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Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction
These 17 essays from the seventh annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference examine the relationship between fantasy and science fiction. They propose that fantasy and science fiction are not isolated commercial literary forms, but instead are literary forms worthy of the recognition reserved for traditional literature. Discussion of genre identification ranges from the standard forms of literary criticism embodied in Aristotle’s mimesis and poesis to innovative and possibly controversial points of view such as a theory of humor, a philosophy of time, and a detailed analysis of Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat. The essays provide not only a detailed study of literary elements but also the historical treatment of the material, its commercial use, and its relationship to similar literary forms such as the gothic tale and horror fiction. While few of the essayists agree with one another, they all contribute creative insights to the debate.
- GenresNonfiction
264 pages, Hardcover
First published October 26, 1987
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January 10, 2026
I am no academic, but that doesn't stop me from reading academic works - between papers about animals, history, or science fiction literature, a read an eclectic group of scholarly writings. *Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction* is a collection of essays originally presented at the seventh Eaton Conference in 1985 and, for the most part, deal with codifying the genres of fantasy and science fiction - there's even a whole essay dedicated to whether they should be labeled "fantasy and science fiction" or "science fiction and fantasy." It's all a bit opaque, and while I have the mental capacity to interact with this kind of hair-splitting, nothing in this collection really persuaded me that I should care, and that hampered my enjoyment with and engagement of this read. Still, it's worth your time if you're a hardcore SF reader. If you happened to stumble across this reviews and wonder which pieces of academic literature you should be prioritizing, I'll try and help you by going through them one-by-one...
--First up is "Boiling Roses: Thoughts on Science Fantasy" by Robert Scholes. It's about the genre of science fantasy, which was on the rise at this time with science fantasy works from the like of Samuel R. Delaney and Gene Wolfe starting to make it big. He goes on some tangents about the origin of the words "science" and "fantasy" and how the latter wasn't considered a literary genre until the early 1900s, and then on some curious ramblings about how fantasy set in the past always happens to be medieval fantasy - I think that's interesting and that it could betray how the Medieval ages are just the right time to set a fantasy story (there was modern enough technology and architecture where the contemporary reader can reasonably relate to daily life but enough mystery to it that elves and dragons and wizards fit in perfectly - that's my amendment, for the record), but it doesn't really go anywhere. He kind of rails against the whole concept of science fantasy at the start before making it around to "actually, these guys are pretty good at it" by the end - it's interesting, but musing about whether H. G. Wells was just a fantasist gone wrong isn't really making my life better one way or the other...
--"Parallel Universes" by Joseph D. Miller asks if the titular concept belongs more with SF or Fantasy. There's a good analogy about an elf climbing a wall before deciding that parallels universes are kind of common, but they're science fictional when the author attempts to rationalize them with science and fantastical when the author neglects to. This gets into the whole codification thing we'll get into momentarily, and touches upon some gravitational and time travelling laws. Interesting stuff.
--"High Tech and High Sorcery: Some Discriminations Between SF and Fantasy" by Michael W. McClintock was the first essay here I can say I actually liked. It starts by talking of the people who write SF/Fantasy and how they feel SF is a branch of Fantasy, but Wells substituted magic for technology, and here we are. McClintock then goes through various differentiators in fiction and in film which aren't hugely memorable but were good.
--Some people say that science fiction if science fiction because it tries to explain the impossible, or at least acknowledge that the impossible needs a rational explanation, while fantasy does not. I've got issues with this train of thought - characters in, say, a contemporary urban fantasy novel may need the existence of orcs and imps explained to them, while the characters in an SF novel like M. John Harrison's *Light* don't get or even feel they need explanation for the impossible things that happen to them - but that's the train of thought that" Science Fiction and the Semiotics of Realism" by J. Timothy Bagwell sent me down. As he says, canonical categorization of genre is doomed to fail. I still believe in the "cannot" versus "will not" happen, using the laws of our known universe as a touchbase to start judging, but Bagwell goes into a bit more depth by examining a Star Trek episode, *The Left Hand of Darkness*, and more; he's got six "common" ways that SF writers codify their worlds (excessive details, distractions from an FTL explanation to explain a cool planet that requires less gritty science, etc) and I found it one if the more illuminating and, to my thinking, "correct" pieces in this collection.
--Michael R. Collings looks at the horror literature of the late 70s and early 80s - specifically the works of folks like Peter Straub, Whitley Streiber, F. Paul Wilson, and Dean R. Koontz - and how many of their novels started off as monster stories but gradually turned into science fiction with a rational explanation, whether it's genetic experimentation or alien, at the end of the day. This is scarier than fantastical horror, he says, because now that technology is advancing at a scary rate there's a chance these things could actually happen; I'll buy that and stick it on the fridge. An interesting way to look at things, and worth our time.
