I read a post on NPR about hard science fiction, which hinted why it migh be on the rise:  No Warp Drives, No Transporters: Science Fiction Authors Get Real

The ecoBbiologist in me wanted to identify the root cause (which the article did not delve into), so I thought about it … for a day… then following the thread of a post from one of my G+ circles, I came across an image I had used in my own work, Silversides and then it hit me… why hard science fiction might be on the rise…

I think writers today, especially hard sci-fi writers, have such an advantage over the trail-blazers before us for the simple reason we have the internet at our fingertips for research; it does not make us better writers, just better equipped writers for hard science fiction. Instead of relying solely on our imagination,which I believe is why so much science fiction had been written about far off places, bordering on fantasy, all we new writers need to do is enter a search string and in a matter of minutes we become byte matter experts (not to be confused with a Subject Matter Experts or SME).

Here is an example.  In Silversides, my protagonist, Nori, is sitting on the edge of her berth, interacting with a hologram projected in front of her.  To achieve this, she has a combination of an implanted optical plate and a carapace mesh mask with access to the ships A.I,. called CEIL (Correlation Engine and Intelligence Lab) to receive telemetry of various cubeSats orbiting the planet Dykazza.  The carapace mesh mask provides Nori senses such as smell, temperature, hearing, etc.  So what is a carapace mask and what do I know about such a thing?  Click on the video below. Having something to see in practice makes the concepts we are writing about so plausible.  Especially if the writing is available in eFormat where the reader can stop on a word or concept and can ask the question: Is that idea, real?  Then with a tap of their finger, they can link to the source.  So coupled with a new breed of writers and readers, real or hard science fiction is just a logical step…