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Character development is sometimes secondary to explorations of astronomical or physical phenomena, but other times authors make the human condition forefront in the story. However a common theme of hard SF has the resolution of the plot often hinging upon a technological point. Writers attempt to have their stories consistent with known science at the time of publication. Interestingly, some hard science fiction stories are set in an alternate universe where different physical laws apply; however, in such cases the author makes use of current physics to design a universe that is at least potentially realistic.

Hard science fiction is largely a literary genre, as the complexities of physics rarely translate well to the screen. One of the notable exceptions is ; however, the movie still leaves out much of the examination of the physics, computer science, and other scientific analyses present in the novel version.

Well known authors often said to be practitioners of hard SF include

• Poul Anderson
• Isaac Asimov
• Iain M. Banks
• John Barnes
• Stephen Baxter
• Greg Bear
• Gregory Benford
• David Brin
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Hal ClementHarry Clement Stubbs ( May 30, 1922 October 29, 2003), better known by the pen name Hal Clement was an American science fiction writer, a leader of the subgenre hard science fiction. He was born in Somerville, Massachusetts and went to Harvard, graduating
• Greg EganGreg Egan (born August 20, 1961) is an Australian ( Perth-based) computer programmer and science fiction author. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Western Australia. Egan specialises in hard science fiction stories with ma
• Michael FlynnMichael Flynn ( 1947 ), who is sometimes published as Michael F. Flynn, worked full time as a statistician and wrote science fiction as a sideline for several years. He turned to writing full time in the mid-1990s. His work nearly all falls under the cate
• Robert ForwardRobert Lull Forward ( August 15, 1932 September 21, 2002) was a United States physicist and science fiction writer. He earned his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1965, for the development of a bar antenna for the detection of gravitational ra
• Robert Heinlein
• James P. HoganHogan (born June 27, 1941, London, U. is a science fiction author. Hogan's style of science fiction is often compared to Arthur C. Clarke's for its research in science. His philosophical view on how "science" should be done comes through in most of his no
• Nancy KressNancy Kress (born Nancy Anne Koningisor in Buffalo, New York on January 20, 1948) is a science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo and Nebula-winning novella "Beggars in Spain" i
• Larry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938) is a US science fiction author. Perhaps his best-known work is Ringworld ( 1970), which received Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards. Niven is the author of numerous science fiction short stories and novels, beginni
• Paul Preuss
• Alastair Reynolds
• Kim Stanley Robinson
• Joan Slonczewski
• Allen Steele
• John Varley
• Jules Verne
• Vernor Vinge

of his serious work. Appleseed is another story featuring heavy use of advanced technology in which, ironically, the critical moment is resolved by clever use of an actual apple seed in the midst of hardcore robotic chaos.

Also in anime, Mobile Suit Gundam marked the maturation of the giant robot genre. Giant warrior robots were initially depicted as colossal superheroic metal giants with inexplicable (sometimes campy) superscience that bordered on magic. Gundam turned these robots into high tech military hardware that operated and were designed based on a modern understanding of robotics, hydraulics and military hardware. This gave rise to the mecha genre which also spawned classics such as Votoms , Macross, and Robotech.

See the article on Hal Clement for a description of how one hard science fiction author viewed his craft.

One science-fiction television show which has consciously attempted to portray physics correctly is J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5, albeit inconsistently especially in later seasons of its half-decade run. The sequel series, Crusade, went so far as to formally enter into a working partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to ensure scientific accuracy. Certain dramatic elements such as sounds in space, visible lasers in a vacuum, etc., are probably to be expected or even demanded by the casual viewer not deeply familiar with the real science involved, and any television or film SF producer must tread a gray line between pleasing the lowest and highest common denominators in his audience. However, even in these cases, the producers came up with an explanations which attempted to produce a consistent physics (i.e. the sounds in space were background music and the lasers were not lasers but plasma bolts).

An example of a web-based hard science fiction project (where many people contribute different pieces of what becomes a coherent story) is Orion's Arm.

A fan organization that has grown up around Hard Science Fiction is General Technics, populated by scientists, technical folks, and others with a specific interest in this area. General Technics' name is taken from the organization that created a global-scale computer in John Brunner's novel, Stand on Zanzibar. General Technics, though concentrated in the American Midwest, has a global membership.