Just so you all know, I picked up Tigana 10th Anniversary Edition by Guy G. Kavriel on the basis of the recommendations from this discussion.

I haven't started it yet, but wanted to thank you all for expanding my bookshelf.

It seems to me that the question here is not about which is easier, but what makes a good author. Regardless of genre, the better books are usually the ones for which the author did the most research and worked hardest to understand his or her chosen topic. Whether it is more difficult to research modern culture in New York, the current state of physics or battle tactics for cavalry seems like a moot point. The better written books are those that, even if they do not always conform to the factual information, show a working knowledge of them and break the rules judiciously.

In that sense, though, it might be that the readers of Science Fiction and especially fantasy are more forgiving of lapses, either because they know little about the field in question themselves, or because both genres have an aura of "please suspend your disbelief for the following X pages" and people listen.

I've found that both SF and fantasy writers have it easier in one sense than writers of "mainstream fiction", particularly if your story is set on a different planet / alternate universe etc. You don't have to worry about the legalities of using some real person's name for one of your characters. You just make up names that no-one is ever likely to have! You don't have to use Google maps Earth to look at Times Square to get the setting right. You don't have to dive into histories of the Hundred Year War to get the sequence of events right.

Of course, on the other hand, you do have to do your research into the laws of physics and chemistry and go to the trouble of creating your own geography, chronology etc. Might be a case of swings and roundabouts.

I agree that science fiction is speculation within the limits of what is possible according to scientific laws as we currently understand them. I agree that fantasy is speculation that choses to violate some or many of those laws.

But I'm not sure I agree that this places an additional burden on the author of science fiction or makes fantasy the preference of lazy writers. You could as easily say that the work of the science fiction author is made easier since the laws of physics and chemistry and biology already exist and don't have to be invented, so that part of the work is already done.

I think one of the challenges of well written fantasy (a challenge that some writers fail to meet) is to construct a universe with a different set of laws and then remember to obey them. I agree with all of those who have said in one way or another that its cheating (or bad writing) to set up a particular set of magical rules and limitations and then just decide to change the system halfway through.

I don't think defining SciFi as asking "what-if" questions is useful. Fantasy does this as well -- "what if vampires lived hidden among us?" is certainly a what-if question.

My take on a quick-and-dirty definition of SciFi v. fantasy is that the former speculates about that which is -- in principle -- possible within the universe in which we abide, with all its laws of physics, actual history, etc.

Fantasy, to a first approximation, is that which explores what is almost certainly impossible.

And, of course, these are on a continuum -- the easier it is for us to think of it as plausible, the easier it snaps into the SciFi framework ("Hard SciFi" being the extreme variety). Thus, Star Trek is SciFi, whereas "The Force" shoves Star Wars much further down the path towards fantasy. Any form of magic will. Anything "supernatural" will have the same tendency, although what we think of as "magic" or "supernatural" evolves with the increasing depth of our science, and with cultural changes.

Constructing truly excellent SciFi and fantasy is, I think, equally difficult.

But think about it this way: SciFi that fails the "yeah, this is plausible" test automatically slides into the fantasy camp. Fantasy is the default for speculative fiction, and will thus tend to collect the less well-thought-out stuff.

So, SciFi by definition imposes an additional burden on its author. Lazy or less-imaginative authors will more often end up writing fantasy.

One of the things that makes this less apparent is that fantasy that deals heavily with technology -- or aliens, or time travel -- is often treated as if it is SciFi, when it really isn't. If you want to read some absurd and really mediocre (but excitingly paced) fantasy pretending to be SciFi, check out Matthew Reilly's pulp novels. (Please use the library or buy a used copy -- this man shouldn't get any encouragement to think of himself as an author).

Speaking of an author who writes beautifully on both sides of the line in the sand.

I found the following post on IO9, with Ursula LeGuin speaking about SF. I thought it kind of touched on the discussions here about whether fantasy or SF has better worldbuilding, follows "rules", etc:

"[Interviewer:]: For the Hainish Cycle of books you invented over 80 different inhabited worlds, each with its own cultures and physics...

[LeGuin:]: No, no, thank you for saying so, Steve, but if I really had, I would admire myself tremendously. I would be in awe of my own staggeringly great mind. What I did was give the illusion of there being all those different worlds. That’s called art, or fiction, or something. The rule is, you only invent what you have to. And that’s pretty much what’s right in front of the reader. Let’s say it’s an ansible. I do not, in fact, invent the ansible. I do not explain how it works. I cannot, but shhh. I simply present the device as working, and as coming from a society which is far in advance of ours in science and technology, having spaceships that can travel nearly as fast as light, et cetera. And this background or context creates expectation and softens up the readers’ credulity so that they’re willing to “believe in” the ansible—inside the covers of the book. After the ansible had been around for a while, I invented the man who invented it, Shevek, in The Dispossessed. And he and I played around with some pretty neat speculations about time and interval and stuff, which lent more plausibility to the gimmick itself. But all I really invented was a) the idea of an instantaneous transmitter and b) a name for it. The reader does the rest. If you give them enough background/context, they can fill in the gaps. It isn’t just smoke and mirrors. There has to be a coherent vision of how things hang together in that society/culture/world. All the details have to fit together and be thought through as to their implications. But, well... it’s mostly smoke and mirrors. What else is any fiction?"

