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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 7762827" data-attributes="member: 59082">There are many ways to make the differentiation - I've always liked sf is what could be but isn't (yet), while fantasy is what couldn't be and never was. The problem here is that we really need to add according to our current scientific paradigm of the world, which is always changing. Any such definitions will always involve a spectrum, with numerous variations in-between the extremes.But more than any such definition, I think it has more to do with a feeling or tone. When you step into Earthsea or Middle-earth, you enter Fantasyland. When you open an Asimov or Brin book, you are in SF. A lot of this has to do with how the author frames the story and the language they use. Fantasy uses what Le Guin called "the language of the night," which evokes misty otherworlds of myth and sorcery (This is why, in my opinion, most fantasy is trash, because it isn't sufficiently "fantasy enough").Where things become interesting is when you have a story that looks and can be defined as one thing, yet feels like the other. Dune and Star Wars come to mind.SF critic and historian John Clute, who uses the term "Fantastika" to encapsulate fantasy, science fiction, and horror, once said that as we traverse further into the 21st century, the lines between the different genres will become more and more hazy, and we'll see more works that blend them and are difficult to define. I can't remember his reasoning behind this, but would think it has something to do with how accessible information is today with the internet, including cultural forms. As one example, today you can find Tibetan texts online that were hidden from all but advanced Tibetan meditators for hundreds of years and there it is, voila, in PDF form. We are more exposed to different cultures, even if in the overall superficial form of the internet and other media outlets.The good news is that in this post-postmodern era, we can mix and match in a variety of ways, and each author and story can be, in essence, its own unique genre. The downside is that when you mix colors poorly, everything becomes a lifeless, gray-brown. Or if you interject something that doesn't fit, you destroy immersion and get the Mona Lisa with a neon pink tattoo or Aragorn carrying an uzi.</blockquote>

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