Samuel Delany suggests in a couple places that whenever we set up ostensably equal dichotomies, there's always an implicit hierarchy.
The only people I ever hear talk about Hard vs Soft SF are people who love the former, and usually show a bit of contempt for the latter. Sanderson goes out of his way to assert that he believes both the approaches he describes to be equally valid, but, to be blunt, I don't believe him.
I do think his proposed rule is worth musing on, I think it is nowhere near as hard-and-fast as he asserts. Exhibit A here would once again be Jonathan Strange, which is way to the Soft end if I understand the essay at all, and does not fall neatly into the problems-sloved-with-magic/problems-solved-not-with-magic dichotomy.
More generally, yeah, if you're setting up a puzzle game like a mystery novel, explicit rules are necessary. Not all fantasy novels are, or should be, puzzle games.
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The only people I ever hear talk about Hard vs Soft SF are people who love the former, and usually show a bit of contempt for the latter. Sanderson goes out of his way to assert that he believes both the approaches he describes to be equally valid, but, to be blunt, I don't believe him.
I do think his proposed rule is worth musing on, I think it is nowhere near as hard-and-fast as he asserts. Exhibit A here would once again be Jonathan Strange, which is way to the Soft end if I understand the essay at all, and does not fall neatly into the problems-sloved-with-magic/problems-solved-not-with-magic dichotomy.
More generally, yeah, if you're setting up a puzzle game like a mystery novel, explicit rules are necessary. Not all fantasy novels are, or should be, puzzle games.