Full interview here: http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n12/htdoc...

IO9 Link: http://io9.com/5127825/ursula-k-le-guins...

Glad to hear the rabbit is doing well, sending carrots.

In Brust's Adrilankha stories the protagonists call themselves humans, think of themselves as humans, but from the outset evidence keeps accumulating that suggests otherwise. They are over seven feet tall, live for thousands of years, are divided into clans the members of which all very closely resemble one another in appearance and personality and abilities... and so on and on. Then there are these "dwarves" or "Easterners" who are five or six feet tall, mostly live for less than 100 years, have a lot of variation in how they look and act, are more heavily muscled than the "humans," and so on. It begins to dawn that perhaps human in Adrilankha is a different thing.

Interestingly Greg Bear started out writing fantasy, although he is now known primarily as a hard sf writer.

It's Ok, BunWat, I'm calm. The rabbit is doing doing well :-)

In fact, when you posted your small list of fantasy authors that feature non-human protagonists, I had to admit that I hadn't even heard of most of them, let alone read them. I agree that I haven't read much recent fantasy. I will follow your recommendations as soon as poss. Greg Bear I have read, but it was a collection of short SF stories set in the very distant future - and excellent they were too!

Yes, Shannon, there is, or should be, a lot of imagination at work in SF and fantasy. I've always been childlike (OK, some would say childish) and had a ridiculously active imagination. Somehow, I can't persuade myself to look at that as a weakness of some kind.

It's kinda funny that people see science fiction as dealing with issues of the human condition and various philosophical questions, and fantasy as light escapist fun.

I've always found it to be the opposite - with plenty of exceptions of course. There's a lot in fantasy, not just in the good stuff but also in the ones that try to be good, that's there to be explored if you care to notice it.

I agree with Jabenami, who says "I have always identified more with the psychological puzzle posed by fantasy than the speculative puzzle posed by Sci-fi." My dissertation was on the "ideological other" in generic fantasy and the books I used included Goodkind's Faith of the Fallen (his series is almost too easy to analyse) and Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood.

There's a real academic snobbery against fantasy fiction though, and unless it's "the fantastic" or speculative fiction like Wild Seed, academics won't touch it, like they're afraid they'll be laughed at. It's a real shame. The very fact that sci-fi is more academically acceptable says a lot about where we are as a race and what we pretend to value most.

Fantasy is no more escapist than any other fiction - all well-written books that appeal to us transport us to the world of the book, whether they're literature or mystery or romance or what have you. There's a lot of good fantasy out there that isn't just about role-playing games, but it's a matter of finding the authors who know how to work the genre rather than just replicate the same old generic patterns. Same goes with science fiction.

Fantasy's problem is that it's linked to notions of "play" and the imagination, which are considered childish, something we're supposed to outgrow or at least pretend to. Speaking of the imagination - I recommend Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination: it should be compulsory reading so we as a species can finally value our imaginations for what they are and what they do! (Plus there's a lot of imagination at use in sci fi, isn't there?)

Okay you have read a lot of fantasy. Apparently "not human" just means something different to you than it does to me. Calm the heck down there, you'd think I poked your rabbit or something!

Paul wrote: "What are the laws of magic? How does it work? Why does it work? If you don't care, then read the book as a rollicking good escapist read. If you do care, you will be left feeling disappointed...."

I'd agree with Marc's follow up to this that the best Fantasy explains the laws of magic, but they tend to do so implicitly by showing the personal cost of using that magic. Since magic is an internal experience it can't be codified like the tech that SF relies on to alter its world. Saying that the "warp drive uses dilithium crystals" is as validly ambiguous as saying "the fireball requires the memorization of an incantation."

Again, there are examples in both genres of deus ex machina writing where the tech nor the magic are explained enough to sufficiently make the world believable.

