I just got into a way tl/dr; discussion with a guy who's insisting that magic is usually presented as something unknowable in fantasy

Not in books where the wizards/witches/sorcerors are protagonists.

In Wizard of Earthsea the magic is all about learning the true name/nature of things.

"consistently" is probably the wrong word. There is a difference between how Gandalf does magic and the way engineers do engineering. Or maybe not, but there is a difference in how they are presented. Le Guins world is closer, but the feel is still different. I suspect ultimately it is a styleistic difference - "hard science" fiction is a writing style. Heinlein's "Magic Incorporated" is IMO hard science fiction. Earthsea stylistically isn't. That explains Harry Potter - magic is very close to science in the way it works,but styleistically no. Also I will add that in all three examples inborn ability plays a huge role. Not just anyone can do magic in Rowlings world, or in Earthsea. Middle Earth - well talent certainly helps and I get the feeling that if you don't have inborn ability the only magic you will do is with magical artifacts. Not inherent, but very common in fantasy. Whereas in hard science fiction, talent matters, but most people can do at least mediocre science if they are willing to put in the work. Very common in fantasy for this not to be the case - again not universal.

I'd agree that it's a style thing. A lot of hard science fiction that has been written based on scientific theory has since been proved impossible or extremely unlikely - works that postulated life on Venus, or it's ripeness for colonization, for example, before we sent probes there and really understood the ridiculous effect of it's greenhouse gases. It's still hard science fiction - it's written in such a way that you can easily believe the universe contained could follow from certain axioms, whether those axioms are actually complete or not. And it takes those axioms very seriously, and treats them with the same level of logic scientists treat current theories and axioms. Harry Potter doesn't take itself that seriously, and the flaws in its magical system (if treated as science) are many, and obvious.

I don't necessarily agree that inborn talent vs. practice has much to do with it - again, the metapsychic abilities of the Julian May series I was discussing are essentially magic, and the characters that fill the books wizards, but the magic is treated with a scientific eye, an extension of normal human abilities. There is no (or, rather, little) treatment of it as spiritual.

I think to be hard science fiction, the work has to explore its conceits, or at least make it clear that it could be, and is, explored in the universe of the book. If Tolkien had gone that route with The Lord of the Rings' wizards, he would have written very different books, but they could have been set in the same universe. And they would have been, I think, hard science fiction.

I think to be hard science fiction, the work has to explore its conceits

Can you go into more detail about that? I don't see why a fantasy piece that goes into detail about the world's structure or posited magic would become hard sci fi, inherently. Or could it be both simultaneously?

My bookclub is doing all apocalypse and post-apocalypse theme books next year! I'm very excited. I love apocalyptic stories!

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Sci-Fi Writer Attributes Everything Mysterious To 'Quantum Flux'

I love that The Road is first. That book is good but BLEAK.

I love that The Road is first. That book is good but BLEAK.

I loved it but am wondering if I want to read it again. Oh! Maybe I'll just watch the movie. I never did get around to seeing it.

I'm glad we are reading the Stand. I never have and have been wanting to. It's like 1400 pages long, though, so I should probably start it soon!

Or could it be both simultaneously?

Yes, I think so.

I tend to think that fantasy is set in a world that never has been like our own, while science fiction springs (or sprang, sometime in the past) from our own human society, but even that's not true. I've read books I'd consider science fiction that don't have a single human character and do have things we'd consider to be magic, but the characters in the book don't see them as magical and approach them as if they are normal aspects of their existence and/or technology. I think it's all about style.

Hard science fiction explains. The Archangel trilogy by Sharon Shinn is an interesting series to try to explain what I mean. The first book is a work of fantasy - there is a land with human (or human-like creatures) as well as angels, essentially super-strong humans with wings, who can fly in to the air and sing beautiful songs to make things happen - they can change the weather, or bring down food, or even summon lighting. The entire thing is treated mystically - there's no explanation beyond saying it's all God's (the call him Jovah) divine will that the angels have this power. The angels don't understand it, the humans don't understand it, it just is.

The second book crosses over into science fiction near the end, when a character begins to work on the reasons behind it - give explanation for the powers. The explanation given is not scientific or believable according to modern science, but since it is an explanation it, in my opinion, becomes SF. There happens to be space travel involved, which is a trope that certainly puts things squarely in the science fiction camp, but I don't think the space travel would be necessary. I think the explanation is enough. Maybe we would call it "hard fantasy," but I really don't think that exists - you might have a hard SF tale with fantasy tropes, but it's still hard SF. The more detailed and consistent the explanation, the harder it is.

A lot of "urban fantasy" is, in my opinion, really sci-fi. Feed is an excellent example: sure, zombies, but they're explained. Any vampire book that explains vampirism as a weird virus or parasite is hard sci-fi. The more it sticks to its explanation and uses that explanation to drive the story, the harder it is. If the evil vampires are defeated by exploiting some aspect of their virus explanation, then the story is harder than if the explanation is just thrown in on the third page and then ignored, but if the explanation exists at all I think it becomes SF.

If Lord of the Rings opened with "A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far away..." then explained Gandalf's magic as a normal trait of the Wizard species, then it would be sci-fi, and no less believable than Star Wars.

Hmm, does that fact that Tolkien does explain Gandalf's magic as a normal trait of the Wizard species in the backpages mean that LotR is really science fiction?