Why I Call It Sci-Fi, or Genre Wars Are Dumb

I'm a major sci-fi fan. Over the years I have watched, read, listened to or otherwise consumed hundreds of hours worth of sci-fi. I also spend an unhealthy amount of time reviewing it and talking about it.

Everyone should spend an unhealthy amount of time doing something fun but ultimately unnecessary. What they shouldn't do is spend an unhealthy amount of time arguing over what their hobby is called.

And yet that is what fans of scifi seem to do on the internet.

The Name Won't Change What it Is

There are certainly a lot of different names for sci-fi. Science fiction, fantasy, skiffy, speculative fiction. And then there are the sub-genres, your cyberpunk, steampunk etc.

But which particular name is applied to the book your reading won't actually change the book one iota. It won't make it better, nor will it make it worse. The story you are reading will remain exactly the same.

Yet instead of discussing the actual merits of the book/movie in question far too often the conversation derails into a debate on whether something is or is not science fiction.

I've seen this effect quite frequently on my own posts. I tend to use the relatively generic descriptor of sci-fi when I am talking about genre material. Inevitably someone turns up to complain about fantasy or horror being included in my sci-fi list.

So why do people get so worked up that, that's not real science fiction… it's space opera?

What I Like Is Good

Well mostly it seems to be about self-definition. While people are arguing about the definition of the genre and whether you should be including fantasy when you talk about science fiction, what they're actually doing is announcing to the world what they like.

Real science fiction is invariably the stuff they enjoy reading or watching. So they're not actually arguing for any sort of universal definition based on absolute precepts. They're arguing that the genre should be defined to just be the stuff they are into.

It's an ownership thing I think. Fans have a very bad habit of overly identifying themselves with the things they are a fan of. So if you are a science fiction fan but the style changes and suddenly things are being called science fiction that you don't like, it's almost like an assault on you. Someone has taken your thing and changed it!

But that's how the world works. It doesn't stay still and it doesn't care what you liked or how you liked it. You can't go around demanding it do everything your way.

Well, you can. But you'll sound like a 5 year old having a tantrum.

Genres What Are They Good For?

Not much quite frankly. It's quite convenient for book sellers when they want to group books together. It's similarly convenient for book publishers and librarians.

Beyond that honestly they are more limiting than anything else. Genres are just labels and a label's function is to define a thing. Once you define what a story's genre is, you define what it's not allowed to be. And that's not really a good thing.

Yes it's a shorthand to tell you this is something you might like, but it is only a shorthand. Even if something is a real science fiction story, that doesn't actually guarantee you will enjoy it.

Star Wars isn't science fiction, it's science fantasy!

And if you do react negatively to people using the term SF or science fiction to describe something you don't think qualifies you should probably ask yourself a few questions. Starting with why it matters so much to you. And follow that up by asking yourself what you've actually added to the conversation if the entirety of your contribution is querying a definition.

It's All Sci-Fi To Me

As I mentioned early, I use the term sci-fi most of the time (I've been known to generously sprinkle other terms about the place too admittedly) and I use it to refer to fantasy, horror, urban fantasy, space opera, cyberpunk and every other even vaguely related category.

Why do I do that? Well for one thing, I've always thought Speculative Fiction sounded monumentally pretentious and for another the general public already knows what sci-fi is so there's a common understanding of the term whether certain fans like it or not.

For another, I'm not actually interested in which particular sub-genre the work I am reading/viewing falls into . Beyond possibly referencing a few common tropes (which in all honesty is a rather lazy internet habit) it doesn't add to my enjoyment or understanding to be able to name something as Scientific Romance rather than Space Goth (yes, I know those two have nothing to do with each other, if you've fixated on that you've missed the point).

Stop Bloody Whining

All of this is basically a very long winded way for me to point out that I am really tired of hearing people whining about what is or is not science fiction.

Or to put it another way, could we have a different discussion? Something new? Maybe something about, oh I don't know the plots the characters the ideas.

It's all sci-fi. Deal with it.

The post Why I Call It Sci-Fi, or Genre Wars Are Dumb appeared first on eoghann.com.