I haven't read much fantasy? Hmmm, let me think:
Homer, Ovid, The Nibelungs, the Prose Edda, the Mabinogion, Beowulf, Eschenbach, Chretien de Troys, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chaucer, Mallory, Tennyson, Samuel Butler, Jonathan Swift, Walpole, Wilkie Collins, Poe, Bierce, H P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen, Sheridan le Fanu, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Saki, August Derleth, Frank Belknap Long, Henry Kuttner, Keith Roberts, Piers Anthony, L Sprague de Camp, Robert E Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Stephen Donaldson, T H White, Robert Jordan, Stephen Lawhead, Raymond Feist, Nikolai Tolstoy, Gogol, Terry Pratchett, Ray Bradbury, William Morris, William Hope Hodgson, J G Ballard, J K Rowling, C S Lewis, Stephen King, Anne McCaffrey, Anne Rice, Richard Adams, Roald Dahl, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K Le Guin, Lewis Carroll, Clive Barker, Andre Norton, Mervyn Peake... no, perhaps I haven't.

As for Tolkien, I first came across LOTR in 1972 and have read it, and the Hobbit, at least once a year ever since. You could consider the protagonist to be either Frodo or Sam, with some justification. The rest of the fellowship, and the other characters are mentors, companions and foils, although they do sometimes carry the action themselves for substantial periods.

BunWat says that the protagonists are not human - well, they are called hobbits, but apart from the furry feet, hobbits are indistinguishable in modes of thought, actions and speech from middle and working class southern Englishmen from between the 2 world wars. Aragorn, Gandalf and the other Numenoreans could be called aristocrats. Gimli behaves like a human who happens to be short and bearded, possibly from Northern England or Scotland. Even the elves, who, being immortal, one might expect to show significant differences in thought and behaviour from we mere mortals, could be described as a thoroughly human blend of Welsh and mystic. None of them exhibit any signs of actually being non-human or alien, at least in the occasional glimpses we are given of the workings of their minds.

Having just looked over my list of Fantasy authors above, I can, however, add one work of fantasy that has well-realised and thoroughly believable alien creatures - Watership Down.

Also, it seems to me that, in Science Fiction, a character from another planet or some sort of future who is mostly human except for...i don't know, telekinesis, is usually described as an alien and viewed as such. However, in a fantasy novel, a human with magic is just, well, a human with magic in the same way that some people are smart or good athletes.

This might just be because, in Science Fiction, we are far more attuned to spotting these differences and expecting them to make all the difference, while one of the tropes of fantasy is that magic never solves anything and isn't about to start doing so now.

Paul said "if you consider books like Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, or Footfall by Niven and Pournelle, you are given the opportunity to empathise with sentient creatures that are not at all like "us" - they will have their own alien drives and needs...As far as I'm aware, only SF has explored the alien psyche. "

There are many terrific sci fi books that explore alien viewpoints so that far we agree. As for fantasy not exploring alien viewpoints,...uh? Again I am left with the impression that you haven't read much fantasy.

Fantasy in which some of the main protagonists are not human;

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, duh.
Almost everything by Terry Pratchett
Stephen Brust's Adrilankha series
Greg Bear's Worm Oroborous trilogy
Diane Duane - Book of Night With Moon
Midori Snyder - The Flight of Michael McBride
RA MacAvoy - The Gray Horse or Tea with the Black Dragon
Sharon Shinn's Samaria series
Kij Johnson - Fudoki
C.J. Cherryh - Rusalka

Many many more.

Jabenami wrote: " I will read most fantasy novels, but pretty much refuse to read any Sci-fi that is not the cream of the crop..."

I hear you Jabenami...I love fantasy and can't even think of titles that I would say I'm sorry for reading but I have tried a few of the "less than top" sci-fi and greatly regretted it. But Asimov and even Jules Verne have some of my favorites in their work.

-- Wife of GR author Michael J. Sullivan: The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

The problem is that you must care, regardless of the story, and a story in which a character can do anything is not a story people will care about. Magic is all well and good, but the story requires sacrifice and conflict. So the story requires limits, otherwise known as laws, that bound what the people may accomplish with whatever powers they have. If SF has an advantage here, it is that we know pretty much what the laws are and it's harder to stray from them. Fantasy is riddled with authors who create worlds with rules that they proceed to violate without noticing.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent postings here.

Kiri, I partly agree with you. However, if you consider books like Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward, or Footfall by Niven and Pournelle, you are given the opportunity to empathise with sentient creatures that are not at all like "us" - they will have their own alien drives and needs.

As far as I'm aware, only SF has explored the alien psyche. I cannot recall any fantasy written from the viewpoint of an elf or a dwarf or a dragon.

You can see that I'm falling into the stereotypical trap here of thinking that fantasy must contain elves, dwarves, dragons and magic.

People read non-fiction to be informed.

They primarily read fiction to be entertained.

But reading is not a passive process. When you read good fiction (any genre), you will be, one one level, entertained. On a different level, you will be engaged in a duel with the author - what is he/she trying to say here? What am I, the reader, being asked to think about myself; someone else; society; the human condition. So far, only SF has challenged us to think about the alien condition. (If I'm being ignorant here, please feel free to inform me.)

