SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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What is the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy
I think more recent scientific theory with quantum mechanics, chaos theory, dark matter, alternate universes, are making it really tougher to separate sci fi and fantasy. My genetically engineered human, able to manipulate dark matter and travel in his probability machine is almost indistinguishable from the mage trained from birth as a powerful wizard. It comes down what values and what kind of society the author wants their characters to deal with. How great a difference in relative power different characters will have. Feudal is easier, but hardly exclusive in fantasy. I guess Brenda is right, it's the cover!
Your post brings another point to mind: does it matter? If a story is boring, it doesn't matter whether the effects are achieved by wizard holding up his magic staff, or a scientist with his spaceship. It is still a dud! And if it's a good book, the classification of it is not important and does not affect your pleasure in any way.
For instance I read Titus Groan recently and there is no way I can make a clear distinction between what genre it is. But that doesn't matter because it is a really well constructed book.
Patgolfneb wrote: "I think more recent scientific theory with quantum mechanics, chaos theory, dark matter, alternate universes, are making it really tougher to separate sci fi and fantasy. My genetically engineered human, able to manipulate dark matter and travel in his probability machine is almost indistinguishable from the mage trained from birth as a powerful wizard. It comes down what values and what kind of society the author wants their characters to deal with. How great a difference in relative power different characters will have. Feudal is easier, but hardly exclusive in fantasy."I would say it depends on how he achieves these things. If you make a stab at being scientifically plausible, then you'd be sci-fi. But if your guy does these things just because he "can", then you've written Fantasy with Science Fiction props... which is Star Wars, aka Space Fantasy.
Brenda wrote: "YYour post brings another point to mind: does it matter? If a story is boring, it doesn't matter whether the effects are achieved by wizard holding up his magic staff, or a scientist with his spaceship. It is still a dud! And if it's a good book, the classification of it is not important and does not affect your pleasure in any way."That's what I said earlier.
A rose is distinct from an orchid but they're both beautiful. A volcano is not a supernova, but they're both beautifully terrifying in the majestic power.
An interesting article on Jezebel today talking about the new noir written by women (http://jezebel.com/5934455/noirs-fema...) has this tidbit:"What's cool about noir (and this really true about any genre book/movie/entertainment medium I have not mentioned (marionette shows?)) is that simple changes, i.e. switching genders, moving a crime from downtown L.A. to a suburban high school, can make the genre seem fresh while at the same time maintaining the genre's most essential characteristic — predictability. Reading within a genre — any genre, really — means that you expect a certain kind and number of things to happen."
Which is what I was talking about earlier -- you can put almost any genre into any setting (the Western and Samurai stories being the sole exceptions because of being tied to specific locations) and it remains the same at its core.
Trike wrote: "...you can put almost any genre into any setting (the Western and Samurai stories being the sole exceptions because of being tied to specific locations) and it remains the same at its core. "If you do it right, you can even manage to move Samurai stories and Westerns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magn...
Jonathan wrote: "For instance I read Titus Groan recently and there is no way I can make a clear distinction between what genre it is. But that doesn't matter because it is a really well constructed book."I haven't read Titus Groan, but it raises an interesting side topic: what other books have you all read that are difficult to categorize. I'll start: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon and Dahlgren by Samuel Delany. The first is simultaneously SciFi, historical novel, thriller, erotica, and who knows what other genres. The second is mostly social commentary, with equal parts SciFi, horror, mystery, and psychadelia (and many other genres mixed in as well).
THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS, by Peter Dickinson. It is obviously nonfiction, a treatise on dragon mythology and how they fly. However, it is about the flight powers of dragons, and so is obviously fiction, and fantasy at that. It has a dragon on the cover, after all! It all hangs together wonderfully well, too, and is the only fictional nonfiction that I have ever run across.
Fictional nonfiction (or is nonfictional fiction?):LAST LETTERS FROM HAV by Jan Morris. She's best known as a travel writer for the New Yorker and the like, but this book concerns her, "Jan Morris", and her visit to Hav, a sorta-in-the-Balkans, sorta Levantine, sorta Beirut as crossroads-of-the-world, city that's completely fictitious. It's written in an identical style to her nonfiction and she cracks only the slightest Mona Lisa smile at the more outrageous bits of invention. A less alert or geographically-savvy reader could be completely taken in. I really enjoyed it, but I'm damned if I could rationally or firmly categorize it by genre. FWIW, the publisher's notes on the back mark it as 'fiction' but I was led to it by a review in ASIMOV'S SF magazine.
