首先來看看幾部行內辭典／百科的定義〔照慣例，粗體字是我標的重點〕：
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 2nd ed.
Item of sf terminology used by sf FANDOM and readers; it has sometimes overlapped in meaning with "hardcore sf", often used in the 1960s and 1970s to mean the kind of sf that repeats the themes and (to a degree) the style of the GENRE SF written during the so-called GOLDEN AGE OF SF. ...... Allen STEELE (in "Hard Again" in NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, June 1992): "Hard sf is the form of imaginative literature that uses either established or carefully extrapolated science as its backbone." Steele goes on to regret the association in many readers' minds of hard sf with "a particular political territory -- usually located somewhere on the far right", an association which, while certainly sometimes justifiable, has cultural origins that cannot easily be elucidated.The commonly used distinction between hard and SOFT SCIENCES runs parallel to that between hard and SOFT SF. Themes entries in this volume which deal with the so-called hard sciences include, but are not restricted to ASTRONOMY, BLACK HOLES, COMPUTERS, COSMOLOGY, CYBERNETICS, FAASTER THAN LIGHT, GRAVITY, MATHEMATICS, NUCLEAR POWER, PHYSICS, POWER SOURCES, ROCKETS, SPACE FLIGHT, SPACE SHIPS, TECHNOLOGY and WEAPONS. All but the most puristic reader would probably accept also BIOLOGY, GENETIC ENGINEERING and TERRAFORMING as appropriate material for hard sf. But it is possible to write a kind of hard sf about almost everything, as can be exemplified by Brian M. STABLEFORD's rationalizing treatment of vampires in The Empire of Fear (1988). Hard sf should not, however, wilfully ignore or break known scientific principles, yet stories classified as "hard sf" often contain, for example, ESP, SUPERMAN, FASTER-THAN-LIGHT and TIME-TRAVEL themes (see also IMAGINARY SCIENCE). While a rigorous definition of "hard sf" may be impossible, perhaps the most important thing about it is, not that it should include real science in any great detail, but that it should respect the scientific spirit; it should seek to provide natural rather than supernatural or transcendental explanations for the events and phenomena it describes.
This not very precise item of sf TERMINOLOGY, formed by analogy with HARD SF, is generally applied either to sf that deals with the SOFT SCIENCES or to sf that does not deal with recognizable science at all, but emphasizes human feelings. The contrasting of soft sf with hard sf is sometimes illogical. Stories of PSI POWERS or SUPERMEN, for example, have little to do with real science, but are regularly regarded by sf readers as hard sf. ......
而軟科幻就比較乾脆：
Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy (by Gary K. Wolfe)
(sometimes also "hardcore science fiction"). Science fiction in which the Ground Rules are known scientific principles, and in which speculation based on such principles constitutes a significant part of the work. Coined presumably on the model of "hard sciences" (the physical and biological, as opposed to social sciences), "hard science fiction" is ostensibly that "written around known scientific facts or at least not-unproven theories generated by 'real' scientists," according to Norman Spinrad. Thomas N. Scortia somewhat more narrowly defines it as a "closely reasoned technological story". Neither definitionquite encompasses the breadth with which the term is actually used, however. In some cases it refers only to stories in which the setting is carefully worked out from known scientific principles (as in the work of Hal Clement or Larry Niven), in other cases to stories in which the plot hangs on such a principle, and in still other cases to almost any sense, the term may become almost synonymous with science fiction of the Campbell Era.
Probably a back-formation from Hard Science Fiction, and used sometimes to refer to science fiction based in the so-called soft sciences (anthropology, sociology, etc.), and sometimes to refer to science fiction in which there is little science or little awareness of science at all. Chad Oliver might be an example of an author who falls under the former definition, Ray Bradbury an example of the latter.
Gary K. Wolfe 所提出的說法和 Peter Nicholls 差不多。
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature (by Brian Stableford)
A term coined in 1957 by P. SCHUYLER MILLER, whoc recognized that it had become necessary to draw a distinction between Campbellian SF and the sf produced by such recent trends as GALAXY's promotion of social satire and RAY BRADBURY's FABULATIONS. ...... Some subsequent users took the term to mean sf based in the "hard sciences" (physics and chemistry; biology is included by some users and excluded by others) rather than the "soft sciences" (psychology, sociology, and economics), thus licensing the antonym SOFT SF -- while others took it to be a contraction of "hard-core", meaning the sf that lay as the heart, rather than the periphery, of the genre. Such innovations as NEW WAVE sf and the increasing use of sf motifs by MAINSTREAM fabulators caused later users -- including DAVID HARTWELL, in his showcase ANTHOLOGIES The Ascent of Wonder (1994) and The Hard SF Renaissance (2002) -- to attribute "hardness" to any sf story containing quasi-scientific exposition or explicitly championing science against superstition.
