The Sword and Laser discussion
Why is fantasy more popular than scifi?
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CSI is crime fiction as is Dexter (in fact, from the later Dexter TV shows it seems to fit more in fantasy than SF but really its neither). Star trek and other tie-ins arent like the examples either since 1) they have developed over decades, not the last few years and 2) they're TV and movie tie-ins - directly connected to the main property. And no, tie-ins aren't the same as the wall of imitators listed above.
Face it, there a lot of imitation and trendhopping in fantasy that accounts for some of the popularity. It happens in other genres, but for whatever reason it's especially prevalent in fantasy at least at recently. Not sure why that seems to upset you so.
Rickg wrote: "Face it, there a lot of imitation and trendhopping in fantasy that accounts for some of the popularity. It happens in other genres, but for whatever reason it's especially prevalent in fantasy at least at recently. Not sure why that seems to upset you so. "BUT you have missed the thing that Darren and I have pointed out: all of these Imitators you keep listing are YA novels and not true fantasy (just like Hunger Games is not true SF even though it can be classified as such).
The trend right now? Assassin's. Its not this lovey-dovey-teen-angsty stuff you guys relate as fantasy.
Darren wrote: "Yes, there are trends in fantasy. But they're hardly unique to fantasy, or even unique at the moment."As I indicated in my other posts, trends permeate all entertainment. The British Invasion of the 1960s, or the sword-and-sandals epic films of the 1950s to all the Lost imitators networks have been trying lately. My point is that in Fantasy the trends are bigger and last longer than in Science Fiction.
Darren wrote: "CSI not sci-fi enough for you? How many Star Trek novels are out there, which are all variations on the same theme? Why are people still writing EU Star Wars novels/comics/games/fanfilms... Because I typed "lightsaber" in at Amazon and got a wall of books."
I also talked about Star Wars (et al) earlier. I think those are actually a separate issue, where a particular universe spawns numerous spin-offs. If you can point to a dozen Star Wars imitators, then we're talking parity, but that sort of thing isn't happening. There's some Space Opera, but it doesn't have the one-for-one similarities you see in a lot of these fantasy fads, nor the sheer numbers.
I have been saying for years that CSI is science fiction. Almost none of that stuff is real. But like the Star Wars/Warhammer kind of thing, it's a universe unto itself with few imitators. Sure, there are two spin-offs, but the only similar shows I can think of offhand are Criminal Minds and Bones, neither of which share CSI's popularity. Series like Numbers or NCIS might be considered in that broad genre, but I'd have a hard time drawing close parallels with CSI.
Darren wrote: "Second: All the books you listed were young adult books, except maybe the last one, so right away you have a problem: is the trend a fantasy trend or is it a YA trend? Because that's been a booming area in fiction for a while now."
I also mentioned Anne Rice, Patricia Briggs and Kelley Armstrong. None of them were writing for the YA market. It just so happens that those YA books were the ones which popped up. But if you type in the names of those women, you turn up dozens of imitators which are intended for adult audiences.
I don't think it's going out on a limb to claim that people like Lilith Saintcrow are consciously attempting to emulate those sorts of books. I see Carrie Vaughn, Sierra Dean, Kalayana Price, Ilona Andrews (wife & husband team), Stacey Jay, Karen Chance, Stacia Kane, Jenna Black... the list seems endless, and they're all writing books which are solidly in that exact "supernatural bad-ass chick" genre. Some are werewolves or witches or demons or fallen angels or Buffy/Faith analogues, but the stories have a serious cut-and-paste feel to them. I've read a few, and I honestly have a hard time telling them apart. Calling one woman a police detective, another a private investigator and a third someone who is minding her own damn business but gets pulled into a mystery "substantially different" would be hilarious. It's all occult crime romance. Put a wig on Charlize Theron and let her play every one of them. You'd never know the difference.
Kp wrote: "BUT you have missed the thing that Darren and I have pointed out: all of these Imitators you keep listing are YA novels and not true fantasy (just like Hunger Games is not true SF even though it can be classified as such)."How are those books not "true" Fantasy or "true" SF? That sounds like snobbery to me.
Twilight is Fantasy. Yes, it is *terrible*, but it's still Fantasy. The Hunger Games is Science Fiction, whether you like it or not. (I haven't read it, so I can't speak to the quality, but it's clearly SF.)
if it is fantasy you would be able to find it in the fantasy section. do these books have fantasy flares? sure. but having a splash of something does not completely define that thing as the splash.
these are YA books. I challenge you to find any of those above mentioned in the fantasy section of your library or your local bookstore
Darren wrote: "Just listened to Tom right now, from the podcast, and it seemed too on the nose to not quote him:"I feel like... we've sorta fallen into a rut, and absolutely no disrespect to the folks who write the space operas, because they are amazing writers. I am not denigrating them at all, but it does seem to be a lot of at the edge of the universe, at the edge of space, at the edge of something we find an alien artifact which we can't explain and that drives the plot."
Look, Rickg and Trike, I love sci-fi. But trying to say it's not trendy (popular) or not trendy (sometimes riding the coattails of other writers in the genre/following trends).... that position is untenable."
I didn't actually say that. What I said was that fads in SF don't last as long as fads in Fantasy.