J.D. wrote: "Trike wrote: "...you can put almost any genre into any setting (the Western and Samurai stories being the sole exceptions because of being tied to specific locations) and it remains the same at its core. "If you do it right, you can even manage to move Samurai stories and Westerns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magn... "
Have you seen those two movies back to back? The Magnificent Seven doesn't work as a translation because it loses the samurai subtext, replacing the bushido code with self-interest. When it comes to theme, it's like the difference between The Remains of the Day and Fight Club.
The core differences between samurai and cowboys are as stark as the core differences between Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is exactly what I mean when I say people get too hung up on the props and aren't looking to the heart of the tale. You can't simply cross out "samurai" and write in "cowboy" or "circus bugs" (A Bug's Life) and have it be the same story, because you lose an essential quality inherent to the underlying structure.
Some stories, like Star Wars, you can literally plunk down in any other genre and the characters would remain exactly the same: their motivations, their behavior, etc. You take the samurai out of The Seven Samurai and it's no longer the same story. The plot is the same, but you can say that for almost any story. "Man leaves town, stranger comes to town."
Steve wrote: "what other books have you all read that are difficult to categorize."One that I can't decide if it's Fantasy or Science Fiction is James MacDonald's
The Apocalypse Door. There is ample evidence to make the case for either genre.
Brenda wrote: "THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS, by Peter Dickinson. It is obviously nonfiction, a treatise on dragon mythology and how they fly. However, it is about the flight powers of dragons, and so is obviously fiction, and fantasy at that. It has a dragon on the cover, after all! It all hangs together wonderfully well, too, and is the only fictional nonfiction that I have ever run across."I love that book. One of my high school speeches was based on it, and some kids thought dragons were real after that.
Around that time, though, there were a whole slew of similar books. The most famous was, of course, Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet's Gnomes.
There was also Brian Froud's Faeries.
Alecia wrote: "It's not an easy one to differentiate. I think everyone will have there own opinion on this one. For me, Science Fiction is assumed to be possible because it's based on facts and science, like mult..."Well I'm sure we could come up with a scientific way of making animals 'talk' haha
But yes that's a good point. Does it come to the individual to distinguish what is sci-fi or fantasy then or is it something that can be decided in general? Or is it only some works that depend on the individual?
Trike wrote: "I would say it depends on how he achieves these things. If you make a stab at being scientifically plausible, then you'd be sci-fi. But if your guy does these things just because he "can", then you've written Fantasy with Science Fiction props... which is Star Wars, aka Space Fantasy. "Actually, there are plenty of counterexamples to this oversimplification readily at hand.
For instance: most people would say the Dresden Files is fantasy; urban fantasy, yes, but definitely fantasy. Yet it has a fairly well-defined, limited, coherent magical system -- things don't just happen without there being, for instance, a transfer of energy or what have you. White Court vampires have superstrength because they feed on emotions, etc.
On the other hand, if you spend any time at all looking at the Star Wars EU, you'll see that plenty of people try to explain the effects and mechanisms of the technology. Obviously, they don't do it in a way that tells you how to do it -- it may even be impossible -- but it is, at least, fairly consistent and grounded in science or pseudoscience. The same goes for Iain M. Banks' Culture, Star Trek, and other space opera.
Somewhere in the middle is Warhammer 40k, in which we have both technological 'magic' -- hovercraft, souped-up plasma fusion engines, energy blades, and more -- in addition to something much more like conventional magic yet still bound by certain rules -- warp witchery. I would classify it as sci-fi, but I certainly wouldn't see a problem with calling it fantasy, and you could make excellent arguments either way I'm sure.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/ The link is to a blog entry of Neil. Gaiman, remembering Harry Harrison, who died today. An old with an interview of Harry Harrison is included, including some comments on Sci FI and fantasy.
Thinking about this discussion has made me realize that the Transformers movies, like Star Wars, are also Fantasy, not SciFi. The AllSpark as an intelligent cube containing an undefinable energy source that transforms objects into living machines = magic.
You can't get too rigid about it, otherwise there is nothing at all in the SF category. You lose FTL, time travel, aliens, all kinds of things. Many acknowledged classics of SF vanish (CHILDHOOD'S END, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND) and the only thing left is near-future adventure.
I agree with Brenda. Getting too rigid obviates the distinction. I mean, if you can't include FTL, then what's the point?
Brenda wrote: "You can't get too rigid about it, otherwise there is nothing at all in the SF category. You lose FTL, time travel, aliens, all kinds of things. Many acknowledged classics of SF vanish (CHILDHOOD'..."I agree about being too rigid. There is a difference between scientific suspension of disbelief and Fantasy. But I don't think that invalidates my position. When writers use FTL, they are admitting that a) there is something called light, b) it has a speed, and c) we need some way to travel faster than that speed. These are all scientific concepts. Likewise, when writing about time travel we agree that there is something called time, it travels in a certain direction at a certain pace, and it would sure be nice to travel along it in the other direction. Again, all scientific.
