Science Fiction vs Fantasy

[Neil Clarke]

I'm a bit late to the conversation, but from my perspective (a few years as a bookseller, then publisher and magazine editor) science fiction has the lead over fantasy in the short form. It seems to lend it self better to that length than fantasy.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Avoid anything by James P. Hogan that isn't "Inherit the Stars", "The Gentle Giants of Ganymede", and "Giants' Star". Turns out that he wasn't all that great after that.

I completely disagree. I have pretty much everything he wrote, and the vast majority of his books are, IMHO, very good.

[starrigger]

For Bujold's Vorkosigan series, I think A Warrior's Apprentice is the best starting point for someone new to the series. It gets you into the story fast, doesn't require knowledge of the earlier history, is great fun and great character building, and if you like it, then you can march straight forward from there and pick up the backstory when you feel like it.

And by the way, most of the Vorkosigan books are available in omnibus collections in ebook from Baen. Ridiculously low priced, or at least they were when I bought them.

[crich70]

I've always thought that SF and Fantasy were two sides of the same coin. If something is done by pushing a button it's science fiction, but if it's done by mumbling magic words then it's fantasy. Granted there are different shades of both so there isn't a clear cut dividing line between them but even in the early days of Science Fiction there was a touch of Fantasy. Cavorite is an example of that. Wells used it to get his characters from the Earth to the Moon where as Verne used a more hard science approach. Wells invention of the Time Machine is another bit of fantasy if you think about it as he used 19th century technology (the 1st steampunk) to create his Time Machine. On the other hand he did extrapolate a break between social classes (the Morlocks and Eloi) in the distant future. So there was a bit of Science Fiction and Fantasy mixed together even then.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Not a bad way to put it; but remember, SF doesn't merely use science, it investigates scientific concepts, and how those concepts impact individuals and society. That's why The Time Machine is SF and not fantasy. And I'd say that a great deal of the most memorable SF is of that type.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Not a bad way to put it; but remember, SF doesn't merely use science, it investigates scientific concepts, and how those concepts impact individuals and society. That's why The Time Machine is SF and not fantasy. And I'd say that a great deal of the most memorable SF is of that type.

Exactly.
SF uses scientific development and ideas as the *core* of the story, not merely as window dressing for an arbitrary story. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE starts out with the insight that time is as much a direction as up or down and then he explores that idea by extrapolating a future from the world he observed. That is (of course) "classic" SF story-building.
He didn't use the Time Machine to craft a story about romantic relationships or a locked-room murder mystery (both of which have been done) but rather to explore the social tensions induced by the 19th century industrial revolution in early 20th Century Britain. (Note that, unlike the movie version, Wells saw no need for a heroine or a romantic interest to gild the narrative with emotion.)

The divide between the eloi and morlock was meant as a cautionary tale, not merely a clever setting for an adventure, which makes THE TIME MACHINE most precisely a SF story of the "...if this goes on" variety (in Heinlein parlance). And, despite the titular device, it is SF of the so-called "soft" humanistic type that became more prevalent 40 years or so later, more concerned with human psychology and social trends than the hardware. (Chad Oliver, Ursula LeGuin, etc)

Verne is easily identified as an early writer of the Hard Science & Technology school of SF but Wells was more interested in the impact of Science and Technology on people, politics, and the world at large. Just as Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut, and more often than not, Sturgeon. SF is about ideas but it is also about people and their role in the universe.

For me, the most concise guide to what is SF is Heinlein's.
(http://www.amazon.com/The-Craft-Scie.../dp/0064634574)
He said there were really only four types of SF stories:

- If this goes on... (Extrapolation)
- What if... (Disruption)
- If only... (Innovation)
- "The little tailor"... (The hero's journey)

It is only in the latter category that there can be much overlap with fantasy and adventure. And even there it shouldn't be hard to tell the difference as long as you remember that there is way more to SF than just the Hard SF school.

SF is a broad and influential field so its trappings can be found far and wide, especially in these days of high concept- and SFX-driven movies and TV but it is still easy to tell the difference between SF and the rest: just ask yourself "what is this story really about?"

If its all an extended chase scene, its an adventure story; if it is about a relationship, it is a romance. If it is about a journey through mythical lands it is far more likely to be fantasy than SF even if you find spaceships and rayguns. (Or lightsabres. )

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by theducks

Science has caught up with the Fiction , That leaves only Magik

This. I think many people have a heard time imagining how things will develop, since science has reached a level where most people can't keep up, unless they actively work or study in the field.
For authors, you need to do quite a big amount of research, if you want something that is explained properly and sounds feasible. With fantasy, the setting is already "Well, elves and dragons are here, so I might as well do anything", and thus easier to write.

If you settle for a random story IN SPACE, then it doesn't really matter if it takes place a long long time ago, or 10.000 years from now, as long as your plot device is working.

Originally Posted by starrigger

I think it's true that good SF demands more of the reader than does fantasy.

I agree. To me, SF requires way more fantasy than, well, fantasy. :P The concepts are often much more demanding to comprehend, than "In a hole, there lives a hobbit".

Originally Posted by Catlady

Romance IS the genre. Historical, Western, paranormal--those are just the setting.

I think that if many of the books that sell well, were marketed/filed under Romance, then they wouldn't have reached such a wide audience. Twilight for instance.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by David Munch

This. I think many people have a heard time imagining how things will develop, since science has reached a level where most people can't keep up, unless they actively work or study in the field.

It's been this way with science, ever since about 10 minutes after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 40 years ago, people thought they'd just reached the point at which we could no longer keep up with technology... they called it "future shock." Around the turn of the (20th) century, a patent clerk proclaimed that everything that could be invented had been invented.