Remember the Mars fad? Of course not. It lasted for five years, spawned a dozen books and died. That was the last big thing in sci-fi.
I'd be interested in hearing the list of books Tom is referring to.
I'm trying to think of a lot of Space Opera from the past five years... You've got your Leviathan Wakes and its sequel. Something alien there, I believe. I think the brief, white-hot supernova from 20 years ago spawned Miles Vorkosigan and Honor Harrington, who are still cooking along but are the sole survivors of that particular flare-up. There's R. M. Meluch's Tour of the Merrimack series. (Read the first two, don't recall aliens in there.) Ian Armstrong and Jack Campbell release about 20 books a year in their respective military sci-fi orgies. Maybe -- and it's a big maybe -- you could call Mike Shepherd's are-you-freaking-kidding-me-with-that-name Kris Longknife series a space opera. Kevin J. Anderson had something to do with aliens. Oh, and the crap John Ringo writes.
The only real stand-out is Scalzi's Old Man's War series.
I'm certainly forgetting some, but I don't see it equaling the "I was a teenage werewolf" list from earlier.
Certainly I've noticed it for years and years in terms of books. With the majority of scifi books on shelves tending to be tv/film tie-ins like Wars and Trek. I assumed the decline of SF was in part people favouring tv and film for scifi. And paranormal romance has made the amount of scifi seem even smaller.
I haven't really jumped into this argument since I'm not a seasoned SF or Fantasy reader. As a person who only recently seriously got into the genres with no prejudice for either genre, with the exception that I have a preference for art, math, science, and literature, I keep on discovering that SF has more depth than Fantasy. Even comparing the lists of top SF books vs. top Fantasy books, the SF books have varied topics dealing with deeper issues whereas Fantasy books have varied versions of kingdoms going to war. Comparing the last two books I read under the SF/Fantasy group, Stranger in a Strange Land has strong counter culture overtones while Tigana is about memory. SSL was executed smartly and with wit, if dated, whereas I wasn't impressed with how the idea of memory was executed in Tigana. I did read Van mention that Tigana was beautiful in its detailing of historical detail. I'm not a history buff, so I'll have to take his word for that.I have to admit that writers of Fantasy tend to be better in prose, but a talented prose writer can wax poetic about a telephone book, much like a talented singer can belt a song out of the telephone book. There are many people with great instruments for execution, but few with great ideas. Unfortunately, it's the ones with the great instruments that make the money, since they can belt out one mindless book after another, and people will keep on swallowing them without thinking. But that's just me. I prefer to look for something that makes me stop to think, and appreciate and wonder how it's built.
I recently don't mind saying that I like all the geeky stuff. It's warped to live in a culture in which saying that you want to be a rock star is cool, while saying you like art, literature, math and science is uncool. The rock stars wanna-be turn out to be old pot-bellied people whose biggest thrill is hopping around music shows and bars. It's much more interesting talking to people who like to delve deeply and understand things. There are so many beautiful things to learn that has been laid out. Classical music is beautiful in its structure and complexity, much like wondering about the structure of a crystal, whereas pop music is simple repetition and whining about a love gone wrong or some personal angst.
There will come a day when the popcorn books can be generated by a computer who can imitate a prose style or a certain popular idea. Only the writer with a thoughtful and unique idea will be able to stand out from a sea of computer generated books.http://www.sptimes.ru/story/24786
I think we've devolved into the age old question of what's the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy that got so many SF and Fantasy writers into deep doo-doo for decades.To clarify or perhaps to devolve further into doo-doo, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Science Fiction IS Fantasy. Here's the difference: Science Fiction follows the rules of science in the "real" world as the author understands it and keeps up with it while he or she is writing. Fantasy (which I'm considering the overall genre) follows rules established by the author that aren't the rules that apply to our own world. So, for me SF becomes a sub-genre of Fantasy. And then you have slipstream which follows some of the rules of our world and some imposed by the author. I think these differences are illustrated best by Michael Swanwick's experiments into writing an SF novel using Fantasy tropes, Stations of the Tide and a Fantasy novel using SF tropes, The Iron Dragon's Daughter.
For me, the question becomes, "Why are people at this period in time, more interested in fiction that doesn't follow the rules of our own world?" And it is true that as a genre in books, what falls in the category for publishers as Fantasy, outsells what falls in the category of Science Fiction, even though they're housed on the same shelf.
For me, it's because we live in a Philip K. Dick style Dystopia right now, and, to be honest, I really don't want to follow those rules in real life. So, when I read Paolo Bacigalupi's The Wind Up Girl, while I loved that book, it's way too close to the world I may be living in ten or twenty years from now. I spend my days signing petitions, attending meetings, being an activist fighting to move us away from that future. I need fantasy, YA books, and yes, even vintage kid's series books, etc. to get a break from all that. I used to be a strictly SF, non-series book guy. Now I prefer slipstream, 40's style noir hard-boiled detective mysteries and kid's series books.
