Why do some science fiction writers meticulously calculate flight trajectories, while others are interested only in how technology shatters the psyche?..
What matters more in science fiction: the impeccability of physical laws or the depth of human experience? This essay is not a dispute about superiority, but an exploration of two fundamental ways of understanding the world through the prism of the genre. From Clarke to Dick, from Asimov to Le Guin: how the dialectics of the "hard" and the "soft" shapes our boldest thoughts about the future and about ourselves.
