Your definition of what is SF and fantasy

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

This month (October 2019) the group read Annihilation and The Yiddish Policemen's Union and in both discussions it was told "this book is not SF". Therefore, I decided to create a topic to discuss what is SF and fantasy for you.

Join in!

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Interesting.

I get that Yiddish is not really SF to me, I mean, alternate history is cool sometimes, but is it really SF or F? I don't know.

But I don't see how Annihilation isn't at least one or the other. If it's an alien invasion cause, it's SF. And if it is wizards . . . or how about a dimensional breakdown caused by wizards? Then it would be both, right? I think it's just VanderMeer trying to distinguish his genre

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

In the USSR and socialist bloc in general it was assumed that SF is part educament part futurology and after the 60s it also became Aesop tales to criticize the regime Arkady Strugatsky (USSR), Stanisław Lem (Poland). Because fantasy doesn't work the same way as SF, it was just absent. So, some writers wrote fantasy adventure where at the end you find out that say dragons are dinosaurs or giant mice are mutants due to the nuclear war... so like Anne McCaffrey series where fantasy turns out SF.

For me alt-history is SF because it started for me with series like Time Patrol where time travel affects history. And we, readers see that alt-hist is 'what if' and SF is 'what if'

For a fantasy I liked the definition which I cannot attribute that it is a story with active interference from gods. It doesn't work for a lot of fantasy works but it seems like a correct starting point

[Ed]

According to Margaret Atwood: “Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space". That is a good enough definition for me!

Seriously, though, there is no definitive definition that works in all cases.

Yiddish Policemen... wasn't marketed as SF, but it has elements in common with some SF. So, yay!, close enough.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Ed wrote: "According to Margaret Atwood: “Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space". "

She had a lot of (justifiable) backlash for that statement, because it sounds "it's a fringe lit and not for a serious reader".

re Yiddish Policemen... wasn't marketed as SF - but it was not only nominated but won (!) Hugo Award for Best Novel (2008), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2007), Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (2008)

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Sounds strange for a book that wasn't even marketed that way. I bet Harry Turtledove was unhappy. He's supposed to be the king of alt hist, I heard.

[Antti]

I've sometimes defined SF/F as works about things that aren't real and couldn't be today. So while a techno-triller depicts events that don't really happen, they could be happening. But SF/F stories couldn't.

By that definition, both New Weird and alt-history are SF/F.

The dividing line between SF and F (in my head) is that SF could maybe potentially sort of become reality someday, if you're really willing to really suspend disbelief, but F can't. Unfortunately by this definition things like Star Wars would fall under the "fantasy" section, and that's not really right, so maybe this is not the best of definitions.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

@Antti, couldn't happen is rather ambiguous I think. Take once again Soviet SF of the 30s-40s, which is commonly refereed as 'close aim' SF, and which very idea was to predict future is some aspect. Like there is a short story by Ivan Efremov predicted presence of diamonds in Yakut region. Also his 'what is theoretically possible' was using ancient pottery as recordings - when they are made of soft clay going round and rounds they record sounds around them.

[Antti]

Yeah, when it comes to near-future SF the line gets really blurry. Many techno-trillers are set in "next year" or something like that, but they are not SF.

Halting State by Charles Stross is near-future police procedural, and very clearly SF. OTOH, Neuropath by R. Scott Bakker is a near-future police procedural, but I wouldn't call it SF.

What's the difference between these books? I think it's because Stross extrapolated from current technology and imagined big societal changes due to that technological change, but Bakker merely used the extrapolated technology to create a unique villain.

[Antti]

@Oleksandr: I think my Assyriology professor mentioned the "archaeoacoustics" experiments, where they tried to hear sounds embedded in ancient pottery. Wikipedia says the idea was first proposed in 1969. Sadly, the experiments were mostly failures, although there were some ambiguous results that could be actual sounds from the past - the turning of the potter's wheel, perhaps.

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

What a cool thread. I wish I could say something cool to keep it going.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

I guess some techno-thrillers can be termed SF, because for me the genre's main distinction is "what if" attitude. This means that a novel that says "what if Jews before the WW2 got land in Alaska" is SF, while a story set in the world of spaceships and blasters sometimes isn't.

Also the marketing plays the role: there are hardcore fans, who'll buy everything with say 'fantasy' on the cover and just to boost sales it gets the word.

re Archeoacoustics - the novel with the idea is from the late 60s

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Yes, I started to read a book one time and it was 500 years in the future in NYC with huge towers etc. It was a mean girls high school patiche. Horrible. I would warn you if I could remember the name, but I figure no one here would probably be stupid enough to try and read it anyway.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Kateblue wrote: "Yes, I started to read a book one time and it was 500 years in the future in NYC with huge towers etc. It was a mean girls high school patiche. "

Exactly!