Essentially, we're living in the future those popular 40's, 50's and 60's SF books were describing and we didn't end up in a positive Arthur C. Clarke world, living in interstellar space, meeting new alien buddies, we ended up in paranoid Philip K. Dick world, stuck back here on earth. Until we can find a hopeful, believable FUTURE SF, I think the genre will struggle. But that's a tall order. Our advancements come so quickly, it's difficult to write a believable near future SF story, so not very many people are doing it. The result is most SF is far future space travel that seems little more than fantasy today. So, why not go all the way when you're reading and break some of those physical laws that will be outmoded next week by some new discovery? Why not have the spaceships make noise in the vacuum of space and turn on a dime like in Star Wars? (I'll spare you my argument that Star Wars is more Quest Fantasy, not SF).
On a completely other note, I've noticed people talking a lot about current fantasy trends going back to Tolkien. Has anyone here done much Pre-Tolkien fantasy reading? I have to admit, my reading from that period is spotty at best. I've collected nearly all of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, but haven't actually read that many of them. My reading in SF is much more complete, so my perspectives probably lean in that direction. I've definitely noticed from others' comments here people definitely lean in one direction or another and it seems to color perspectives and knowledge on this topic greatly.
Star wrote: "I have found that fantasy is simply better written than most SciFi. More importantly, they generally do characterization better. Obviously, there are exceptions, Miles Vorkosigan for one. Howev..."Wow, that's totally untrue. The I Robot series is completely about people. The 3 rules of robotics being the framework and the main protagonist's (the detective) response to all the different problems that ensue. What else Robopacalypse, The Children of Men, The Ender series, hell the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. No story is going to be good if it doesn't have good characterization.
Kp wrote: "all of these Imitators you keep listing are YA novels and not true fantasy (just like Hunger Games is not true SF even though it can be classified as such)"I'm sorry, if you can call CSI science fiction, then you don't get to dispell all those other examples and "not real fantasy"
Also, teenage girls and middle-aged women aren't "real" fantasy fans? How bout you support that with ANY sort of logic.
Leslie wrote: "I'm sorry, if you can call CSI science fiction, then you don't get to dispell all those other examples and "not real fantasy"Also, teenage girls and middle-aged women aren't "real" fantasy fans? How bout you support that with ANY sort of logic."
For one, I never called CSI SF, even though some of their made up technology would almost classify it as an SF. I personally think it is more of a mystery than an SF. pay attention to who posts what please.
And second, I never said Teenage girls and middle aged women were not read fantasy fans. I said the majority of the listed books are read by teenage girls and middle aged women. Most of these readers would balk at the thought of reading something hardcore fantasy like LoTR, WoT, SoT, ASoIaF, Night Angel trilogy just to name a few. Do some read fantasy? yes. but the majority? no, they don't go far out of the Paranormal Romance setting.
Aloha wrote: "comparing the lists of top SF books vs. top Fantasy books, the SF books have varied topics dealing with deeper issues whereas Fantasy books have varied versions of kingdoms going to war"
That is a lofty statement with nothing to back it up. Expecially after stating:
Aloha wrote: I haven't really jumped into this argument since I'm not a seasoned SF or Fantasy reader"
Its interesting, on the last few pages you have been the main person that is denouncing fantasy as mindless dribble with no depth but good writers.
I just want to mention The Sword of Truth, first book Wizards First Rule.
It deals with a lot of ideas, one being the name of the book itself!
(view spoiler)
I can keep going with the in depth ideas developed and dealt with in fantasy books. The synopsis on the back might not state is plainly as other genres, but those ideas are there.
Darren - adjust your tone or we're not talking anymore. I've zero time or patience for being snarked at here. Go look up a CSI book on the LIbrary of Congress site or even Amazon. Those books are clearly shelved under several categories NONE of which is SF.
KP - even if we stipulate that the imitators are YA, that gets back to a question I asked upthread... what are we talking about? Fantasy has several popular sub genres right now, some of which border romance (the 'vaginal fantasy' stuff) and two of which (Twilight and Potter) are YA. Then there's the series question... the latest GRRM ASoIAF book will outsell almost anything else in either genre mostly because it's the latest in that series - there's built-in demand for the new books in a series (See Cryoburn for a recent SF example).
Until we define terms, the question of relative popularity isn't really answerable.
Rickg wrote: "Darren - adjust your tone or we're not talking anymore. I've zero time or patience for being snarked at here. Go look up a CSI book on the LIbrary of Congress site or even Amazon. Those books are..."
I would agree that either genre is too big for the question.
Ass for GRRM, his sudden mass in sales is definitely related to the tv show over just the books on their own.
David wrote: "To clarify or perhaps to devolve further into doo-doo, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Science Fiction IS Fantasy. Here's the difference: Science Fiction follows the rules of science in the "real" world as the author understands it and keeps up with it while he or she is writing. Fantasy (which I'm considering the overall genre) follows rules established by the author that aren't the rules that apply to our own world. So, for me SF becomes a sub-genre of Fantasy. And then you have slipstream which follows some of the rules of our world and some imposed by the author."This sort of statement hurts my heart and make my puppy cry.
Science Fiction is *not* a subgenre of Fantasy. It may have started out that way, but it's no longer true -- and hasn't been for decades. And slipstream? Slipstream is a bullshit marketing term aimed at hipsters who don't want to be caught reading "that Harry Potter crap."
Sorry, it's just that not calling a spade a spade annoys me to no end.
Here are the genre rules which are simple to follow:
Fantasy is the literature of the impossible. If it can't happen, then it's Fantasy.
