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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2288267" data-attributes="member: 19675">1)  Interesting ≠ Better or more accurate or even useful.2)  I agree that damn near the entirety of Gibson's output is about the "What does it mean to be conisdered a human being" since his and many other cyberpunk writers focus on AI.  I'm a little puzzled about how you came to think I felt otherwise.3) A) Answering that question is not an inherent or neccisary feature of Sci-Fi.  Going back to the earliest writings of Verne and Wells, as well as the pulp sci-fi of the 40's-60's, sometimes Sci-fi was about themes like humanity's manifest destiny to rule the universe, exploring the void and conquering the unknown, recasting the cold war and other conflicts in sci-fi terms or otherwise dealing with Amerian isolationism in a non-political, generally discounted genre (remember the threat of McCarthyism and how it wrecked both movies and comic books).  That is a theme that has not evaporated.  Take Niven's "Neutron Star" (1966), a story about answering the question- "How and why was the crew of a state of the art starship turned into pulp?"  No questions of deep moral significance- just a mystery.  Or CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series, in which humanity does not adapt to the aliens, except one man who is the intermediary between the 2 cultures.  Largely, the series is political, almost Machiavellian in its intrigues-that aliens & humans are both sentient beings with internal states ("human") is taken as given.And even so, there IS revelation: "Who am I" - Luke: the son of the 2nd most powerful man in the Empire, brother to the Princess, and a warrior of extreme power; Leia: Force sensitive at the very least, possibly a proto-jedi.  "What does it mean to be human?"- there is a standing assumption that aliens are no different from humans in the sense of being sentient beings with internal states- equal to us in all ways, including our capacity for "inhuman" behavior.  Despite their morphologies, they are all "humans."You might say that this is a typical fantasy theme- the hidden royal, etc.  Sure.  Goes back to Oedipus at the very least.  But if an ancient Greek legend can ask and answer "Who Am I?", then clearly, it cannot be the exclusive purview of Sci-Fi.  If the child's fantasy "Pinnochio" can ask "What does it mean to be human?" then it isn't exclusive to Sci-fi.In other words, Star Wars DOES answer those kinds of questions, even though it doesn't have to.As is the Battlefield Earth series of books.  Sci-Fi or Fantasy?  (My sources cite it as Space Opera.)  As is Greg Bear's classic Forge of God/Anvil of Stars series in which Earth is destroyed, and still humanity gets its revenge...Fantasy or Sci-Fi?  Not only is it sci-fi, its considered HARD sci-fi.  Stephen Donaldson's Gap series is also Hard Sci-Fi, and contains not only the Nature of Humanity question, but is also a great deal about acquisiton of personal power.3) B)  By comparing Star Wars to Arthurian Legend is to get off to a bad start- you're shoehorning it into flawed comparisons and weakening your assertion that it is fantasy.  Its well documented that Star Wars is based in an Eastern storytelling tradition: The original story's main inspiration is Akira Kurosawa's "jidai-geki" samurai drama Hidden Fortress ("The episodic story was, of course, eventually borrowed by George Lucas for both the initial plot of Star Wars and the revived Princess Amidala-centered narrative of The Phantom Menace."- [URL="http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=116&eid=125&section=essay]Click this link[/URL] ).  How does this become fantasy when the "jidai-geki" genre is, essentially, historical fiction set in Japan's feudal era, Samurai period-piece dramas.  The Force is an expansion on the concept of Chi- which I'm sure Japanese would defend as not magic, but a different and scientific (at least in the sense of being able to be systematically taught) understanding of humans' power over their bodies.  Yes, its taken over the top as far as reality goes, but its congruent with Shao-Lin legends, and could be considered poetic license, or even as Lucas himself suggested, an extrapolation of a deeper understanding of Chi.  Viewed Lucas' way, The Force is no more Fantasy than FTL.To my mind, calling the Force purely fantasy is to ignore the expressed view of the auteur who GAVE it to us.  Overruling the view of the originator should take EXTREMELY convincing proof.4) Dream Park/Barsoom Project/California Voodoo Game.  Clearly a sci-fi mystery series.  The fantasy elements spring ENTIRELY from the high-tech enabled LARPG/Sport.  Its like being on Star Trek TNG's Holodeck.</blockquote>

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