--Roger Zelazny, an actual writer, takes an anecdotal approach with "Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Writer's View." He talks about his own experiences and how he graduated from reading more fantastical things to read science fiction like Wells' and the like, and how he doesn't really think about what's fantasy and what's SF when he's writing it. He does ultimately admit that SF comes from the rational, lit up part of your brain and fantasy comes out of the shadows towards the back. Solid stuff, if less rational than the rest of the pieces.
--If the first third of the book was all about discriminations between genres, the second is supposed to be about their "Gestations," and it starts with another writer - Samuel R. Delaney. He uses a French author and the romance genre (containing both Harlequin and Silhouette ones) and pre-Tolkien fantasists to make various points. For example, without SF editors, the Tolkien craze may never have happened. He admits that the genres of SF and Fantasy might be unrecognizable within ten years and that it's a little bit silly in the grander context of literature; is the point of this book that its point is pointless?
--Michael Holquist writes about "Konstantin Tsiolkovsky," an unsung hero of space travel who came up with a lot of cool ideas that weren't properly published or appreciated until after his death. He also apparently wrote some science fiction, which he's not appreciated for outside of this essay. He does go through his fiction and his inspirations (both his scientific tutor and more classical Russian literary influences), but it doesn't relate to the theme of the book very much; still, for what it is, I enjoyed it.
--"Victorian Urban Gothic: The First Modern Fantastic Literature" by Kathleen Spencer is of a bit more generic relevance. Fiction, starting in the 1850s, implemented logic with strange happenings, like with the literary conventions framing *Dracula*, a fundamentally supernatural affair. The mad scientists in *The Strange Case of Dr....* and *The Invisible Man* are further symptoms. It's not the most comprehensive thing, but it's got some interesting thoughts, and I appreciated it.
--Essays started going off on the deep end with "Jewels of Wonder.... Vision-Inducing Works" by Michael Clifton. He writes about how SF/Fantasy are fundamentally visual genres, partially because of drugs (Aldous Huxley and his psychedelics, you know). Everything is about inducing visions. He cites Aldiss' *Helliconia Spring* (a really fun start to a good trilogy) and Zelazny's *Doorways in the Sand* to cherrypick points and goes on to discuss how visual SF (films) will go on to replace books because it's a more visual form. Um... no. Not everything is about what you can see. It's just... not great.
--I liked "The Tooth that Gnaws: Reflections of Time Travel" by David A. Leiby better because I'm a huge fan of time travel fiction, but it's really more of a recap of a few works than an enlightening critical piece. He covers *The Sound of the Fury* and "By His Bootstraps", a personal favorite. I appreciated the recap, but... it didn't teach me much.
--"Frames in Search of a Genre" by Frank McConnell really took the wheel away from the driver and plunged us into chaos. He posits that SF and Fantasy stories can be judged by two different kinds of jokes/comic strips: "punchlines" and "shaggy dog stories," which are like, absurdist ramblings that are funny but have no use. It was an interesting piece and he did widen the scope towards the end, but overall I was just a bit confused. I don't really buy what McConnell was getting at but it was certainly interesting and deserves to be discussed; I'd just need a reread or three before being able to conceptualize his ramblings clearly.
--Editor George E. Slusser takes on what order to put "SF" and "Fantasy" into with "The *And* in Fantasy and Science Fiction*. Is it what came first? What's more important? Etc. It's not bad, but it kind of bored me, and being the longest essay in the bunch I just felt like we were going nowhere slowly. It's not *not* worth your time, but I'm not writing home about it.
--"Homecomings: Fantasy and Science Fiction" by Celeste Pernicone divides the genres not by the comics that they resemble or the visions they produce but because fantasy is childish and less earnest about the world than the grown-up science fiction. Her arguments were more elegant than that and all, but that's what it boils down to. Didn't mind it.
--Brian Attebery's "Science Fantasy and Myth" explores things of mythological importance. It looks at poetry and Tolkein and *Rocannon's World* and Zelazny's fiction to show how authors of both traditions can utilize the trappings of mythology for different points. It often ends up in science fantasy land, but it all seems like well thought-out stuff; I didn't get a whole lot out of it because I was close to the finish line, but I have a positive impression.
--Kathryn Hume wrote a write-up of *Gravity's Rainbow* and how it relates to all the aforementioned genres, but I've never actually read Pynchon so even though I read it out of completionism, I couldn't tell anyone less familiar than me what the Hell it was about. So... neither here nor there?
--The title of the last piece, penned by David Clayton - "Science Fiction: Going Around in Generic Circles" - kind of sums up my own thoughts on this genre discourse. I have my definition of the genres which can take care of 99% percent of scenarios that I'm happy with, and I'll keep it that way. Not that Clayton engages with my point - he spends his essay making decent but unrelated points about *Starship Troopers* and its outlook on social productivity. What I expected? No. What I wanted? No. What I deserved? Arguably. Bad? No, but... a weird place to close this book-length loop on genre meditations.
