Ron's comments

Ron's comments from the Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library group.

Note: Ron is no longer a member of this group.

Excellent question.

Not only in light of Arthur C. Clark's "law" about any sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic, but because much of the "science" in modern SF amounts to magic. Fast-than-light travel, that staple of SF, is not even theoretically possible given current theories of physics.

Yes, I understand that we don't know all there is to know, but every scheme of faster-than-light travel I've ever read "assumes" it possible. The few who attempt to explain it use verbal prestidigitation worthy of a Copperfield.

And, frankly, most "aliens" are elves and fairies rewritten to appeal to modern sensitivities. "Werewolves" appear in Scalzi'a "Old Man's War" series, though he has the decency to acknowledge that they only look like werewolves.

Magic, indeed, defines fantasy, and is the reason most supposed SF is fantasy. H. G. Wells at least could have hoped that the technology of his day would shortly achieve the wonders he posited. We, on the other hand, can be sure that almost every facet of "Star Trek", for example, has no scientific basis (Gene Roddenberry's defenders notwithstanding) then or now.

I also recommend Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. It (and it's assumed two sequels) seems headed toward being a heroic epic such as LOTR.

I have both categories, but suspect that more than three quarters of the books in either are in both.

Your discussion explains why SF and fantasy is lumped together: because so many of us define them so differently. There's not just overlap, there's out right confusion.

For example, Kernos offered the expanded Star Wars universe as an example of non-fantasy SF. To me, SW reeks of fantasy. Or take MacCaffery's Pern books. For decades we thought her dragons were fire-breathing, flying, mind-reading, dimension-jumping aliens (fantasy, to me), only to discover they're the product of genetic engineering.

Pity the poor bookseller who doesn't know the difference between an alien and an elf, or magic and the Force.

And, yes, I have trouble distinguishing romances from adventures these days. Used to differentiate by the most prominent cover person: if female (easy if provocatively clothed) it was a romance, if male (especially if armed) it was adventure. Now it's not so simple.

Easy for me. I don't watch TV anyway.