Science Fiction vs. Science Fantasy

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Which of the great TV/Movies/Books/Comics are Science Fiction versus Science Fantasy?

For the purposes of starting discussion I'll use the definition of Science Fiction being based on the logical extension of known science, where Science Fantasy is magic cloaked in technobabble*, but feel free to adjust that if you have a different definition.

Example:
Science Fiction: Robert L. Forward's novels, like Rocheworld
Science Fantasy: Star Wars

*No trotting out Clarke and saying that because "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" these two categories are the same. Make a choice, darn it!

 

[MarkB]

Any sufficiently advanced science fiction is indistinguishable from fantasy.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

But it is a fuzzy line, and what about works in which the 'magic' is deliberately not fully explained?

Having mentioned Clarke, his 2001 series contains a lot of hard SF, and was an evocative portrait of what a present-day human-explored solar system might look like. Do we place it in the Science Fantasy category because it also contains a sentient geometric multitool that's capable of acting as a telepathic sentience accelerant, stargate and remote stellar manipulator?

 

[jonesy]

I thought the distinction was that Science Fiction was fiction where the science is a driving force of the plot and Science Fantasy is where the science is just background detail for the world.

Like, none of the characters really care how the Death Star works, it's just a WMD that the bad guys have. But everyone who knows about the Monolith wants to know what it is and what it does, even though we don't learn all that much.

And then Speculative Fiction doesn't even need to have any science in it. A portal opens up into the past. Is it magic? Is it science? Irrelevant.

 

[Nellisir]

I think science fiction usually sticks to "realistic" science, whereas science fantasy handwaves more of its science. Star Trek is (currently) science fantasy, because they just "go faster" to exceed the speed of light. In fact, I'd say FTL is usually the stickiest point to get around, science-wise.

Science fantasy doesn't use science as a plot point because there is no science to hang a plot on.

Aspects of cyberpunk are increasingly science fiction.

 

[Orius]

I'd count the use of supernatural elements to be science fantasy. So basically sci-fi is unexplained technology and advanced alien species, while science fantasy is wizards and/or gods doing stuff. IN SPACE (usually).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Honestly, I don't think any of the examples of "science fiction" I can think of are scientifically plausible.

 

[Nellisir]

Honestly, I don't think any of the examples of "science fiction" I can think of are scientifically plausible.

Now I'm wondering what ones you're thinking of.

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, I don't think any of the examples of "science fiction" I can think of are scientifically plausible.

It doesn't really have to be plausible to be science fiction (though that helps, but plausibility is entirely subjective). It needs to be a logical extension of current scientific knowledge and ideas.

So, for example, take David Brin's "Earth". The book is about what happens when someone drops a tiny black hole into the Earth, and it starts to chew away at the planet's core, and how do we stop it?

Is this really plausible? No. Nobody's making tiny black holes any time soon. Is it science fiction? Most certainly.

 

[Mallus]

It doesn't really have to be plausible to be science fiction (though that helps, but plausibility is entirely subjective). It needs to be a logical extension of current scientific knowledge and ideas.

I'd go even further and say it needs to be a (semi) logical working through of a premise; a thought experiment. However, if you're including the "soft sciences" in with scientific knowledge --ie, economics, poly-sci, sociology, gender studies, whatever, etc-- then I agree (completely, even!).

Look at some well-known SF...

Wells's The Time Machine is about the British class system. The time-travel part is just the satiric lens used to examine it. Wells doesn't care how time machine works, nor does he care to investigate any of the fun, head-scratching paradox stuff.

Bester's The Stars My Destination posits life in a society where nearly everyone can teleport using their power of their own minds. I don't think this was ever considered remotely scientific.

Herbert's Dune is, to be really reductive, about the intersection of colonialism, religion, and oil. With some neat stuff about an imaginary ecology that produces sand-dwelling Leviathans. Probably the SF-inal thing in Dune is the musing about human development requiring an absence of certain technologies. But it also has a ton of literalized mysticism, space witches, and FTL travel that relies on shrooming psychics.

More recently, there Bank's Culture series. The technologies in it are so unscientific/magical the author actually makes jokes about them in the text. But it's still SF; speculation about the shape and politics of a post-scarcity economy.

These are just top-of-my-head examples.

Trying to distinguish between "science fiction" and "science fantasy" is tough. Scientific accuracy is, in my book, the least important criterion. You're better off looking to the themes involved, to what purpose the fantastical elements are being put toward. If you use "science" as your primary benchmark, "science fiction" quickly becomes a pretty sparse genre.

So this means Star Trek (TOS in particular) is usually SF, despite the countless examples of ludicrous science, while Star Wars almost never is (I can't any recall any real SF themes in SW, but I might be overlooking something).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Now I'm wondering what ones you're thinking of.

As with many people, the first thing that jumps to mind is Star Trek. In my case, that's followed by a list of mid-twentieth century novels I read as a kid (Bradbury, Heinlein, Dick, etc.), some of Lovecraft's later works, a melange of space opera television and film, the post-apocalyptic/robot uprising subgenre (everything from Terminator to Fallout to BSG), and a number of thought experiment films like The Matrix or Inception.

While I doubt I could list the entirety of science fiction in one post, I don't see anything in my list that could plausibly happen. Frankly, learning about science was a rather disillusioning for me; I used to draw more of a distinction between fantasy and sci-fi, but now it seems to me that they are mostly the same, save a few arbitrary defining tropes.

Were you thinking of something in particular as a counterexample?

Trying to distinguish between "science fiction" and "science fantasy" is tough. Scientific accuracy is, in my book, the least important criterion. You're better off looking to the themes involved, to what purpose the fantastical elements are being put toward. If you use "science" as your primary benchmark, "science fiction" quickly becomes a pretty sparse genre.

Well, I'm agreeing with the last point. But as to the idea of themes, I don't see any clear distinction there. A lot of horror fiction blends this distinction; Lovecraft has a lot of very scientific ideas but also magic and religion and monsters.

There are also examples of fantasy, that seem very much like science fiction thematically (The Song of Ice and Fire asthetic feels very sci-fi to me) and science fiction that is fantasy with aliens (Star Wars). It's also been my observation that science fiction stories that go on for a long time often become more and more fantastical and less grounded as they progress (see Lost, BSG, and others).

I mean, there are tons of really good pieces of fiction up there; I'm not criticizing them. I am criticizing the fantasy/sci-fi distinction that this thread was about.