Science Fiction is the literature of the possible. If it could happen, then it's SF.
There is no such thing as "crossover" fiction which is a little Fantasy and a little sci-fi. It's one or the other. These are now mutually exclusive genres. Fantasy says that there are things about the world which are unknowable and inexplicable. Science Fiction is the opposite, maintaining that the universe is understandable and quantifiable.
This even goes for the relatively young sub-genre of "Hard Fantasy" where the magic has rules, or there's a "system." Which I think comes from two things: people recognize on some level that science *works* and that nature has laws, and the influence of games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Games need to have rules, so Fantasy games follow certain rules, and that idea permeates the culture. And even the least-educated among us know that TVs don't work by fairy dust.
A lot of people will claim that things such as FTL and time travel are impossible, therefore they're Fantasy. Not so. We don't know for a fact that they aren't. I say that until they're disproved, we let them into the genre. Despite the contempt some of the participants in this thread have for physicists, some of the actual famous physics guys maintain that both FTL and time travel might be workable. I'm going to take their word for it.
But we know you can't hold a wooden stick and say some mumbo-jumbo and send great gouts of flame at bad guys. So that's Fantasy.
We also know that a character like Mr. Spock is biologically impossible, as is a bunch of the other stuff in Star Trek. So technically -- despite the tropes of the various series, movies and novels -- Trek is Fantasy. You can call it SF if you want, but really you're getting hung up on the iconography of the thing rather than the underlying structure. It's not seeing the forest for the trees.
I want to say that this doesn't make Star Trek *bad* or anything -- it's just that it works best as allegory and you're better off not trying to work out the science behind the goings-on. there's a reason people call the fanciful dialogue "Treknobabble" after all.
Leslie wrote: "Star wrote: "I have found that fantasy is simply better written than most SciFi. More importantly, they generally do characterization better. Obviously, there are exceptions, Miles Vorkosigan fo..."I respectfully disagree. I've read a lot of sci fi and agree there are exceptions to the character issue.
However, I could specifically point to the Mars series by KSR as one of the series where not a single character made a mark on me and I ended up seriously disliking and being bored by the books.
OSC writes great characters with whom you empathize, though after reading many of them they are very similar in feel. And I've read just about everything he's written. For a long time he was my favorite author. He also writes a fair bit of fantasy.
Whereas fantasy authors like Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss and even some of the urban fantasy authors like Patricia Briggs create emotionally involving characters that react (mostly) in psychologically consistent ways.
I discussed this once with Vernor Vinge. One of my favorite stories of his was Marooned in Realtime, because he was able to emotionally draw me in with well drawn characters as well as the well explained cool ideas. He and I chatted about the importance of being able to draw in your reader emotionally as well as the cool ideas and both agreed that was what OSC was particularly good. Vernor admitted that this is something with which he struggles.
Maybe the more important component is being able to emotionally engage your readers, but character is an big piece of that.
This might also explain the popularity of romance in all its subtypes, by creating these (unreal) sexy characters it gives you the sense of being emotionally pulled in, even if it's in a superficial way. (I'm reading some for Felicia's Vaginal Fantasy club.) They simply don't compare to the very real feeling Fitz and his torments and trials. (Robin Hobb)
KP - The HBO series has certainly helped GRRM's sales but even before that there was heavy demand for new books in the series... demand that was mostly driven by people who'd read the series to that point and wanted to continue. This is true of any successful series of course, not just fantasy ones. My point is that more fantasy seems to be series (vs standalone) than in SF, so to some degree this affects sales. If a lot of a genre's new releases in a year are new entries in series that have done well then they will probably sell better than if most of the new releases were standalones. trike - very much agree on the 'everything is Fantasy" argument - that doesn't work for me either. However, this caught my eye:
There is no such thing as "crossover" fiction which is a little Fantasy and a little sci-fi. It's one or the other. These are now mutually exclusive genres. Fantasy says that there are things about the world which are unknowable and inexplicable. Science Fiction is the opposite, maintaining that the universe is understandable and quantifiable.
I think there's a crossover realm where the science is either not possible given what we know or very improbable. Where this line is drawn varies.. for some it's the use of anything that violates physical laws as we now understand them, so FTL is out, etc. For others, one or two exceptions like that are OK, but permeating a book with them isn't. For example, Hamilton's Dreaming Void has a scene where one character fights off a bunch of bad guys by throwing energy at them. The energy is 'explained' as being a kind of nanotechnology within his cells but it's basically handwavium... there's no real difference between that and saying "then the mage conjured fire..."
Kp wrote: "if it is fantasy you would be able to find it in the fantasy section. do these books have fantasy flares? sure. but having a splash of something does not completely define that thing as the splash..."
Where a bookstore shelves something is utterly immaterial to which genre it belongs to.
People used to claim that the way Blockbuster shelved movies determined which genre they were in. An argument which fell apart when I pointed out that Blockbuster didn't have a Western section. (In later years they added one, but originally they didn't have it.) They went for better than a decade before they called anything a Western. Poor Butch and Sundance, sorry Duke.