Another point is that the primary distinction between SF and fantasy is that, in SF there are laws - physics, maths, genetics - that are obeyed. Even if the work is set in another universe, where those laws are different, they are known and explained and adhered to; in fantasy, there seems always to be an element that is not explained - magic being a typical example. What are the laws of magic? How does it work? Why does it work? If you don't care, then read the book as a rollicking good escapist read. If you do care, you will be left feeling disappointed.

I view all fiction as escapism - from the mundane, from your cares and troubles - for as long as you are reading, you are immersed in a world where you have someone else's viewpoint and trials. In fact, it's much like drinking a bottle of JD. You forget your troubles for a while. The only difference between JD and reading is that reading doesn't leave you with a headache the next morning.

On a final note, if LOTR is to be believed, since I am short, stout, bearded, love beer and red meat and would happily wield a battleaxe, I must be a dwarf:-)

It seems that both Fantasy and Sci Fi succeed when the author is able to create characters that are recognizably like "us"... people who function in a recognizable manner, who have realistic desires and motivations. The world in which they are living is fantastical, but they should not be, even if they are half-robot, or elven on their mother's side, or whatever.

A lot of great non-genre fiction doesn't do anything more profound than that - address human issues and present human characters in a way that seems true-to-life. Why should fantasy be required to do more in order to be worthy? Of course one problem is that fantasy is so mired in stereotypes that characters are often more like an archetype than they are like you or me... and any change or growth that occurs is likewise mired.

I think that is well described Jabenami. Science fiction changes some part of the technology or political/social structure of our world and then explores how that would alter behavior. Fantasy changes some part of the human condition; removes or adds limits - what if we could fly, shapechange, what if gods directly interfered in our lives, what if animals talked back- and explores how that would challenge and change us.

Also, insofar as fantasy's ignorance of the rules of the world is concerned, I've noticed that good fantasy tends to be about creating a new world with new rules, but the same interior realms as our own. Yes, sometimes, it is about creating a world that is unlike ours in order to escape, but more often it is about creating a world dissimilar to our own in order to look at the human condition through a new lens. It's rarely the magical talisman that saves the day, but the person. So Fantasy can become about understand humanity by removing all that is non-essential and looking at what it means to be human or not human in a different environment.

Full disclosure - I read both Fantasy and Sci-fi and have always preferred Fantasy. I will read most fantasy novels, but pretty much refuse to read any Sci-fi that is not the cream of the crop, because I have always identified more with the psychological puzzle posed by fantasy than the speculative puzzle posed by Sci-fi.

And I agree that Fantasy tends to deal more with the interior realms...the external trappings tend to be a bit sillier because that is not the point of the story.

I agree that Science Fiction is often about asking what if questions, or if this goes on questions. I do not agree that fantasy is about escapism. Fantasy can be escapist - or not, as can science fiction be escapist - or not. Escapism is not a distinction between the two genres.

Jensownzoo wrote: "I think that a lot of science fiction is based on the "what if?" premise which the author then builds a story around trying to answer. And those "what if?" questions are not always about technolog..."

I concur with Jensownzoo - Sci-fi is tending to answer or probe a question where fantasy is more - carrying you off to a different place and time. That's why something like StarWars - is - IMO more fo a fantasy than sci-fi because it really wasn't dealing with "issues" so much as a "romp".

Other authors who cross the lines, UK LeGuin, Greg Bear, Lois McMaster Bujold, Sharon Shinn, Robert Silverberg, Michael Moorcock.

As Leslie and several others have brought up, some of the best authors cross the lines and write in both genres. Roger Zelazny, Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis, and Clive Barker come to mind as well as Pratchett and Gaiman (Agnes Nutter, anyone?).

I'm glad to see that the supporters are on both sides of the aisle. Usually good fantasy is classified as a woman's genre - Menolly found the firelizards, Cinderella goes to the ball, Lucie finds Narnia, Talia got chosen, and Dorothy went to OZ. Fewer are the Harry Potter's and Frodo's.

Yet in Science Fiction there are more heros than heroines - after all "It's the final frontier where no MAN has gone before."

I'm enjoying the listing of author's here too.

I'm finally going to wade into this deep thread after monitoring it for several days. This has been an excellent discussion thread, everyone.

As a writer of fantasy that can be classified as "high" (sorry you feel the way you do about so-called high fantasy, Ubik) AND a writer of sci-fi as well, to me, it doesn't matter which genre I'm creating in. When I create a world for a story, whether it be a traditional fantasy world or a plausibly extrapolated world for sci-fi, I write about themes which are very important to me as a modern-day citizen of this planet. I care deeply about imperialism, racism, the destruction of the environment, the loss of our rights as citizens, the plight of women and girls around the world, to name the big ones. All of my writings involve one or more of these themes, and I use characters and situations to illustrate my views on them. To me, all my work is deep--and I recognize people's right to disagree with me!