One of the 'holy war'-ish questions to discuss

Are Star Wars a SF or fantasy? they have futuristic background, magic (power), knights with swords...

[Kirsten]

This is one of my problems. Alternate history is not inherently science fiction (unless they have some kind of parallel universe hopping machine).

[Gabi]

It is interesting to read the opinions here, thank you for that.

Since I came back to reading SF and Fantasy last year I struggle a lot with genres, subgenres and the likes (I guess they already existed in the early 90ies, but I just didn't pay attention to it). So I came to prefer the term "speculative fiction", which also encompasses borderline authors like Haruki Murakami. Everything I love to read somehow fits into this genre.

Science Fiction itself for me is everything that addresses what-if developments in any of the scientific fields (be it technical development, natural sciences, social, behavioural, economical etc.) and I'm sometimes not sure where to draw the line to Fantasy. The typical Sword and Sorcery is clear, but works like Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy feel like SF for me, even though they are mostly shelved as Fantasy.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Gabi wrote: "I came to prefer the term "speculative fiction", which also encompasses borderline authors like Haruki Murakami. "

I agree that this is a nice umbrella term. However, out there are quite a few people, like only SF or fantasy and can't stand the other, so sometimes further distinction is needed.

I consider Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy 'science fantasy' for she tries to set the rules for magic

Scott wrote: "It's always seemed pretty straightforward to me. If it has a scientific explanation (even if it's something we can't comprehend, as in Annihilation), it's SF. If a wizard did it, it's fantasy."

What if we find out that the wizard is an alien? We still have no clue how s/he does it, but just being from another planet/parallel universe/future makes it SF?

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Scott wrote: "You mean that the characters thought things were magic, but it turned out to be alien technology? SF, I would say.
"

But why? If there is no clue how s/he does it it is 'magic' :)

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

I think that speculative fiction was coined fifty or sixty years ago by some famous SF guy. They probably got tired of arguing about it.

update: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specula...

[Kirsten]

Kateblue wrote: "I think that speculative fiction was coined fifty or sixty years ago by some famous SF guy. They probably got tired of arguing about it.

update: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specula..."

I know that Margaret Atwood hates it when people call her stuff science fiction, so she insists on Speculative Fiction.

[Kirsten]

No, I don't think fantasy can be speculative.

[Cynthia]

And that brings up a point that I've been trying to put into words ever since this discussion began. I also prefer the term Speculative Fiction. I took a 10 year break from sci-fi in my middle years, reading mostly literary fiction. Margaret Atwood was one of my favorites. Many of her novels are not sci-fi or fantasy at all, but they are still Speculative Fiction. Straight literary fiction with contemporary settings and no magic or special technology can, and often is, built upon a "what if" premise.

[Kirsten]

In the afterword of The Testaments, she mentions that she has told the producers and writers of The Handmaid's Tale tv series that everything has to have a precedent.

[Cynthia]

Speculative fiction is not limited to speculation about the future. Beginning with any "what if" question is sufficient. In the case of fantasy the author's internal starting question might be "What if a group of people in a society had powers to persuade others by mental projections?" or "What if a long line of kings and aristocrats held their positions through magic, but now the magicians are changing their values concerning what is good?" or "What if Nature and her elemental spirits were conspiring to produce new life forms to protect the balance of Earth?" Then any story that proceeds under those circumstance is speculative.

[Cynthia]

A member of my other sci-fi reading group just posted this. Thought you might like it. It seems to make a case for at least one fantasy series being speculative... and accurate... and pertinent.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/2019...

[Ed]

Scott wrote: "Speculative fiction has to be bound to the real world."

I don't agree. I agree more with Cynthia.

For my bookshelves I use the term SF and I refuse to even speculate about what the letters S or F stand for.

I think Margaret Atwood has relaxed and now doesn't mind if you call her work Science Fiction. She at one point thought it is mostly pulp garbage, but she has educated herself on it and even wrote a book about it: In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Cynthia wrote: "Speculative fiction is not limited to speculation about the future. Beginning with any "what if" question is sufficient. "

True. As an example, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea is set in 1866-1869, but was published in 1869-1871. There are several works about Atlantis, set in Earth's past.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Ed wrote: "For my bookshelves I use the term SF and I refuse to even speculate about what the letters S or F stand for."

:)
Wise man's words!

[Ed]

Oleksandr wrote: "Wise man's words!"

Well, I am a talking horse!