Blockbuster also used to put movies like The Big Chill and The Great Waldo Pepper under Comedy. The Big Chill I can sort of understand, even if I would come down on the Drama side of the equation because of the serious themes tackled. But Waldo Pepper? If you laugh at anything in that movie then you need to have your meds adjusted. (I guess they thought it was particularly hilarious when Robert Redford beat Edward Herrmann to death with a wing strut so he wouldn't burn to death.)
Two towns where I live are back-to-back and share the same library system. One of them files everything that is Science Fiction and Fantasy under "Sci-Fi." The other has separate labels for each. Which one is right?
Kp - personally, I'm using the Library of Congress' classifications for this discussion. Otherwise you get into personal opinions such as that CSI is SF which makes the discussion basically impossible.The challenge here is that a novel like The Dreaming Void (see above post) is classed as SF and probably IS, but there are certain elements that feel like fantasy. It's never 100% clear.
Rickg wrote: "I think there's a crossover realm where the science is either not possible given what we know or very improbable. Where this line is drawn varies.. for some it's the use of anything that violates physical laws as we now understand them, so FTL is out, etc. For others, one or two exceptions like that are OK, but permeating a book with them isn't."If it's impossible, then it's Fantasy. Easy peasy.
By having that simple yet hard-and-fast rule, we can then turn our geeky attention to attacking or defending whether FTL is possible or impossible.
I'm actually pretty easy when it comes to this stuff: if we don't know for sure, then we should let it into the genre. We know for a fact that Spock is impossible. Just having *sex* with a Vulcan male would very likely kill a human woman, or at least make her incredibly ill. Vulcans have copper-based blood and we have iron-based blood. Look up "copper toxicity" and see what would happen to Spock's mom.
then most SF is fantasy trike. ALL FTL bearing SF is fantasy if you have the hard and fast rule that if it's impossible it's Fantasy. We can get into fanciful debates about it, but there's no indication at all that FTL is possible. That rule leaves us with so-called Mundane SF.But the other reason hard and fast rules don't really work for me is that there are some things that seem very improbable... but not 100% impossible. Read Reynolds' House of Suns... the travel is all light speed or below, but the characters have lived 6 million years with much of that spend in perfect stasis as they journey from place to place. Even so, they've spend tens of thousands of years awake. Are either of those things (stasis and very long life) possible? Probably not... but we can't rule them out.
The way I look at this is that SF posits some future, imposes a certain change of a usually technological sort and then asks "what now?" It might ask you to accept something that's currently not possible (FTL, super long life) but the story's really about the world in which that stuff exists. It's SF to ask "OK, the aliens have made contact..." or "We've discovered that FTL is possible" or "the environment has collapsed...." or "We now have ubiquitous surveillance...".
All of this makes me want to write something where genetic engineering creates elves... hmm... :)
Trike, your entire post hurts my heart and makes me want to puppy cry. Your post is a rediculous statement. Conversely, if we want to go on about what we do NOT know, how do you know that ancient witches, warlocks, priests and what have you did not actually practice magic in the same sense of the way we think of it today? how do you know that? how do you know that another race on another planet cannot use magic?
as you said, we are talking about what is probable/possible right? So prove to me that magic for ancient wiccans wasn't real.
You can't prove it. I can't prove it either. Does that make it not possible? no.
ask a physisist to prove tht FTL works. he can't. he can spout of a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and call it FTL and we can call it SF.
I have no idea why we are even talking about calling Star Treck fantasy because it is SF. it has been labelled SF for decades and that is not about to change because one character is biologically impossible right now.
Btw, we get it, you love SF. We are not telling you your genre is stupid, or not worth the money or not as well written. the post was to understand why fantasy seems more popular than SF.
Let us boil the difference between fantasy and SF into a much simpler, less caustic definition:
Fantasy: Swords/Sorcery/Medieval
Science Fiction: Guns/Technology/Space
I think that those words describe the two genres more than magic and realism.
I agree that this discussion encompasses genre's that are too big for a decisive decision. and maybe we should talk about comparible sub genres instead.
Star wrote: "Maybe the more important component is being able to emotionally engage your readers, but character is an big piece of that."I think this is very accurate. If we cannot at least understand how the main character is feeling or how he connects the dots in his decision making, we can probably like the book.
I think that having big ideas are great but You still have to have good characters to pull it off. If a reader can't stand your main character, they won't want to continue reading about them no matter how interesting or though provoking the idea is.
Oh but the thing with books is that we CAN define them by where they are in a bookstore. You see, with Books, they are published by companies that, more often than not, specialize in a certain genre. Wizards of the Coast - Fantasy, Luna - Female lead fantasy. Sure there are book publishers out there that do more than one genre. Besides, on the back of very fantasy book I own, just above and beside the barcode it says: Fantasy.
When did it become me that actually said CSI was SF? Not once did i say that. I said its mystery. its a crime drama. it has elements of SF because some of the tech they use doesnt exist yet. Not once did i say it was SF. Spock would be less likely to be born due to genetic incompatiblity. Not because volcan's had copper based blood (seeing as the mother and the fetus do not share the same blood anyways, they are a closed system). But then again one could argue that future tech and human evolution could allow for the genetic mutation to allow for such a pregnancy.