Traditional fantasy does not have to take the easy, 'shallow' road and rely on magical talismans, wizards, etc. to solve problems.
In my Griffin's Daughter series yes, there is magic, but it alone doesn't solve the problems. In the end, it is the courage and sacrifice of the people involved that really counts. The magic is incidental.

I agree that there seems to be a surge in popularity for fantasy these days, I think due in part to the phenominal success of the Harry Potter series. There is bound to be a lot more dreck out there because there is just more fantasy out there period.

It all comes down to what a reader likes, just as Sidhe says. I'll always be partial to fantasy as reading material, but enjoy writing fantasy and sci-fi equally. Neither genre, nor all their many subgenres can be said to be shallower or deeper on average than the other(s).

Well, if one were to look up fantasy on, say wikipedia.org you would see that there are many different subgenres of fantasy. All weve seemed to talk about here is what is technically known as "high fantasy" (elves, dragons, wizards, swords, and faeries). I will never read any of that ever. As soon as I see any of those keywords, I put the book down immediately. With "high fantasy", its ruled out as being non-intelligent because the writer can say "this magic wand does xxxxx because I said so". I agree with the people who write it off as such.

Im a SF reader first and foremost. PKD is my favorite and I enjoy stuff by writers who feature good character development and plots rooted in culture and sociology/psychology.

As for other forms of fantasy, I do love *some* things that can be considered "fantasy" such as The Fountain (film directed by Darren Aronofsky). That is fantastical (a tree of life cant be explained in any scientific way. A man living parallel lives in different times cant really be explained either)

For me, the difference is the plausibility *AND* how the characters in their world consider the element of fantasy or science. Here are my examples as I see them. For these examples, I will use the same situation of a man and a talking dog. Please feel free to criticize:

Fantasy = Man walks out to get the paper in the morning, sees his dog, the dog says "good morning John!". The man replies "good morning. have a great day!"

SF = Man walks out to get the paper and his dog says "good morning" and John notices that the dog's voice calibration collar is in need of repair and so makes it a note to get that fixed soon.

Magic Realism = Man walks out to get the paper and is greeted by his dog and John replies to his dog only to have the neighbour give him a really funny look as to why he is having a conversation with his dog.

In the first example, the characters in that world think it nothing but natural that a dog can talk and no explanation is given, therefore thats fantasy.

In the second, the top scientists in the world may not have any plans in mind for a special collar to translate dogspeak to humanspeak, but *if* it were to exist, and a good writer can make this plausible, then it settles right in our minds as readers and is therefore SF.

In the third example, its harder to explain (maybe someone can put it into better words than I can). But I consider Magic Realism to be kinda like "literary surrealism". Try watching The Phantom Of Liberty by Luis Bunuel and youll kinda have an idea of what Im talking about. Its kinda like Fight Club: weird shit might be happening, but you dont question it. Jonathan Carroll is a prime example of Magic Realism and The Wooden Sea: A Novel being a perfect example.

Maybe I'm jumping in on this one a little late, but I don't think there is one genre that is shallower than another. I've read plenty of truly crappy sci-fi, too. :) I think it depends on the story, the author, the reader's preferences, etc. A lot of sci-fi does address social issues and seems to be more complex than fantasy, but there are fantasy novels that address the same social issues, too, just dressed up a little differently.

When it comes right down to it, I think it mostly depends on what each individual wants to read more. I tend to prefer fantasy because I have little patience for detailed explanations of warp drives or weapons or whatever. That said, Heinlein remains one of my favorite authors, despite his detail, and his dated, rather chauvanistic writing style. :)

I guess I would say that I also like the exploration of interpersonal themes, and look for that in hard sci-fi; it can be hard to find, but the most satisfying hard sci-fi still has the human relationship aspect. I don't know if Kim Stanley Robinson's "Forty Signs of Rain" and the two other books in the trilogy would be considered by some to be hard sci-fi, but they do have an incredible amount of science, and really compelling science since it is very nearly present-day and related to global climate change, and yet there are huge amounts of interpersonal themes as well. Same with his Mars trilogy, lots of good science and relationship, and also little or no war.

I'm not sure I can say anything new here but I think the main thing I'm hearing from those who choose a side in this debate is a difference in which themes a reader likes to see explored. I find myself gravitating more towards Fantasy because it is more likely to explore interpersonal themes. I find sci-fi more concerned with man's interaction with his environment. Both have value for me but I find interpersonal issues more interesting. In fact, my favorite sci-fi (with the exception of Starship Troopers) deals more with interpersonal themes than environmental themes such as LeGuin's The Word for World is Forrest and any of Butler's works.