Overall, I'd say I got something out of a third of this book. Then I was neutral about two-fifths of it, and antagonistic towards a couple of the remainder. It's got some good discussion and I really liked the things about how SF is about the "explained" and some of the goofier specialty pieces (whether I liked them or not), but I can't earnestly call this a genre-defining work or anything. I'll give it a 6.5/10 and give a mild recommendation to the similarly science fictionally obsessed. I've got some histories of the field to read next year which will hopefully be a bit more cohesive and enjoyable, so stay tuned for that - otherwise thanks for reading, and here's hoping your next journey into academia is a little more fruitful than mine...
--First up is "Boiling Roses: Thoughts on Science Fantasy" by Robert Scholes. It's about the genre of science fantasy, which was on the rise at this time with science fantasy works from the like of Samuel R. Delaney and Gene Wolfe starting to make it big. He goes on some tangents about the origin of the words "science" and "fantasy" and how the latter wasn't considered a literary genre until the early 1900s, and then on some curious ramblings about how fantasy set in the past always happens to be medieval fantasy - I think that's interesting and that it could betray how the Medieval ages are just the right time to set a fantasy story (there was modern enough technology and architecture where the contemporary reader can reasonably relate to daily life but enough mystery to it that elves and dragons and wizards fit in perfectly - that's my amendment, for the record), but it doesn't really go anywhere. He kind of rails against the whole concept of science fantasy at the start before making it around to "actually, these guys are pretty good at it" by the end - it's interesting, but musing about whether H. G. Wells was just a fantasist gone wrong isn't really making my life better one way or the other...
--"Parallel Universes" by Joseph D. Miller asks if the titular concept belongs more with SF or Fantasy. There's a good analogy about an elf climbing a wall before deciding that parallels universes are kind of common, but they're science fictional when the author attempts to rationalize them with science and fantastical when the author neglects to. This gets into the whole codification thing we'll get into momentarily, and touches upon some gravitational and time travelling laws. Interesting stuff.
--"High Tech and High Sorcery: Some Discriminations Between SF and Fantasy" by Michael W. McClintock was the first essay here I can say I actually liked. It starts by talking of the people who write SF/Fantasy and how they feel SF is a branch of Fantasy, but Wells substituted magic for technology, and here we are. McClintock then goes through various differentiators in fiction and in film which aren't hugely memorable but were good.
--Some people say that science fiction if science fiction because it tries to explain the impossible, or at least acknowledge that the impossible needs a rational explanation, while fantasy does not. I've got issues with this train of thought - characters in, say, a contemporary urban fantasy novel may need the existence of orcs and imps explained to them, while the characters in an SF novel like M. John Harrison's *Light* don't get or even feel they need explanation for the impossible things that happen to them - but that's the train of thought that" Science Fiction and the Semiotics of Realism" by J. Timothy Bagwell sent me down. As he says, canonical categorization of genre is doomed to fail. I still believe in the "cannot" versus "will not" happen, using the laws of our known universe as a touchbase to start judging, but Bagwell goes into a bit more depth by examining a Star Trek episode, *The Left Hand of Darkness*, and more; he's got six "common" ways that SF writers codify their worlds (excessive details, distractions from an FTL explanation to explain a cool planet that requires less gritty science, etc) and I found it one if the more illuminating and, to my thinking, "correct" pieces in this collection.
--Michael R. Collings looks at the horror literature of the late 70s and early 80s - specifically the works of folks like Peter Straub, Whitley Streiber, F. Paul Wilson, and Dean R. Koontz - and how many of their novels started off as monster stories but gradually turned into science fiction with a rational explanation, whether it's genetic experimentation or alien, at the end of the day. This is scarier than fantastical horror, he says, because now that technology is advancing at a scary rate there's a chance these things could actually happen; I'll buy that and stick it on the fridge. An interesting way to look at things, and worth our time.
--Roger Zelazny, an actual writer, takes an anecdotal approach with "Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Writer's View." He talks about his own experiences and how he graduated from reading more fantastical things to read science fiction like Wells' and the like, and how he doesn't really think about what's fantasy and what's SF when he's writing it. He does ultimately admit that SF comes from the rational, lit up part of your brain and fantasy comes out of the shadows towards the back. Solid stuff, if less rational than the rest of the pieces.
--If the first third of the book was all about discriminations between genres, the second is supposed to be about their "Gestations," and it starts with another writer - Samuel R. Delaney. He uses a French author and the romance genre (containing both Harlequin and Silhouette ones) and pre-Tolkien fantasists to make various points. For example, without SF editors, the Tolkien craze may never have happened. He admits that the genres of SF and Fantasy might be unrecognizable within ten years and that it's a little bit silly in the grander context of literature; is the point of this book that its point is pointless?
