^TagHard vs soft magic

Black stone monolith in ancient jungle, portal or a sign of civilisation. Generative AI

^{Type
post

Gary Varner
Date
December 13, 2025

Categorized
Science Fiction

Tagged
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, Featured, Hard vs soft magic, Sentinel (short story), Stanley Kubrick}

Space Odyssey 2001: Decisions To Make About That Monolith

_{In Part 2 of my series on the sci-fi great, I want to consider where the Monolith fits in the hard vs. soft magic systems that make for sci-fi stories} _{Gary Varner
December 13, 2025

7

Science Fiction}

Letting the question of who sent the monolith remain a mystery was probably a wise dramatic choice on the part of the writers.

Time Travel: The Threat of Escalation in the Terminator Series

_{Part 3: The Terminator series writers never new whether there would be a sequel, and that had implications for how they plotted time travel} _{Gary Varner
November 8, 2025

9

Science Fiction}

Shrouding the story rules in mystery only works with soft magic systems where the story focus is on something other than the system.