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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2278390" data-attributes="member: 4937">Danny: I didn't get back to you because I was so tired of having to repeat myself, and not having much anyone reply with what I considered a reasonable objection that I decided to just drop it.  (Incidently, whether or not I'm arrogant for not considering the objections reasonable, it nonetheless is reasonable that if I'm not finding the debate interesting for me to not continue in it.   Just thought I'd say that to partially forstall the versus ad hominem attacks.)  However, the post in which you listed works was a reasonable objection.   A list of counter-examples, some of them quite good, is a reasonable objection.   Had I been having more fun at the time, I'd been happy to respond.   The other problem is that I've only read about half the examples in the list, and before I could really respond I'd have to read the rest.   I will respond to those that I have experience with.As I said earlier, my sci-fi is much stronger than my fantasy.   I've read one book of the Stormbringer saga, but not recently enough to really comment on it.  I will note however that several other posters felt that Moorcock's books fit my definition, even though they didn't agree that my definition covered all of fantasy (which I admit is not immediately obvious).   I know what the Kushiel series is about, but I've never read it.  It's just not my thing, and my sole further comment on the work is that I don't read it because I object to it on moral grounds and you may make of that what you will. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />The only other work I'm familiar with on that list is Larry Niven's 'Magic Goes Away' series, and on that I feel I'm on firmer footing.  Firm enough at least to note that 'Magic Goes Away' is a work that is dead center of my definition of a fantasy.To meet my definition of a fantasy, the book needs to have elements which are the embodiments or existantiations of abstract moral principals.  It's not enough for the book to just have something be a symbol for something else, or for that thing to be like something else.  That thing has to be that abstract thing made tangible.   Likewise, those abstract things can't be just any general idea, but something which would fall within the realm of things we would consider moral ideas or principals - whether humility, ambition, evil, good, hubris, love, prudence, or whatever.So, what is 'The Magic Goes Away' about?  Well its a tale of a civilization in which supernatural metaphysical embodiments of ideas (gods and stuff) are fading away because the magic which empowers them is fading away.   Already, we've met the definitions of my fantasy simply because the Gods in 'The Magic Goes Away' are literally incarnated principals in the story in addition to merely being Man writ large.   But I don't have to stop there.  We can talk about what the story is about.   What does the narrator of the story learn in the course of the adventure?   Well, for most of the story, the narrator and most eveyone else in the story is rather depressed that there world filled with magical things is coming to an end.  The narrator goes on a quest to prevent the magic in the world from going away.   In the end he learns that the magic going away is probably a good thing, for though the magic in the world is a wonderful thing, it also keeps man enslaved to the metaphysical things.  Ultimately he decides that mankind will be better off letting the magic fading away and embracing a new world in which the gods are only faded memories.   Does this sound like a modernist morality tale to you?   If it doesn't, then pardon me for thinking you aren't paying very close attention.   We live in a world in which the magic is fading away under the pressures of modern science and reason.   We could chose to look back at the past regretfully as if the loss of the magic was a bad thing, but the writer of 'The Magic Goes Away' tells us, that would be a mistake - because life in the world filled with magic wasn't actually all that good of a thing.   All that magic just left man enslaved.   The real hope for man is not in the past with the magic, but forward in the future in a world were man is no longer subject to the magic.And that is certainly a morality tale.   I'd also like to point out that 'The Magic Goes Away' breaks some of the definitions given here for a fantasy, in that ultimately the story is very forward looking and future looking and ultimately the man character rejects the glories of the fading past as being not all that they are cracked up to be.I've read the above except for Greg Bear and Ben Bova.  I've only read the first of CJ Cherryh's 'Foreigner' works, but I've read here other stuff semi-extensively.  Heinlein, Verne, Wells and Asimov I'm very familiar with.   This is actually the harder question, because for the most part (with the possible exception of some of the Wells and Verne) I want to firmly classify the above as Science Fiction.   First, let me point out that its not enough for the story merely to have some moral messages in it for it to be moved into fantasy.  The moral message has to be carried in the form of an abstract idea which has been embodied in some fashion in order to be easier discuss and describe through narrative.   So what I would ask is things like, "Are the colonists in the Foreigner series symbolic of anything?  If so, what are they symbolic of?"  If the answer is something like, "I believe that they are symbolic of Western Imperialism.", then you have a colonists that are symbolic of well colonists, and not colonists that are symbolic of say 'man's rapaciousness'.   The colonists are pretty much just colonists.  Now, if you have a big smoke belching juggernaut that is symbolic of 'Western Imperialism', then we are probably on to something, but we don't.   Likewise, are the natives in CJ Cherryh's embodiments of some abstract principal?No, at best the natives are metaphors for natives.   So, while its arguable that CJ Cherryh's work is filled with political (and perhaps moral) commentary, its not at all clear to me that anything in the story is an abstracted idea made tangible.  Perhaps it is.   But if your reading of the story is that everything in it is an embodiment of an abstract idea (and I'm going to guess that it isn't) then it would be my belief that you were emotionally and intellectually responding to the story as if it were a fantasy.   What CJ Cherryh's story is to me is something more like a speculative retelling of history (at least at one level), and that device of putting Man in an alien setting (especially among things that are Not-Man) and asking 'what if?' is to me the very heart of sci-fi.You could do the same sort of thing for Starship Troopers, though here I confess that depending on how you read the story I've got a problem.  If you believe that the monstrous bugs are metaphors for communism, then we are bordering right on the edge of fantasy IMO.  I'm not sure I'd carry it that far, but I definately see the point. Actually, alot of Heinlien's early work still has a bit of the elements of the fantastic in it, as Heinlein still employs quite frequently the Space Opera device of the 'Big Bug Eyed Monsters' quite abit and doesn't do alot of exploring of 'the Other' in any sort of deep way (though there are examples of clearer cases in even his juvenile works like 'Space Cadet').   One thing we can be certain of though is that Heinlein is trying to say that Man is certainly not a horde of mindless bugs, but a thinking and independent being.  Even when the Hero has most subordinated himself to the needs of the group, he still remains something that is not part of a hive organism.So actually, the hardest thing for me to show is not that the above aren't fantasy, but that they are in fact science fiction in every case.This is what you get for making strawmen out of my definitions.  Go back to the start and read what I wrote again.  I most certainly didn't say what you say that I said, and if you've been arguing with simulacrum of my definition the whole time well then more the pity.Me too, I should note.</blockquote>

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