Why lump SF and Fantasy together

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly there's fantasy horror, and SF horror, I agree. But there's also a lot of "real world" horror, and it's that latter type that I don't personally think can be lumped in the SF/Fantasy category.

Fair enough.

I'd have thought a good 90% of horror is fantasy horror though, and the real world horror could mostly be classed as thrillers.

[piperclassique]

You could do a Venn diagram....

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by piperclassique

You could do a Venn diagram....

It's almost a case of horror being in a dimension that's orthogonal to "genre". "Horror" is more of a way of treating the subject matter that can be applied to pretty much any genre. You can have horror fantasy, horror SF, horror crime, horror thriller - even horror cookery .

[DrNefario]

Horror is rarely shelved with SF&F, though.

I'm quite happy with that, since I'm not very interested in it, but it is odd. (I'd like to see Urban Fantasy lumped with the Horror, or safely segregated where I don't have to see it, too, but I guess I can't have everything. It just makes the Fantasy chart on Amazon UK largely useless.)

[applesauce]

I want to know how paranormal romance made it into sci fi and fantasy. It just doesn't seem right to have all that angst and whining for somebody to love me being anything sci fi or fantasy. If you ask for top sci fi and fantasy books on amazon over half are these awful paranormal romances.

applesauce

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

even horror cookery .

You've met the missus then

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It's easy to say "Tolkein is fantasy; Heinlein is science fiction; Lovecraft is horror."

Henry Gee wrote a book called The Science of Middle-earth:

By now, it should come as no particular surprise to anyone that the genres of science fiction and fantasy have a strong following in the scientific community. The Science of Middle-earth marks the latest in a recent spate of publishing to use a popular story as a springboard to advance the public discussion of science. As a zoologist and author of several books on vertebrate evolution, and an editor of Nature, Gee uses his considerable store of scientific knowledge in his approach to Middle-earth. His premise is that this place is presented as an intact world and therefore subject to the same scientific scrutiny as any other ecosystem. He blends scientific knowledge with theory and imagination to extrapolate what could be: how Fëanor might have used materials now only conjectured to exist to grow the palantíri, what physiological traits would be necessary for dragons to fly, and how string theory might explain something of how the Ring functions. Such extrapolations, of course, lie at the very heart of science–and likewise at the heart of fantasy. Playing upon this intrinsic connection, the author applies a number of scientific disciplines to explain and explore the wonders of Middle-earth.

If you go by the definition that it is called SF if it is possible, you end up with Tolkein is SF.

Originally Posted by piperclassique

You could do a Venn diagram....

Someone already did:

[owly]

"Bizzaro"?

[QuantumIguana]

I think of science fiction and fantasy as being a "meta-genre", they do blur together. Most science fiction conventions are really science fiction and fantasy conventions, they coexist quite well. As far as horror goes, some fits into the SF&F meta-genre, some doesn't. A horror convention includes quite a lot that you probably wouldn't find at a science fiction convention. I don't read paranormal, but I don't see why it wouldn't fit into SF&F. Angst and whining might make it annoying, but they don't seem to change the category.

Then of course there are people going tooth and claw insisting that this or that isn't "real" science fiction. The best definition of "hard science fiction" that I have seen is "science fiction that you like".

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by owly

"Bizzaro"?

Apparently it's supposed to be spelled "bizarro" (from wiki):

Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre, which often utilizes elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque, along with pop-surrealism and genre fiction staples, in order to create subversive works that are as weird and entertaining as possible.

[QuantumIguana]

There's no reason that western and crime can't overlap with science fiction and fantasy. Wild Wild West was steampunk set in the west. And it seems every science fiction series sooner or later does a western episode. Science fiction and crime can coexist quite well. I've read several of Asimov's mysteries.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's almost a case of horror being in a dimension that's orthogonal to "genre". "Horror" is more of a way of treating the subject matter that can be applied to pretty much any genre. You can have horror fantasy, horror SF, horror crime, horror thriller - even horror cookery .

David Farland has a theory:
http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/07/h...ould-harm.html

I'm convinced that people read stories primarily for emotional impact. If we wanted information, we'd be reading news magazines. If we wanted beautiful language, we'd go for poetry. If we wanted insight, we might be reading philosophical texts.

But when we read a story, we go to it looking for a number of things. We might hope to be surprised by the twists that take place in a murder mystery. We might read a romance looking to fall in love with a protagonist. We might pick up a science fiction novel hoping to be swept off to a wondrous new world--and so on.

So when a reader picks up a story, he or she begins looking almost instantly to see if these kinds of emotional needs are going to be met.

In fact, have you ever noticed that we don’t really have genres? We tend to buy our books based upon the emotions that they promise to arouse—romance, thrills, horror, wonder (in SF and fantasy), justice in Westerns, and so on.

I'd say that horror can be an element in any story but that Horror *genre* stories exist primarily to shock and give the reader an adrenaline rush.
(Just as romance can be a part of any kind of story, even Horror, but that Romance stories are built around the relationship as the core element.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I think it's as simple as those who designate genres and groupings seeing SF and fantasy both as "not real," and therefore can be grouped together.

I agree with Harry's assessment of horror being an "orthogonal" genre; adventure falls into the same category, often retaining the overriding adventure label even when it includes SF or fantasy elements (as example, the Indiana Jones movies).

[DiapDealer]

We're lumpers. We lump ... and we bundle. It's a human pastime.

Genre fiction
American
Contact sports
ROIs

Besides, it's not as if putting science-fiction and fantasy on the same shelf is causing kittens to be drowned. To those for whom the distinction is clear ... the distinction is clear. To the rest ... the distinction doesn't matter.

[Mel]

I'm a lumper. I got so sick of trying to parse the finer points of gendre when tagging books in Calibre that I eliminated all the commonly used tags (urban fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, horror, fantasy, space opera) in favor of three of my own: fantasy - historical; fantasy - contemporary; fantasy - futuristic. If it has elements I wouldn't see in my ordinary life it gets designated as fantasy and I pick the time period it belongs to. This system wouldn't work for anyone but me but it ended the paralysis of decision. And still sometimes I think I should add a "mutt" tag for books that refuse to stay put even in categories as broad as the ones I've created.