Kp - please don't call other people or their arguments 'ridiculous'. There's a pretty defensive/snarky/superior tone from some of the fantasy posters here and it's off-putting and makes me want to just bow out of the discussion. From Star's assertion that of course fantasy is better written, to Darren's CSI thing, it really comes across as off-putting.As for positing that magic for ancient wiccans was real... please. Can we PROVE that it didn't exist? No. You cannot prove a negative. The scientific approach would be to find evidence that supports your assertion that magic then was real... in other words the party making an assertion has to provide something to back that up; the burden of proof is on the side of the people who are asserting that magic was real in ancient times. Otherwise we fall into a muddled discussion where anything goes. In this case I'd also want to see evidence of why magic no longer exists. You can kind of find this in AA Attanasio's Radix where he tries to come up with a sciency sounding reason at least. But that's fiction of course.
Rick wrote: "Kp - please don't call other people or their arguments 'ridiculous'. There's a pretty defensive/snarky/superior tone from some of the fantasy posters here and it's off-putting and makes me want to..."The point was you can't prove that FTL or Magic is not possible. His entire argument was to base what was impossible as fantasy and what was probable as SF. doesn't work like that. And for why we don't have Magic any more? we forgot how to do it. Religion has more or less stamped out magic.
The whole point of saying it was rediculous is because that is pretty much what he has said to other peoples points. It is a little agressive of a way to go about it and I appologize.
Rick, my point with GRRM is that since HBO GRRM has his own table and his own bay of shelves in bookstores. 4 years ago there was no table and no more books than The Sword of Truth or Wheel of Time had on the shelves.
Kp wrote: "Rick wrote: "Kp - please don't call other people or their arguments 'ridiculous'. There's a pretty defensive/snarky/superior tone from some of the fantasy posters here and it's off-putting and mak..."Yeah, as I have satated before, without the HBO series A Dance with Dragons would have been long out of the New York Times Bestseller, at the latest last year, but more likely by the fall. Also I tried to recommand the sereis to many people before HBO, many of them just ignored my recommendation, even people who read fantasy all the time.
If amazon ratings mean anything, the Dance with Dragons was the worst yet.
Yeah, but Amazon ratings actually mean next to nothing, so...
If you look at the statistics on it and the reviews, basicly people have found that the book has gotten too big for the story to advance quickly enough for the satisfication of the length between books. People liked it others didnt. I think its average rating was 2.9 over all but that depends on the edition. Personally I dislike with a passion ASoIaF so I might be a little biased.
Rick wrote: "then most SF is fantasy trike. ALL FTL bearing SF is fantasy if you have the hard and fast rule that if it's impossible it's Fantasy. We can get into fanciful debates about it, but there's no indication at all that FTL is possible. That rule leaves us with so-called Mundane SF.But the other reason hard and fast rules don't really work for me is that there are some things that seem very improbable... but not 100% impossible. Read Reynolds' House of Suns... the travel is all light speed or below, but the characters have lived 6 million years with much of that spend in perfect stasis as they journey from place to place. Even so, they've spend tens of thousands of years awake. Are either of those things (stasis and very long life) possible? Probably not... but we can't rule them out. "
I guess I'll just repeat what I've already said.
Impossible = Fantasy. Improbable = Science Fiction.
Rod Serling once said, "Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible." A good Fantasy writer gets you to believe that these completely impossible things are entirely possible. But when discussing genre, we have to remember that they *aren't*. That's not a statement about the quality of the writing or the enjoyment one might derive from it, simply putting something in its proper category.
I keep saying that if we don't know for sure, then it can be SF. Physicists like Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and others have postulated that both FTL and Time Travel -- however unlikely or improbable -- can NOT be absolutely ruled out as impossible.
Those guys are smarter than I am, so if they say, "Hey, maybe it's possible," then I say we let it into the genre.
Same with nanotechnology. Lots of wild-eyed, blue-sky assertions were made about it in the early days, and some now say that we won't be able to make machines that tiny actually operate because they start being affected by quantum effects. But we don't know for sure, so I say "Let it in!"
Some biologists are now saying that it might be possible to turn off aging. If we can keep the caps on our telomeres and reverse the damage we accrue from general living -- via nanotechnology or a form of genetic engineering of humans and our microbes -- then we might live for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. Or possibly not die at all.
Improbable, sure. But there are a lot of indications that it's not impossible. Not impossible = science fiction.
Like I said, I'm easy that way.
Rick wrote: "All of this makes me want to write something where genetic engineering creates elves... hmm... :)"
Taking your last line first, that's EXACTLY what I've been talking about. (And I'm fairly sure I posted something similar in this very thread.)
Arthur C. Clarke's famous 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Lots of people think that gives sci-fi writers free rein to just make shit up, but what Clarke was talking about is technology so advanced that we simply don't understand it. That's a moving bar. If you went back 500 years and showed someone your iPad, they'd think you were a magician. 500 years from now who knows what might be possible? What would that look like to us?
A unicorn in a Fantasy is different from a unicorn in Science Fiction. It's a magical being. In some stories they hatch from eggs, while in others they are cursed princesses. In some they eat flesh, in others they eat only a magical flower. In Science Fiction a unicorn is just a horse that's been genetically engineered to have a horn. (And how long before that happens? Sooner rather than later, I'll bet. You think the parties of rich kids are outrageous NOW, wait until they can have unicorns and dragons and miniature dinosaurs.