Science is always two steps ahead of the public consciousness, and the public has always had a hard time envisioning what the future would be like. But that's okay, because we had SF to show them what it might be like, or what about the future would be most important (or troubling) to them.

Originally Posted by David Munch

For authors, you need to do quite a big amount of research, if you want something that is explained properly and sounds feasible. With fantasy, the setting is already "Well, elves and dragons are here, so I might as well do anything", and thus easier to write.

If you settle for a random story IN SPACE, then it doesn't really matter if it takes place a long long time ago, or 10.000 years from now, as long as your plot device is working.

This may be too simple a comparison. Fantasy has a logic to it, even if it involves elves and dragons; and inconsistency can be as bad for a fantasy story as it is for an SF story. It's easy to say fantasy authors can just make it up as they go, but to an extent, so do many SF authors for the simple reason of expediting storylines (and just as Gene Roddenberry invented the Transporter for Star Trek, not out of an understanding of technology, but out of a need to save his production and SFX budget by removing landing craft).[/QUOTE]

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by David Munch

This. I think many people have a heard time imagining how things will develop, since science has reached a level where most people can't keep up, unless they actively work or study in the field.

That has always been the case.
As a rule, most technical professionals are one paradigm behind the cutting edge and the general public is at least two paradigms behind.
In the H.G. Wells era the bulk of the populace was still seeing the world in Aristotelian terms and the better educated ones were catching up to Newton and Maxwell.
Look to the early days of SF in the 20's and 30's and you'll find lots of imagination, very little relativity and no Quantum Theory. Trying to build stories off that would've litterally boggled the mind of the editors.

Today, most people remember their High School physics so Newton and Maxwell aren't shocking but they haven't really internalized relativity much less Quantum Mechanics. And the bleeding edge physics theories might as well be magic. (Which might explain the confusion for many. )

One thing SF does for society is that by exploring ideas in narrative fashion it helps people to appreciate and internalize the newer paradigms. The above-mentioned STAR TREK transporters being a very good example. As are the alternate worlds of SLIDERS or the wormholes of STARGATE.

Authors don't really *need* to go far afield to conjure up the sense of wonder of classic SF; they do need enough understanding of the genre and the material they're working with to craft a good *story* out of it.

[DiapDealer]

I think it's true that good SF demands more of the reader than does fantasy.

I think this needs qualification. I'd agree that good SF demands more of the reader than lots of fantasy. But I don't agree that it can be used as a catch-all, by any means.

There's examples in both (sub-)genres that demand more (or less) of the reader. I'd be willing to go as far as saying; "there's more SF out there that demands more of the reader than there is of Fantasy that does the same thing," but that's about it. "Demanding more" of a reader is something an author decides to do, rather than being an inherent trait of the subject matter, I think. They're both (the genres) equally capable of producing challenging material or mindless entertainment, depending on what the author is trying to achieve.

Part of the problem also lies with the fact that many people are resolutely wedded to the idea that "fantasy" means dungeons, dragons, elves and/or hobbits and magic. These are usually the same people who don't care to read fantasy.

I stopped worrying about the distinction between the two when I realized that the labels rarely affect my reading selections—or my overall experience/appreciation of those selections. In fact, they only seem to affect other peoples' opinions of my reading selections ... which I long ago stopped giving two hoots about. I read science fiction by David Brin because I enjoy his "world-building" skills and fantasy by K. J. Parker because I enjoy her/his prose, tragic characters and social subtext.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I read science fiction by David Brin because I enjoy his "world-building" skills

And that's precisely the reason I enjoy Brandon Sanderson's fantasy - he has a superb ability to create completely believable worlds.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It's been this way with science, ever since about 10 minutes after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 40 years ago, people thought they'd just reached the point at which we could no longer keep up with technology... they called it "future shock." Around the turn of the (20th) century, a patent clerk proclaimed that everything that could be invented had been invented.

Science is always two steps ahead of the public consciousness, and the public has always had a hard time envisioning what the future would be like. But that's okay, because we had SF to show them what it might be like, or what about the future would be most important (or troubling) to them.



This may be too simple a comparison. Fantasy has a logic to it, even if it involves elves and dragons; and inconsistency can be as bad for a fantasy story as it is for an SF story. It's easy to say fantasy authors can just make it up as they go, but to an extent, so do many SF authors for the simple reason of expediting storylines (and just as Gene Roddenberry invented the Transporter for Star Trek, not out of an understanding of technology, but out of a need to save his production and SFX budget by removing landing craft).

Touche Steven and as Arthur C. Clarke said technology when sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. I imagine some of the people back in the early industrial age thought things like the steam engine were feats of magic. I didn't mean earlier to indicate that a pushbutton vs. magic spell was the only difference between Sci Fi and Fantasy, just that such is often a difference between the two, though I imagine with things like Urban Fantasy even that isn't a certainty. These days there are so many sub-genre's of both Sci Fi and Fantasy that they do seem to blend together a bit more than in the past though I think. And some authors have always blended the two together to a degree. Ray Bradbury did so (IMO) in his Martian Chronicles stories at least. Going to Mars via spaceship is Sci Fi but the interactions with the Martians themselves seems more like Fantasy in a way. Granted we hadn't yet sent probes to Mars back when Mr. Bradbury wrote the stories so at the time they might have seemed more akin to a possible situation rather than pure Fantasy. Either way it's still a well written collection of short stories I think.

[ChaosInc]

Originally Posted by starrigger

And by the way, most of the Vorkosigan books are available in omnibus collections in ebook from Baen. Ridiculously low priced, or at least they were when I bought them.

And if not in a price you like, you can pick them up free through a Baen CD, however the author needs to know how much you like the writing, so pay for at least some of them!