--Michael Holquist writes about "Konstantin Tsiolkovsky," an unsung hero of space travel who came up with a lot of cool ideas that weren't properly published or appreciated until after his death. He also apparently wrote some science fiction, which he's not appreciated for outside of this essay. He does go through his fiction and his inspirations (both his scientific tutor and more classical Russian literary influences), but it doesn't relate to the theme of the book very much; still, for what it is, I enjoyed it.
--"Victorian Urban Gothic: The First Modern Fantastic Literature" by Kathleen Spencer is of a bit more generic relevance. Fiction, starting in the 1850s, implemented logic with strange happenings, like with the literary conventions framing *Dracula*, a fundamentally supernatural affair. The mad scientists in *The Strange Case of Dr....* and *The Invisible Man* are further symptoms. It's not the most comprehensive thing, but it's got some interesting thoughts, and I appreciated it.
--Essays started going off on the deep end with "Jewels of Wonder.... Vision-Inducing Works" by Michael Clifton. He writes about how SF/Fantasy are fundamentally visual genres, partially because of drugs (Aldous Huxley and his psychedelics, you know). Everything is about inducing visions. He cites Aldiss' *Helliconia Spring* (a really fun start to a good trilogy) and Zelazny's *Doorways in the Sand* to cherrypick points and goes on to discuss how visual SF (films) will go on to replace books because it's a more visual form. Um... no. Not everything is about what you can see. It's just... not great.
--I liked "The Tooth that Gnaws: Reflections of Time Travel" by David A. Leiby better because I'm a huge fan of time travel fiction, but it's really more of a recap of a few works than an enlightening critical piece. He covers *The Sound of the Fury* and "By His Bootstraps", a personal favorite. I appreciated the recap, but... it didn't teach me much.
--"Frames in Search of a Genre" by Frank McConnell really took the wheel away from the driver and plunged us into chaos. He posits that SF and Fantasy stories can be judged by two different kinds of jokes/comic strips: "punchlines" and "shaggy dog stories," which are like, absurdist ramblings that are funny but have no use. It was an interesting piece and he did widen the scope towards the end, but overall I was just a bit confused. I don't really buy what McConnell was getting at but it was certainly interesting and deserves to be discussed; I'd just need a reread or three before being able to conceptualize his ramblings clearly.
--Editor George E. Slusser takes on what order to put "SF" and "Fantasy" into with "The *And* in Fantasy and Science Fiction*. Is it what came first? What's more important? Etc. It's not bad, but it kind of bored me, and being the longest essay in the bunch I just felt like we were going nowhere slowly. It's not *not* worth your time, but I'm not writing home about it.
--"Homecomings: Fantasy and Science Fiction" by Celeste Pernicone divides the genres not by the comics that they resemble or the visions they produce but because fantasy is childish and less earnest about the world than the grown-up science fiction. Her arguments were more elegant than that and all, but that's what it boils down to. Didn't mind it.
--Brian Attebery's "Science Fantasy and Myth" explores things of mythological importance. It looks at poetry and Tolkein and *Rocannon's World* and Zelazny's fiction to show how authors of both traditions can utilize the trappings of mythology for different points. It often ends up in science fantasy land, but it all seems like well thought-out stuff; I didn't get a whole lot out of it because I was close to the finish line, but I have a positive impression.
--Kathryn Hume wrote a write-up of *Gravity's Rainbow* and how it relates to all the aforementioned genres, but I've never actually read Pynchon so even though I read it out of completionism, I couldn't tell anyone less familiar than me what the Hell it was about. So... neither here nor there?
--The title of the last piece, penned by David Clayton - "Science Fiction: Going Around in Generic Circles" - kind of sums up my own thoughts on this genre discourse. I have my definition of the genres which can take care of 99% percent of scenarios that I'm happy with, and I'll keep it that way. Not that Clayton engages with my point - he spends his essay making decent but unrelated points about *Starship Troopers* and its outlook on social productivity. What I expected? No. What I wanted? No. What I deserved? Arguably. Bad? No, but... a weird place to close this book-length loop on genre meditations.
Overall, I'd say I got something out of a third of this book. Then I was neutral about two-fifths of it, and antagonistic towards a couple of the remainder. It's got some good discussion and I really liked the things about how SF is about the "explained" and some of the goofier specialty pieces (whether I liked them or not), but I can't earnestly call this a genre-defining work or anything. I'll give it a 6.5/10 and give a mild recommendation to the similarly science fictionally obsessed. I've got some histories of the field to read next year which will hopefully be a bit more cohesive and enjoyable, so stay tuned for that - otherwise thanks for reading, and here's hoping your next journey into academia is a little more fruitful than mine...
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