Kp wrote: "Btw, we get it, you love SF. We are not telling you your genre is stupid, or not worth the money or not as well written. the post was to understand why fantasy seems more popular than SF."
I have never said that Fantasy is bad. I have said that DERIVATIVE fantasy is bad. Go look at my reviews and you'll see that two of my favorite books from last year were Fantasies. In fact, the ONLY 5-star ratings I gave to literature in 2011 went to Fantasies.
Kp wrote: "Oh but the thing with books is that we CAN define them by where they are in a bookstore. You see, with Books, they are published by companies that, more often than not, specialize in a certain genre. Wizards of the Coast - Fantasy, Luna - Female lead fantasy. Sure there are book publishers out there that do more than one genre.
Besides, on the back of very fantasy book I own, just above and beside the barcode it says: Fantasy.
No, you can't define which genre something belongs in by appealing to the "authority" of a bookstore or publisher. Publishers -- and even authors, as we've discussed before -- will intentionally avoid labeling something Sci-Fi or Fantasy in order to avoid the stigma associated with them. Fortunately that stigma is fading, but it still exists in many older readers and writers today.
I have yet to see any technothriller labeled Science Fiction, but that's what they are. The Hunt for Red October is every bit a piece of science fiction as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Virtually every James Bond movie includes one or more element of science fiction to it. But no one labels them as science fiction.
And they're wrong.
Plus, as I mentioned upthread, no two publishers, bookstores, video stores or even *libraries* can agree on what these genres are and which stories belong where. So do us all a favor and stop using them as your go-to authority on the matter.
Kp wrote: "Spock would be less likely to be born due to genetic incompatiblity. Not because volcan's had copper based blood (seeing as the mother and the fetus do not share the same blood anyways, they are a closed system). But then again one could argue that future tech and human evolution could allow for the genetic mutation to allow for such a pregnancy."Yeah... you're just wrong about this. Read a biology book. You're also wrong about the magic thing. There is no magic, there never has been, and trying to redefine the word is pointless.
If they called medicine "magic" then it wasn't magic. It was medicine. Just because a word changed doesn't mean the THING changed.
Did you know that all food used to be called "meat"? Yes, even fruits and vegetables. Even today you'll sometimes hear people refer to "green meat." What they mean are things like lettuce and broccoli. But it's not called meat any more. They are called fruits and vegetables. They aren't meat.
Do you understand what I'm saying here?
So Trike, what makes fantasy seem to be more popular than SF?
Trike wrote: "Yeah... you're just wrong about this. Read a biology book. You're also wrong about the magic thing. There is no magic, there never has been, and trying to redefine the word is pointless.Just so we are both on the same page, How am i wrong about "this"?
And as for magic not being real, How can you know for sure? how can you be 100% positive that magic isnt real and that FTL is possible?
Trike wrote: "No, you can't define which genre something belongs in by appealing to the "authority" of a bookstore or publisher."Right. So who exactly defines a book as a certain genre then?
I doubt that any author or publishing company would be scared to publish anything as fantasy or SF in the last 30 years.
Kp wrote: "Trike wrote: "No, you can't define which genre something belongs in by appealing to the "authority" of a bookstore or publisher."Right. So who exactly defines a book as a certain genre then?
I d..."
Books that are labeled as a certein genre do seem to be avoided by a lot of readers and some authors avoid the words "science fiction" for that reason. Vonnegut springs to mind.
I have a friend who loves Michael Crichton books but won't read anything labeled science fiction. The label just turns some off because they think it connotes something that is juvenile or low class. That's why it was such a big deal in the 50's when a few genre authors like Heinlein started to get a few stories published in non-genre magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. It brought a little respectability to the field but it still has a long way to go.
Trike wrote: "David wrote: "To clarify or perhaps to devolve further into doo-doo, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Science Fiction IS Fantasy. Here's the difference: Science Fiction follows the r..."You see, here's the problem. We can find books written, let's say, in 1955 or 1975 for that matter, that completely followed what was viewed as probable by scientists when they were written. They were labeled Science Fiction. But today, using our current scientific knowledge, that science has been proven wrong. Do we then re-label the book Fantasy? Unfortunately the barriers between Fantasy and Science Fiction are completely malleable, depending on what's thought to be pprobable when we look at the book.
Personally, I've always preferred the terms Speculative Fiction or Fantastic Fiction. One is relatively new, the other very old. Both have the advantage of encompassing both Fantasy and Science Fiction and never having to figure out where all of these books fit.
Kp wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I'm sorry, if you can call CSI science fiction, then you don't get to dispell all those other examples and "not real fantasy"Also, teenage girls and middle-aged women aren't "real"..."
"oh and btw its Teenage girls and middle aged women who consume this stuff, not the actual fantasy readers. All that stuff is is mind candy. That is if you can stand the teen angsty love stuff."
