Quote:
Originally Posted by =X=
I've always been interested in why SF/Fantasy have always been bunched together. In my experience most people only read 1 genre either mostly SF or mostly Fantasy. Of those that read these categories which do you read?
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Your experience doesn't match mine. I've been involved in SF fan activities for many years, and know a
lot of people who read the genre, as well as a number of the folks who write it. We don't consider SF and fantasy to
be separate genres, but rather nebulous areas within an overall genre of fantastic literature. While some writers write one or the other, many do both, and while some readers prefer one or the other, most read both.
Fantasy first got established as a separate publishing category due to Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_, whose popularity spawned things like the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, edited by Lin Carter, and prompted publishers to look for things like LoTR they could publish.
For that matter, SF got established as a category by Hugo Gernsbach in the pulp days. SF stories had been appearing in the pulps for some time. Hugo was the first to give the category a name - "Scientifiction" - and publish magazines devoted to it - Amazing Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. It got called SciFi by Forrest J. Ackerman, as a contraction of Scientifiction, and somewhat to the dismay of may fans, the term stuck. Fans tend to prefer to call it SF, which can stand for Science Fiction or Speculative Fiction. (The late Judith Merrill once suggested in an SF anthology that it might stand for Space Fish.
)
A perennial question is where you draw the dividing line, and I'm not sure you
can. Consider cases like Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories, or the late Randall Garret's "Lord Darcy" stories.
Pern features a feudal society with a roughly medieval level of technology, but has fire breathing dragons partnered telepathically with human riders, fighting the period falls of parasitic "threads". Pern is actually a lost colony whose human inhabitants arrived by starship, and the dragons are the product of genetic engineering on the indigenous fire lizards. Civilization had been knocked back to primitive level by the thread falls, and the populace had forgotten their origins. Folks coming to the series in later books see only the feudal trappings, medieval technology, and fire-breathing dragons, and say "Aha! Fantasy!" because it has the fantasy tropes, but it's pure SF.
The "Lord Darcy" stories are alternate history, set in a world where King Richard the Lion Hearted settled down after being wounded in the Crusades to become a very good king indeed, and founded a Plantaganet dynasty that still exists. The British Empire is locked in conflict with the Polish Empire of King Casimir. Magic has been developed instead of science, and theoretical thaumaturgists use sophisticated mathematics to develop the structure of spells that will be cast by practicing magicians. (Being able to cast spells requires the Talent, which is genetically based and possessed by a minority.) Lord Darcy is Chief Criminal Investigator for his Grace, the Duke of Rouen, and his partner, Master Sorcerer Sean O'Lochlain uses forensic sorcery to uncover evidence that will help Lord Darcy solve the crime. The Darcy stories are worked up in best "hard" SF fashion, and were originally published in Analog SF Magazine under the editorship of the late John W. Campbell.
For that matter, consider Melissa Campbell's "Silence Leigh" stories. Silence is a sorceress in a society that uses alchemy as the underlying science, and together with her two husbands travels the stars in a ship powered by mystical forces. In Silence's universe, magic and science are
both valid paradigms to describe reality, but they are antithetical. If you use one, you
can't use the other. Are the Silence Leigh books SF or fantasy?
And we have Patricia Kenneally's "Celts in Space" series, in which Brendan the Navigator of Celtic lore is Brendan the Astrogator, leading the Tuatha De Danaan off Earth to found a Celtic stellar empire, still locked in conflict with their ancient enemies the Formorians. Celtia uses computers and starships to deliver armies to the battlefields where they will engage the enemy with swords, while mages cast spells in support. (In a not entirely satisfying rationale, Kenneally posits a general agreement among all parties that combat between warriors must be mano a mano, and things like artillery are only permitted against fixed fortifications, which allows her to have things like naked broadsword wielding Fian warriors, painted with woad, delivered to the field by starship. Magic and science both work in Kenneally's universe, though this is simply presented as a given and no attempt is made to explain how or why). Is it fantasy or SF? Yes.
I'm curious. You mentioned liking SF
movies, but preferring to read Fantasy
books. What is it that attracts you to fantasy in written form, but puts you off SF?
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Dennis