Many Sci-Fi stories include the invention of some sort of limitless or near-limitless power source. Again, this is valid Sci-Fi, because we can all agree that there is such a thing as energy and we could sure use more of it. But if we make the energy itself both incomprehensible and intelligent, a la the AllSpark, then (in my opinion) we have crossed the line into magic.
NYKen wrote: "That's an interesting one. Thanks for posting the link."You're very welcome. I thought people here would enjoy it.
No gaurentee this will make any sense, but to me, the difference is in what the author is exploring.Fantasy is about, well, fantasy. Mythology, if you wanted to get a little more precise. It's an inner-space thing. A "this is who we are" statement, taken to the extremes of magic and swords because, well, why not dress our psyches up in ren-faire gear and make us fight a dragon? Magic gives us a psychological playground of symbolism to play with, and it's safer, so to speak, to write about dragons than it is to write about alcoholism.
Sci-fi is more about possibility. "This is who we'll become." I think that's why its taken such a dark turn in recent years (Hunger Games is an example). We aren't as optimistic about our future as we were in the seventies. Technology is just the projector. The reason magic doesn't fit well into a sci-fi setting is because you're getting "What we are" into "What we'll become" and it tends to give the reader psychological whiplash.
Chelsea wrote: "No gaurentee this will make any sense, but to me, the difference is in what the author is exploring.Fantasy is about, well, fantasy. Mythology, if you wanted to get a little more precise. It's an..."
I think that is one of the best definitions I've ever read. Makes a LOT of sense.
Michele wrote: "Chelsea wrote: "No gaurentee this will make any sense, but to me, the difference is in what the author is exploring.Fantasy is about, well, fantasy. Mythology, if you wanted to get a little more ..."
I tend to overthink things. A lot. Especially if I've had my medication (read as: whiskey sour). I once spent a whole night explaining why The Ghost and the Darkness was a metaphor for the human psyche in time of crisis. :D
I also think that our brains are smarter than we are. We tend to pick up a whole lot subconsciously that our active minds ignore as white noise. So you didn't notice that the dragon is the author's crisis of faith...but your brain did.
Matthew wrote: "I agree with Brenda. Getting too rigid obviates the distinction. I mean, if you can't include FTL, then what's the point?"FTL and Time Travel are currently thought to be possible by some mainstream physicists like Kaku and Hawking. They aren't entirely convinced, but they say the possibility is there. So if they think those things might be doable, however remote, then we should let those things into the genre.
Everyone quotes Clarke's Third Law (indistinguishable from magic) and they use it as a Get Out of Jail Free card, which is annoying. In cases like FTL it's equally important to keep in mind Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." These old guys are saying, "Yeah, maybe." That's good enough for the fiction part of the equation.
There are things we know and there are things we're pretty sure about and then there are things that are still up for grabs. Everything that's beyond the "know" section of science should be part of Science Fiction. I don't see how that's rigid at all.
Two ideas that could make FTL possible:1. Wormholes or Einstein-Rosen Bridges which are a 'shortcut' through space.
2. Alcubierre drive. Contracting space in front and expanding space behind.
Both of these solutions require exotic matter ? and are consistent with Einstein's field equations.
H
I think the essential difference between fantasy and science fiction (when they’re not being ‘operatic’) is that a (good, literary-classic grade) fantasy story will use the portrayed differences between the fantasy world and our real world to point out what’s wrong with the real world today, whereas a (good, literary-classic grade) science-fiction story will use the portrayed differences between the science-fiction world and our real world to point out what’s going to go wrong with the real world SOON, if we don’t take steps to ensure we don’t go down that path.
G.P. wrote: "I think the essential difference between fantasy and science fiction (when they’re not being ‘operatic’) is that a (good, literary-classic grade) fantasy story will use the portrayed differences be..."Cue the deluge of counter-examples.
You never find scientists in fantasy stories.
I've written and published a fantasy story with a scientist in it.
Chris wrote: "I've written and published a fantasy story with a scientist in it."I was waiting for someone to make a comment like that!
Tony wrote: "You never find scientists in fantasy stories."Incorrect. The Reluctant Swordsman is just such a book. Also Lyndon Hardy has a number of books where magic works by rules and the magic-user has to learn them.
And I forgot Tavi in The Cocex Alera series, who was rediscovering the technical superiority of the Romans.
My take on the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is:The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is the trees. In Science Fiction, the trees behave as we expect trees to behave, but they look like they were designed by the costumers for Cirque du Soleil. In Fantasy, the trees look like regular trees, but they either try to eat you or talk you to death.
Rich wrote: "My take on the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is:The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is the trees."
Brilliant.