This is direct quote. I mean, if you want to argue semantics, fine. But you did imply that teenage girls and middle aged women are not actual fantasy readers. You know, you accused people of behaving as if sci-fi was superior. I find it funny that you are not arguing not only for the superiority of Fantasy, but also the superiority of certain readers. Looks like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Star wrote: "Leslie wrote: "However, I could specifically point to the Mars series by KSR as one of the series where not a single character made a mark on me and I ended up seriously disliking and being bored by the books."I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that point because I have a feeling that you and I disagree of what makes a good character. I don't really have to like the character to think they are written well. They just have to be believable. Admittedly many of the characters in the Mars trilogy are unlikeable, but they are ALL believable. What I like most about the characters in those books is how human they are. Selfish, short-sighted, frail, histrionic, grandiose, arrogant and stubborn, just like people in real life.
Rick wrote: "I think there's a crossover realm where the science is either not possible given what we know or very improbable. Where this line is drawn varies.. for some it's the use of anything that violates physical laws as we now understand them, so FTL is out, etc. For others, one or two exceptions like that are OK, but permeating a book with them isn't. For example, Hamilton's Dreaming Void has a scene where one character fights off a bunch of bad guys by throwing energy at them. The energy is 'explained' as being a kind of nanotechnology within his cells but it's basically handwavium... there's no real difference between that and saying "then the mage conjured fire..."I totally agree. I just read a sci fi/speculative fiction/fantasy series, "Lilith's Brood". The aliens possess not only superior technology, but also a sort of psychokinetic power that allows them to chemically and mentally bond and control people. Little bit of column A, little bit of column B
Science Fiction was originally designed to be fictional accounts of human interactions involving current scientific hypothesis, theory, and discovery. So, that's what science fiction is for me. FTL travel is science fiction because it's based on scientific hypothesis and theory. Wizards are fantasy because they are based on the mythological imagination of human beings. Fiction in and of itself is about things that haven't happened. So the argument about whether one genre is more "real" than the other is a moot point. If it really happened, it's not fiction. Probability is based solely on our current knowledge of the world. So, something that is improbable at one point in time may became a factual reality at another point. Take the shape of the earth. At one point in history it was believed that everyone would fall off the planet if they ventured too far out. This was believed to be fact. Now we know better.
The great thing about science, and what is likely most confusing to people, is it's ability to change according to knowns and unknowns, and unknown knowns. Try not to mistake complexity as "mumbo jumbo"
Leslie, I stated that the people who usually read paranormal romance tend to not read main stream fantasy. some of them might but more often than not they won't touch a fantasy book. you can quote that line all you want but what I said is true. I also didn't say it was bad. I happen to enjoy mind candy books. I'm a little tired of the girl falling in live with two guys, and always ending up with the bad boy.
but not once did I argue that fantasy is better. I argue that some things are not fantasy, but not that one is better than the other. if my post could be misinterpreted as coming off that way, I appologise. it was not the intention of the post nor the argument I was trying to make (that fantasy is just as good/intelligent as any other genre out there). I just happen to dissagree on having YA paranormal romance classified as fantasy when it isn't.
even as much as Trike insists that if a book has a small element of fantasy, a small element does not change its larger theme and does not change its genre
David wrote: Personally, I've always preferred the terms Speculative Fiction or Fantastic Fiction. One is relatively new, the other very old. Both have the advantage of encompassing both Fantasy and Science Fiction and never having to figure out where all of these books fit.Agreed. If the two were so IMPOSSIBLY, INCREDIBLY, IRREVOCABLY different, so completely opposite, I'd have to wonder why so many sf writers also write fantasy, and vice-versa, and why they share so much of the same audience. "Speculative fiction" still has some negative baggage thanks to Margaret Atwood and "fantastic fiction" can be a bit confusing in some contexts (because it can mean two different things), so I like the Slavic/John-Clutified term "Fantastika"...which sounds cool and also comes out of an E. European literary culture that has far more respect for fantasy/science fiction in academic circles than here in North America and the UK.
Leading question, your honor. I move to strike.
I'm loving the term, "Fantastika." I have to agree there's issues involved with both Speculative Fiction and Fantastic Fiction. So, "Fantastika" gets my vote. I'm just remembering, there was a country where they were calling all Science Fiction Cyberpunk, because it wouldn't sell otherwise. I can't remember what country it was, probably some Western European country that felt they couldn't call it FANTASTIKA. Such a loss.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (other topics)The Hunt for Red October (other topics)
Tigana (other topics)
Stranger in a Strange Land (other topics)
Silver Moon (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Kelley Armstrong (other topics)Patricia Briggs (other topics)
Neil Gaiman (other topics)
N.K. Jemisin (other topics)
Stephen R. Donaldson (other topics)
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It is interesting that you mention Kelley Armstrong, seeing as her books are techniquely in the horror section.
To be honest though, I do not think that "werewolf/vampire" books are fantasy. With its growing trend I do believe that it has become its own genre, mainly because I don't think that the generic titles of "Fantasy" "Horror or "Urban Fantasy" really do it justice.
I propose a New Genre classification: Twilight, City of "blank", the above mentioned books be now labelled as "Occult". or perhaps label them under "Romantic Occult"
oh and btw its Teenage girls and middle aged women who consume this stuff, not the actual fantasy readers. All that stuff is is mind candy. That is if you can stand the teen angsty love stuff.
Random side point though, you will not find a single one of those books in the fantasy aisle in Chapters/Indigo (exception is Briggs). And I doubt a single one is labelled fantasy. YA sure. Fantasy? pretty loose association.
Edit: Paranormal or Paranormal Romance would also work