astrofiction

The novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey, winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, is quintessential astrofiction, being a kind of journal of the lives of four astronauts in space.  The movie Project Hail Mary is another.  But there are now many other contenders in this new genre.  There is even a reference work called AstroFiction which the author Ingrid Moon describes as a manual for astrofiction writers, telling them all sorts of background stuff that they might need to know for their characters to live credible lives in space.

Astrofiction differs from science fiction in that it is about the here and now of human experience in space. Its focus is on the development of characters and their relationships.  Science fiction is about space in the future.  It explores some startling new idea of how the future world might work. Exploring the idea is often more important than exploring human feelings and relationships.