Although I do have to agree with several previous posters that after viewing the list of fantasy read by the original poster, it was no wonder he came to the conclusion that fantasy is less "deep". I find Martin's Fire and Ice work and Shinn's Angel and Mystic series to have depth of theme. And if you are interested in the philisophical question of what makes a hero, I'd look into Gemmel's Legend or Nix's Abhorson works.

(apologies for any spelling, I'm awful at it and this compy seems to be lacking a checker)

Kevinalbee wrote: " I read a lot of both fantasy and sci-fi. I agree that there is much more quality sci-fi out there than fantasy. (many people have said)

I would have to beg to differ. There is far more fantasy ..."

Hard to disagree! I also dislike the war theme of sci-fi and am a fan of hard sci-fi. I find myself reading more of the cyber stuff or going back and reading older sci-fi these days. Do you read Robert J. Sawyer, Neal Stephenson, John Varley, Vernor Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson?

I have read books from each of these authors.

I have been called a reading snob. I have a hard time giving new writters a chance. Without a strong recommendation. (I hope this club will change that)
I never buy a series that does not have at least the first 3 books published.

I have a very large library. 10-15 thousand books. I have read most of them. I read 4-5 books at a time. One in the bathroom 2 in my car, 1 at the office. one by my bed etc.

There is so little time and so much I want to read, i hate to waste time on a bad book.

Kevinalbee wrote: " I read a lot of both fantasy and sci-fi. I agree that there is much more quality sci-fi out there than fantasy. (many people have said)

I would have to beg to differ. There is far more fantasy ..."

Hard to disagree! I also dislike the war theme of sci-fi and am a fan of hard sci-fi. I find myself reading more of the cyber stuff or going back and reading older sci-fi these days. Do you read Robert J. Sawyer, Neal Stephenson, John Varley, Vernor Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson?

I read a lot of both fantasy and sci-fi. I agree that there is much more quality sci-fi out there than fantasy. (many people have said)

I would have to beg to differ. There is far more fantasy good and bad than sci fi. There is very lttle scifi being published now. the vast majority is simple war in space.

Of the sci fi that is not war in space most of it is very good because it has to be to get published.

If you stack up the truly good (not war based) sci fi published in a year next to the realy good fantasy your fanticy pile would be huge sci fi very small.

In addition. Much of what is classifice as Sci fi is truly fantacy without the dragons or magic.

My first love is true hard core SCI fi. To get my fix I am stuck reading war war and more war.

Fantasy is my in second choice. I read far more of it because it is all that seems to be available.

I read a lot of both fantasy and sci-fi. I agree that there is much more quality sci-fi out there than fantasy. Maybe fantasy is harder to create? If you want truly high quality fantasy, you can't do much better than Charles de Lint, Guy Gavriel Kay, and of course Tolkein.

How would you categorize something like Spider Robinson's "Callahan" series? Fantasy or sci-fi? He always makes me think, even while he's making me laugh.

Also, there was a deliberate effort to avoid the Bat Durston story in the early days of SF. The idea was to distinguish SF from Westerns or other adventure novels by refusing to publish stories that read like them. I think it was Hugo Gernsback who created a parody of a hero named Bat Durston, who rode spaceships to the equivalent of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Galaxy Science Fiction ran an ad on its back cover, "You won't find it in Galaxy", which gave the beginnings of make-believe parallel Western and SF stories featuring a character named Bat Durston. From this ad stemmed the derisive term "Bat Durston" to refer to the subgenre. A Bat Durston is always a derogatory term, indicating that the entire story could be transplanted to the West without more than cosmetic changes. If the story uses Western motifs but contains a speculative element that can not be removed without redoing the plot, it may be a space Western but not a Bat Durston.



A small group of people basically forced the writers of SF to write better stories by refusing to publish anything else. I think I read about in a collection of essays about Firefly and Serenity. Then Firefly got the Hugo, which must have made him spin.
There isn't anything like that in fantasy.

Thank you to all those who are so eloquently defending fantasy! I'm not very well versed in sci fi, so am hesitant to take part in the debate. However, I love fantasy to my core and have always found that there is well written, thought provoking, beautifully written fantasy out there. I steadfastly avoid the fluff, and have never been without a good book to read.

I'm trying to learn more about sci fi - so far it seems great. But, I'll always be a fantasy fan at heart. There is a ton of good stuff out there!

I think Sandi is right. There was a fair amount of scifi dreck published in the 50's and 60's when it was more popular. Actually it also occurs to me that back then scifi was often seen as a "boys" genre. YA wasn't a category yet but its essentially the same thing. So now we have a very active YA fantasy market and fifty years ago a very active YA science fiction market.

