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<blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 2264892" data-attributes="member: 8447">Yet in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke that children are developing psychic powers by the end.&nbsp; Equally in Olaf Stapeldon's The Star Maker there appear to be a lot of psychic powers (psychic melding, thought projection, etc.) going on.&nbsp; Both of these books are considered classical works of Science Fiction.&nbsp; Equally Philip K. Dick includes many wildly improbable technical elements in several of his stories, very far from &quot;true&quot; science fiction, because he is more interested in social commentary, and yet he is also acknowledged as one of the masters of Science Fiction.I think the problem is that there are a lot of definitions out there.Let me take one counter example for you.&nbsp; Bernard Cornwell is famous for his Sharpe's Rifles series.&nbsp; His books are found under General Fiction.&nbsp; However, is Arthurian trilogy is found in the Sci Fi/Fantasy section of nearly every bookstore I have been in.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; Because they are about King Arthur?&nbsp; Hardly -- you find T.H. White's The Once &amp; Future King and all of Rosalind Miles' books on the same topic in General Fiction.&nbsp; Because there is magic?&nbsp; Well, there is no identifiable, or at least provable, magic in Cornwell's books, but there is magic in the works of many authors found in General Fiction.&nbsp; In the end, genre hairsplitting is vaguely amusing, but no one will ever agree on definitions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wombat, post: 2264892, member: 8447"] Yet in [I]Childhood's End[/I] by Arthur C. Clarke that children are developing psychic powers by the end. Equally in Olaf Stapeldon's [I]The Star Maker[/I] there appear to be a lot of psychic powers (psychic melding, thought projection, etc.) going on. Both of these books are considered classical works of Science Fiction. Equally Philip K. Dick includes many wildly improbable technical elements in several of his stories, very far from "true" science fiction, because he is more interested in social commentary, and yet he is also acknowledged as one of the masters of Science Fiction. I think the problem is that there are a lot of definitions out there. Let me take one counter example for you. Bernard Cornwell is famous for his [I]Sharpe's Rifles[/I] series. His books are found under General Fiction. However, is Arthurian trilogy is found in the Sci Fi/Fantasy section of nearly every bookstore I have been in. Why? Because they are about King Arthur? Hardly -- you find T.H. White's [I]The Once & Future King [/I]and all of Rosalind Miles' books on the same topic in General Fiction. Because there is magic? Well, there is no identifiable, or at least provable, magic in Cornwell's books, but there is magic in the works of many authors found in General Fiction. In the end, genre hairsplitting is vaguely amusing, but no one will ever agree on definitions. [/QUOTE]

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