Attempts to draw a boundary around hard (or hard-core) sf are inevitably confused by the ambiguous situation of the marginal sciences of biology and psychology, the hospitability of the Campbellian tradition to PSI stories -- which many skeptics consider essentially PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC, or so soft as to be vaporous -- and the tendency of stories that once seemed rationally plausible to be exposed by the passage of time as flagrant impossibilities. The concept of hard sf is so closely linked to the myth of the SPACE AGE and its associated hardware that it is intricately interwoven with the political imperatives of the "conquest" of space; for this reason, hardness in sf is closely associated with LIBERTARIAN and militaristic hard-headedness, and softness with "woolly" liberalism and sentimentality.
The logical counterpart of HARD SF. Few authors claim it as a label for their own work -- people who like to think of themselves as "hard" far outnumber those willing to be described as "soft" (although they are themselves far outnumbered by people who loathe the kind of people who like to think of themselves as "hard"), but critics find it convenient, primarily to describe SPECULATIVE FICTION based in the "soft" (i. e. human) sciences, but also to characterize other kinds of sf that are at odds with the assertive overtones implicit in the word "hard." For this reason, LIBERTARIAN SF and SURVIVALIST FICTION seem "hard" to many readers and critics no matter how little science or logic is manifest therein, while liberal and sentimentally inclined sf seem "soft" no matter how detailed their scientific exposition may be.
It was the popularization of delicately softened sf by RAY BRADBURY in the early 1950s that prompted P. SCHUYLER MILLER to begin talking about "hard sf," although ISAAC ASIMOV's essay on "Social Science Fiction" (1953) had already recognized that there was a problematic lack of real science in much of the fiction produced in accordance with JOHN CAMPBELL's manifesto, even by such fervent advocates thereof as himself and ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. Once the reader-friendliness of fiction that used sf's now-familiar vocabulary of ideas without any supportive explanations had been demonstrated, though, the advance of soft sf became relentless.
Brian Stableford 的說明就更明確了。首先，「硬科幻」一詞是歷史產物，被發明用來指涉「黃金時代」在 Campbell 領導下的科幻，後來演變成探討「硬科學」議題的科幻。Stableford 同時也說清楚「硬派科幻」（hardcore sf，張系國管它叫「硬蕊科幻」）的意思，也就是「處於類型核心，不致於和其他類型重疊、混淆的科幻」（這就幾乎可以和「黃金時代」科幻劃上等號）。演變到 90s，David Hartwell 等再把這個「硬」的部分闡述為：提出外表上看起來「科學」的解釋（實質面），或明確支持科學（精神面）。第二段則說明為何傳統上的「硬科幻」會和右翼思潮扯上關係。
軟科幻則和前兩種說法差不多，不過 Stableford 挑明了講，沒什麼人會聲稱自己寫「軟科幻」，反而是評論者認為這個辭彙很方便就拿來用。
從以上的定義，我們可以發現，在處理「軟、硬科學」的分野上區分「軟、硬科幻」是比較沒問題的說法。不過什麼科學是軟的，什麼科學是硬的，除了傳統上「自然科學」與「人文科學」的區分之外，細節上仍然有所爭論。
至於現在一般把著重「外表上看起來科學」的解釋與描述的作品視為硬科幻，把「幾乎無視科學，而著重人的感覺、意識」的作品當作軟科幻，這樣的分類並無不妥。只不過，這和作者的背景並無直接關係；此外，硬科幻的科學只要看起來好像合理，有個樣子就算數了，而軟科幻則幾乎不把科學放在眼裡。並不是拿硬成分和軟成分相比，哪一種比例高就算哪一種。
以上都是根據定義所做的推論。在實務上，由於科幻行內並不存在「軟科幻」的次文類，而「軟科幻」一辭也只不過是在評述時一個比較方便的說法，欠缺學術上的專門討論（至少沒有決定性的論文或專著），所以我個人傾向不使用這個標籤。至於硬科幻的深入研究，可參閱 Gary Westfahl 的 Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction 和 George E. Slusser 與 Eric S. Rabkin 合編的 Hard Science Fiction。知名編輯 David Hartwell 和 Kathryn Cramer 編有兩本以硬科幻為主題的短篇選集，其中 The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF 裡的三篇序言也有很高的參考價值，有空重看時再來做筆記。
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