Stephen wrote: "So I think we've all come to the conclusion that no, Fantasy is not inherently shallower than SF, that both deal with "deeper" issues equally well. But it just seems that most of us encounter less "high brow" (for lack of a better description) Fantasy than SF out there, on the whole. So either there's less of it out there, or it is being marketed incorrectly."

My guess would be that you are more likely to encounter good science fiction than good fantasy simply because fantasy is so very popular right now. I suspect it's harder to get a science fiction book published than a fantasy one. Therefore, it's the better books getting published in SF. I think there was a lot more SF dreck when SF ruled.

I think in the end it comes down mostly to personal preference and which books people have happened to encounter. Fun to discuss though.

So I think we've all come to the conclusion that no, Fantasy is not inherently shallower than SF, that both deal with "deeper" issues equally well. But it just seems that most of us encounter less "high brow" (for lack of a better description) Fantasy than SF out there, on the whole. So either there's less of it out there, or it is being marketed incorrectly.

Which makes me think about why that is true. Is it because SF has an elevated place in our society? I'm thinking that both genres were born as commercial vehicles at about the same time (Tolkien and Asimov). But since then, SF has become more prevalent, culturally: think of all of the movies and TV shows that are SF vs those that are Fantasy. And I know Fantasy seems to be making a surge right now, but it hasn't enjoyed the same run as SF has. SF seems to have established itself as an adult genre, while Fantasy seems to be struggling to make that leap (in terms of mainstream audiences).

So is it just that publishers wouldn't know how to market "adult fantasy?" Do potential authors shy away from the genre because they don't want to be pigeon-holed as a young adult author?

That's it, I'm starting a publishing company that will only put out high brow adult Fantasy novels. Send me your drafts, people.

(and my To-Read list is now experiencing a glut of fantasy to check out. Thanks again!)

How true! The best of any genre is good because it is deep, profound, moving ... pick an adjective. I think though that the point I came to in my ramble is that there is more good SF then good fantasy. The mean of the SF genre outweighs the mean of the fantasy genre in the deepness stakes because there is every chance that the SF offering will contain something thought-provoking (like plausible science perhaps, or the viewpoint of a truly alien race).

The average SF work will, mostly, contain either solid extrapolation (likely to be in the soft than the hard sciences, but never mind) or an acceptable plot device like the reductio ad absurdum. The average fantasy work is more likely to rely on unacceptable plot devices like deus ex machina, or unpredictable (and hitherto unrevealed) properties of magic or talismans or swords or...

As before, this is my opinion. I know I'm on fairly solid ground when it comes to discussing SF, because I've read so much of it. I know less about the fantasy genre, but I've seen examples of good, bad and medioucre that tend to confirm my position. It may well be of course that I've read too little good fantasy simply because I don't know who to look for.

But Paul your argument is flawed from the outset because you are comparing "the best sf," with "most fantasy." Sure, you compare the best of one genre with all of another genre of course the one you cherry picked comes out ahead. For every Spud the Farm Boy there's a Dirk of Space Force Alpha. For every Left Hand of Darkness there's a Kindred.

Hmmm...

I've just skimmed through all the posts here and I do tend to agree with the view that good SF is deeper than most fantasy. When I say "good SF" I am thinking not of space operas or Tek Jansen or the gizmo effect, typical of much of the 50s and 60s writing, but of the deeper exploration of the human psyche - addressing questions such as what it means to be human (Stranger in a Strange Land for example), what if ... there was a spice that prolonged human life and gave extra-sensory powers, what if you're stranded on the moon because you have nannites inside you which are illegal on earth, what if the UN demanded the immediate closure of the Moon colonies - would you go independent, what if... and so it goes.

Whereas, in too many cases, fantasy is just farm boy Spud seeking the Sword of Power to defeat reawakened avator of X, carried on over 6 volumes where he gains powers, quirky or interesting companions, character foils and the skills needed to confront his nemesis - usually on page 932 of Volume 6! I think that the Wheel of Time series by Robet Jordan is a good example of this - overlong, two-dimensional characters who are so - juvenile (OK, I know they are all under 20 at the start but even so). That's just my opinion by the way. Bits of it are quite entertaining.

The best fantasy however - LOTR and Thomas Covenant for example - have fully realised, coherent worlds that work linguistically, economically and politically. I agree that LOTR harks back to an agrarian past and a moneyed, leisured minority (Bilbo, Frodo, Merry and Pippin) who have more in common with a vanished Victorian society than anything we could now recognise. The contrast between the industrial slave society of Mordor and rustic idyll The Shire couldn't be plainer.

While I agree that books should be primarily entertaining, only secondarily thought-provoking, there is no reason why good SF and fantasy can't do both.

BTW, for a balanced viewpoint on warfare, read Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.

Great discussion though!

