Forked Thread: What is the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy?

[Desdichado]

Star wars, 40K, and several other settings combine magic (sometimes as "psi" sometimes not) and lasers. Dune, when you throw in the Bene Gesserit "Witches" who evolved from the "sorceresses" is another candidate.

Yes. I know (I believe all of them, especially Star Wars, have been discussed quite a bit in this thread already, unless I'm muddling other similar discussions here in my mind.)

That's why I said way back in my first post that the differences between the different points on the spectrum that have their own labels aren't really all that decisive, and that I prefer to see them as slightly different reflections on the same genre.

That said, there are clearly established subgenres within the speculative fiction band that are relatively easy to identify if you're so inclined. The fact that some works straddle the lines between them doesn't invalidate the subdivisions.

 

[Mallus]

Something a lot of people are missing. Laser do not make something Science Fiction, Spells do not make them fantasy.

Don't confuse the trappings of the genre with the genre itself.

I think it's perfectly legitimate to define a genre by it's trappings.

It's also appropriate to define a genre by common themes, motifs, conceits, conventions and issues/anxieties it seeks to address (if it does at all, but SF frequently does, so it seems germane).

Sometimes 'genre' is better thought of as the methods used to tell a story. The mode of storytelling. Consider a story about a man and dead wife. This could be told in a 'realist' mode; the man is haunted by the memory of her. Or a 'fantasy' mode; the man is haunted by her ghost. Or a 'horror-fantasy' mode; the man is haunted by her angry ghost that makes his household appliances bleed. Or it could be told in an SF mode; the man is haunted by her datacube/hologram/AI that he himself had commissioned.

The same story could fit into any those categories, or several at once.

 

[hamishspence]

Species of fiction

Its like in the real world: species sometimes blur from one to another. An this cas you might have a species of fiction (sci-fi) and another (fantasy) but there is a blurry area betwen the two where both terms are equally valid.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

There are a few things that can differentiate them as genres, but the line can indeed be blurred.


- Sci-Fi is generally set in the future, Fantasy often has elements that tie it to the past (the use of swords instead of guns)

- Sci-Fi tries to present situations that may be plausible, or at least have not been absolutely ruled impossible (faster than light space travel). Fantasy presents elements that are in no way possible in the real world (the use of magic, the existence of mythical beasts).

- Fantasy tends to use tropes from real life mythologies and legends.

- Sci-Fi tends to create tropes based on speculation about the impact of technologies. (The Startrek episodes that explored Data's rights as a sentient created life form, the movie Gattaca in its entirety).

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Savage Wombat]

Actually, not even that. I can't remember ever being inside a bookstore or library either one that didn't shelve fantasy and science fiction intermingled.

In my experience, it's bookstores that are mingled and libraries that are still segregated. I theorize that most readers don't feel the need for the separation, but it's a lot harder for an established library to change the filing system than it is for a bookstore.

 

[Hussar]

That's because the thread usually gets crowded with people who's sole definition of fantasy starts and more importantly stops with the Holy Gygax Reading List and everything after that is 'crap' or 'marketing floss' or 'polluted by modern values' or other such silliness. A lot of the rest of us realize that there's no real point in discussing modern fantasy with them.

It's a good list. Ever single thing on it should be read to give you a firm grounding in fantasy lit. And then you need to go on after that and read, seek out, more fantasy. Read reviews. Don't judge books on their cover (I've missed some good ones by falling into that trap) or their back marketing copy. Take chances.

What's really, really ironic about that list, is that over half of the list is science fiction and not fantasy. I actually went down the list:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3969441&postcount=138

and found that well over half the titles and authors were better classed as SF than fantasy.

Science fiction more often resembles something approaching art. Fantasy, not so much.

Wow, that's just so wrong. There is absolutely no way you could claim that one genre is objectively better than the other. Not in the slightest.

Huh. My experience is the opposite.

Maybe I've just happened to read more good fantasy and less good science fiction, but I often find that science fiction is "idea fiction"—written by amateur scientists who have little understanding of what makes a good story, but want to trumpet either some interesting scientific principle or moralize some philosophical point.

There's very little science fiction (that I've read) that approaches art. Or even decent literature.

90% of everything is crap.

I think Celebrim does make a decent point though. At its heart, SF is political. The themes it deals with are almost always dealing with what it means to be human in the face of some element. I disagree slightly with his definition of fantasy. I would say that fantasy, instead of dealing with good and evil, is more the genre dealing with wish fulfillment. It's ultimately plot driven and focussed on telling a good tale, rather than trying to expound on any particular philophical point. Fantasy is the outgrowth of the campfire tale. It's primary purpose is entertainment, rather than political or philosophical debate.

Now, please, don't think that I'm trying to assign any value to those judgments. There's more than enough room for both on my bookshelf. But, I do believe that's where the inherent difference between the two genres lie.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm still astounded by this definition, though, as it seems to leave such iconic and definitive fantasy works Howard and Leiber out, or any of the early pulp writers for that matter (and any subsequent writers who imitated their style or themes, of which there were many.)

I think you are too spoiled by Judeo-Christian standards of how good ethics are established by a text, or for that matter what good ethics consist of. It's quite easy to read Howard, Leiber, and the pulp writers as heroic narratives establishing what is meant by living a good life. They are in many ways little different from typical polytheistic epics describing how to live life heroicly and to the fullest.

"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet." is an ethical code, and one that would have been very recognizable to your average pre-Christian warrior society.

And nothing is so obviously an ethical question as, "Conan, what is best in life?" This gets to the heart of what the story is actually about. What you call 'wish fulfillment', I call 'idealized traditional male virtue'. Yes, they differ from some other modern fantasies perhaps in that the author did not in fact take his rollicking adventure stories depection of heroism perfectly seriously (although quite arguably Edgar Rice Burroughs did), but then we are getting into questions of authorial intent and the relation of the text to the audience. Yes, maybe Howard didn't literally intend his stories to serve as guides for how young boys ought to strive to live, but the Greeks and others when they told these sorts of stories actually did.

 

[Corjay]

90% of everything is crap.

I love you.

...Ooops. Did I just say that out loud?

 

[WayneLigon]

What's really, really ironic about that list, is that over half of the list is science fiction and not fantasy. I actually went down the list:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3969441&postcount=138

and found that well over half the titles and authors were better classed as SF than fantasy.

There's a lot more genre crossing in the early stuff, before people got so pissy about what was what and before Tolkien changed the game for everyone in the 60's. Also, a lot of early fantasy is 'disguised' as science fiction because it sold and fantasy didn't. Darkover is a good example of this. A lot of writers did both: A. Merritt, Poul Anderson, etc.

 

[Midnight Dawns]

I once read (don't remember where) a general comparision of sci-fi and fantasy. There were two differences that have stuck with me (the second one more than the first).
1. Where fantasy would give you a watch and describe how it looked sci-fi would describe how it worked.
2. Fantasy tends to focus on the conflict of good and evil while sci-fi tends to focus on the question of what it means to be human.
As I mentioned above the second one stands out to me more. Hope that helps.