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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6129163" data-attributes="member: 22779">See, I don't really break it down that far.  What exactly is Science Fantasy?  Why bother?  Either it's Science Fiction or it's Fantasy.  With lots of stuff that falls between the two poles.As far as quality goes, oh, heck no.  There's very good fantasy stories that aren't concerned one whit about what it means to be human.  Tolkien is a perfect example here.  But, it's pretty hard to find SF stories that aren't.  When you look at the core of what people think of with SF, you see things like Heinlein, Asimov, P.K. Dick and others.  The commonality with these writers is their stories revolve around a single big theme - what does it mean to be human?Fantasy doesn't care about that.  Mieville writes weird tales, which is a bit of its own genre in that it cross polinates a lot of both fantasy and SF.  Unlundon is pure fantasy.  Great story, but, pure fantasy.  The City and The City is much closer to SF in theme.  It looks at social conventions and then turns them on their head - the whole sociological application of taboo.The movie Aliens is SF.  (Alien is horror, IMO)  It's in the same vein as Starship Troopers or The Forever War.  Pretty much milfic.  But, look at the character of Bishop.  When he goes off to message the ship to remote pilot the lander down, he says something like, "I may be artificial, but I don't want to die" or something to that effect.  The Bishop character is straight up SF.  A mechanical acting like a human.  Now, the movie is about as deep as a rain puddle, so it doesn't really explore the themes too much.  But the themes are there.It's not a question about how well the story addresses the themes, it's the presence of the themes that makes the difference.An even better example is Doctor Who, particularly the latest reboot.  Every season, the central theme is "what is a human".  The Doctor desperately tries to retain some shred of humanity in the face of the absolutely horrific deeds he's performed.  Every where he goes, he destroys and kills, sometimes to the point of genocide.  And every story is grounded in the idea of the Doctor trying to not become the monster he very easily could be.The science?  Not even a little.  It's total hogwash.  There's no science at all there.  Holes you could drive a bus through.  But, it's pure Science Fiction.</blockquote>

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