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series could be seen as simply humorous entertainment, I suppose, but if you read them that way, you have to completely ignore all the elements of utterly brilliant satire and social commentary, and then you miss more than half the book

No argument here. Some wickedly cutting satire on government, religion, politics etc.

I tend to read far more fantasy than sci fi. I would like to read more sci fi but there realy is not that much of it that is not just about war.

It seems to me that sci fi writers have lost their abiltiy to create a conflict that does not involve war or chase scenes.

Were are the stories like demon seed by kontz. the robot stories by asimov. Or the stories of exploration by Clark.

An many have hit on heinlein's sexism and his use of a single charcter who knows all is extremely compentent in a world of idiots. but he did address topics of conflict that did not end in war fair.

It is not that fantacy addresses different questions. it is that those who want to address those questions are drawn to fantasy. Relgion and ethics and cultural change and addressing great power used to be the bread and butter of scifi

Agree with you completely Dana about Pratchett, you miss more than half the novel if you miss the social satire.

First, I'll just say that I read pretty much all the speculative fiction subgenres with relish, but I honestly read a great deal more fantasy, so I'm moved to defend it the most in this discussion. (And I just read all the previous posts this morning, so this might go all over the place.)

Since people brought up LOTR earlier, and then the politics of warfare, I'll point out that Tolkien had quite a few points to make about the brutalities of war and its effects on the survivors. They were just probably more obvious in the immediate aftermath of WWI, when he was writing the books, than they are to us today. Perhaps SF takes on warfare are more resonant with some people because they can more clearly see how they apply to modern day warfare, but I'd argue that the social, personal, and political implications of war have been dealt with many, many times in fantasy settings.

For a couple other concrete examples of fantasy series/authors that touch on larger issues, here are some that popped to mind. While I'm sure that a lot of people are tempted to lump Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels in with erotica, I really do think they do an excellent job of exploring social attitudes toward sex and sexuality, and pondering the "what if" of how society could be if it were more accepting of love in a variety of forms.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series could be seen as simply humorous entertainment, I suppose, but if you read them that way, you have to completely ignore all the elements of utterly brilliant satire and social commentary, and then you miss more than half the book.

I'll also say that I thought Melanie Rawn's Exiles series had a very interesting take on the "what if" exploration of a matriarchal society, but I don't really encourage anyone to start that series, because she's apparently abandoned it.

If one is looking for modern social commentary, great deal of urban fantasy has that, especially commentary on homelessness, drug use, and the disconnection of people from the world.

And as a last disconnected thought, it also occurred to me that maybe the reason so much SF seems to deal with blatant, gritty social commentary is because it has grown out of or is part of various "-punk" movements, which are pretty much defined as a rejection of or protest against a movement that came before.

Waldo and Magic Inc is by Heinlein, Kevinalbee.


Stephen I think you are reading the wrong novels. In fact from your description of what you've read so far I would say definitely. I also think Stasha is on to something when she says that fantasy is sometimes subtler. (I agree with you Stasha by the way that nostalgia for an agrarian economy is a very significant element of LOTR.)

Some fantasy is pure escapism but some of it does examine big questions, but perhaps as Stasha suggests, more indirectly. Also I think it tends to examine slightly different questions. Interestingly Stephen I would tend to lean the other way, I like both fantasy and sci fi, but when I really want to be challenged and engaged I will tend to reach for fantasy. Probably a function of just having encountered different books, but also perhaps a function of those different questions.

Broad generalization here and so of course flawed, but I think scifi tends to look at how people act toward and are acted upon by technology, government etc ie exterior conditions - whereas fantasy tends to concern itself somewhat more with a person's interior life. For example it might concern itself with a question like, how does a wizard maintain a sense of personal responsiblity when she has the power to just magic herself out of situations she doesn't like, how do you avoid or fail to avoid being corrupted by that kind of power?

Some fantasy with some depth.
Guy Gavriel Kay as mentioned before
Stephen Brust's Adrilankha series
Greg Bear's Worm Oroborous Novels
Mostly anything by UK Leguin
Octavia Butler - Kindred
Robert Silverberg - Lord Valentine's Castle
RA MacAvoy - Book of Kells
Jane Yolen - Briar Rose

Fantasy tends to explore somewhat more abstract topics, such as the claiming of power and using it responsibly, psychology and sexuality as expressed in magic and psionics, sacrifice and evil, religion, etc. I don't often see SF books that have real religions in them. Try Terry Brooks' Knight of the Word series, Patricia McKillip's books, especially the RiddleMaster of Hed, just about anything by Nina Kiriki Hoffman or Lawrence Watt-Evans, both of whom focus on people who are stuck with power they don't want. Dave Duncan wrote the Seventh Sword trilogy, about the impact of technological change upon a deeply traditional society, as well as the Great Game trilogy, in many respects the Bible reinterpreted as a fantasy novel.