For me, sci-fi usually implies some kind of advanced technology, whether it be weapons, spaceships, AIs, what have you.Fantasy, on the other hand, implies the presence of something beyond science, like magic, the supernatural, etc.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Humberto wrote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."Sounds like you're using that as a Get Out of Jail Free card, which is not how Clarke intended it.
Also, there's this terrific quote from a similar thread:
“It's just occurred to me that a lot of TV and movie SF is anti-Clarke: not science that looks to the uninitiated like magic, but magic that looks to the uninitiated like science.” – Chris, “Fantasy vs Science Fiction”, Goodreads, 6-3-13
Tree or four hundred years ago I would die on the stake if anybody was watching me write this quote on my iPhone. But you are right Trike. Magic (sorcery) and science are hard to distinguish in our current, and even worse our past, state of ignorance.
That is why fantasy and SF coexist, because sometimes it is very hard to tell which will be which.
Humberto wrote: "That is why fantasy and SF coexist, because sometimes it is very hard to tell which will be which. "Which is why it is incumbent upon people like us to stand watch at the gates and make sure the ignorant do not overrun the learned.
Trike wrote "Which is why it is incumbent upon people like us to stand watch at the gates and make sure the ignorant do not overrun the learned."It is also very hard to know who is learned and who is ignorant.
I was asked what was the difference between sci-fi and fantasy once in an elevator, just as the door opened to my floor. I said, "Inventions versus magic." Then I stepped off.If I had that convo to do over again, I would say, "Inventions versus magic, but both are about people." It's the characters that count for most.
Characters are kind of a given, though. Otherwise it's more of an essay.
Some of us write both, with equal enthusiasm and enjoyment.
Good writing is good writing regardless of genre and I'll read it all. But, truth to tell, I prefer the magic of ray guns to the magic in wands.
For me, the distinction is whether the story invokes a supernatural explanation of events (spirts, spells, charms, etc.) or a physical one, or at least reachable through a series of conjectures from a physical start. By this approach, a Romulan cloaking device is scifi while Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility is fantasy. Star Trek didn't explain anything, but it did make the conjecture of a device (technology) providing the cloaking effect, along with tools for teleportation, FTL travel, etc. Dragons can exist as creatures in scifi (and myths probably started from dinosaur bones), but at the point where they fly with unrealistically tiny wings, they become fantasy. If they fly on a hoverboard, then they're still scifi.
I've always thought of it like this:Science Fiction explores ideas.
Fantasy explores worlds.
Of course there's overlap/exceptions/what-have-you (Dune, anyone?), but this is the usual explanation I give people.
Sci-fi speculates in worlds much like our own, although it might import supernatural elements (soft sci-fi) or technological elements (hard sci-fi). As a rule, fantasy speculates in worlds that have much different rules and settings; its stories typically depend upon magic or mythological-type creatures for its foundation.
Dune is an interesting clash/overlap -- the mentat powers and mystical seeing abilities are attributed to innate mental power and to enhancements like spice, not technology -- but the tool (brainpower) and enhancements (drugs) have a familiarity and concreteness that create a jumping-off point that has the usual non-magical feel of scifi.
Jonathan wrote: "Science Fiction explores ideas.Fantasy explores worlds."
Weird. Especially since "exploring strange, new worlds" is literally part of the stated theme of the most famous sci-fi franchise extant.
Leigh wrote: "SSci-fi speculates in worlds much like our own, although it might import supernatural elements (soft sci-fi) or technological elements (hard sci-fi). As a rule, fantasy speculates in worlds that have much different rules and settings;"
I also find this statement a bit odd, too. I could probably name a dozen science fictional worlds that are far stranger than anything ever seen in fantasy. Forward's Dragon's Egg, Niven's Ringworld, Chalker's Well World, Baxter's Raft, Varley's Gaea, Lem's Solaris, Vinge's On/Off... you get the idea.
If I were to categorize the two genres broadly, I'd go more along the lines of
Science Fiction blazes trails,
Fantasy walks the beaten path.
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I addressed that earlier: yes, all literature is fantasy. While true, it's useless. And when on a top..."
But that's how I was being sarcastic and having my fun too! I like to throw those books that people threw at me for my lit studies! :( Love the way you added the definition to add extra condescension factor :p So what I would do too!
But anyway that said I have been thinking recently about opinions. It interests me how apparently to have one of these solid opinion one must back it up with other 'authorities' opinions. I just find it fascinating how we give more weight to those who have spent more years going through an education system. Note to self: must go through education system to likewise join the ranks of the authorities :p
Please note that all the above is my way of having fun too by making tongue in cheek comments. I have full respect for any academic minded person who can go on and study for such lengthy periods of time and write a thesis. My favourite (and best) teacher was writing hers while we were taught by her.