adventure fiction, utopian fiction, dystopian fiction, heroic fiction, romances, horror, etc. in a science fiction setting.