# Is fantasy really scifi?



## dwndrgn (Oct 19, 2006)

It may be that fantasists are predicting the future better than the scifi folks, witness the coming of elves, giants and dwarves...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm

Ok, I'm exaggerating but it sure is interesting


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## nixie (Oct 19, 2006)

Divided in two separate species,  the rich will be tall and beautiful, no flaws, genetically perfect,the rest a form of sub species


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## Milk (Oct 20, 2006)

I disagree on so many points of HG Wells assumptions im not sure where to start.
Now he comes from an era where Eugenics was one of the big themes of speculation.

Me, personally, I dont even think Eugenics is possible (whether its on purpose or whether its bound to happen)


For one human beings are tool makers. 
The human hand will remain pretty much the same, but what's inside a human's hand will change.
Instead of say house painters evolving longer legs, we create ladders for them to stand on. If a group of people develop diabetes, guess what? we invent insulin shots. 
Many, in not all the problems other species overcome during millions of years by growing tusks,hair, scales, flippers, taller, shorter, or any other myriad of evolutionary tools.. We solve all this with inventiveness and knowledge. And the limits of knowledge practically don't exist, and the limits of our technology the same. So nature or ourselves (maybe the same thing) throws a problem at us, we solve it using tools. Where can natural selection even enter in to this? I would say it doesn't, and it can't.

Add to that people generally breed with whomever they want and for any reason they want, and people even marry people that are sterile or adopt or die after giving birth, or any other number of things. And there is no basic outline for why people pick certain mates, and it generally has nothing to do with 'the fittest'. I really dont see the human race as splitting apart so much as coming together to become more homogenized. Our technologies will grow at a rapid pace and in fact make survival of the fittest moot. Of course when we really start to make tools that create themselves and think for themselves well the landscape will change drastically.


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## dwndrgn (Oct 20, 2006)

While I'm not arguing for the point, I enjoy being the devil's advocate so let me say this:

We have evolved _already_.  Because of our use of tools and our drive to better our lives we have changed.  Because of better nutrition or easier nutrition, we live longer and have grown taller.  Due to more sedentary lives where the bulk of it is lived indoors - quite often in manufactured and filtered air conditioning and heat, we are more susceptible to allergens.  Because of widespread use of antibiotics and germ killing, we are more susceptible to viruses and bacteria - less contact means less chance for our bodies to assimilate and become conditioned to them.  Et cetera and so forth.  We have already adapted _because_ of the tools we use.


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## Parson (Oct 21, 2006)

Did I miss the point here? I thought the question was "Is Fantasy really SciFi?" I took this to mean in the book world. One of my pet peeves has always been having to sort through all the Fantasy Offerings to find Sci Fi. Now I realize that there is some cross over, but for me a better place to put Fantasy is the Horror section of the book store. Not a perfect fit, but surely better than Sci Fi.


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## j d worthington (Oct 21, 2006)

Parson said:
			
		

> Did I miss the point here? I thought the question was "Is Fantasy really SciFi?" I took this to mean in the book world. One of my pet peeves has always been having to sort through all the Fantasy Offerings to find Sci Fi. Now I realize that there is some cross over, but for me a better place to put Fantasy is the Horror section of the book store. Not a perfect fit, but surely better than Sci Fi.


 
I'd have to disagree there. Most modern fantasy came out of science fiction fandom; and certainly the pulp magazines of the 1920s on published mountains of the stuff, mixed in with SF; so it's much more closely allied to science fiction than to horror as such.

That being said, I think there is a strong distinction, as sf has tended the last 2-3 decades more toward the "hard" end of the spectrum, whereas fantasy has gone more toward the "soft" ... in part a result of the split during the New Wave of the 1960s, where many of the younger writers rebelled against the Campbellian ideal of science fiction as being so concerned with technology, and became more interested in the literary exploration (sf as "modern myth"). This happening at the same time that Tolkien was first published in paperback, and catching on at college campuses, etc., allowed a slow but notable division, and (since fantasy requires less of an aptitude for abstract reasoning and a knowledge/understanding of the sciences) fantasy overtook sf in popularity in the general public -- though both still remain somewhat ghettoized to the present day.

Fantasy can be as valid an extrapolation as sf, but that is on the level of fable or metaphorical exploration of trends rather than attempts at literal (or semi-literal) prediction. Horror, on the other hand, is concerned with a particular mood, and fantasy (like sf) can be of any stripe, from the horrendous or suspenseful to the outrageously hilarious.


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## Parson (Oct 22, 2006)

I bow to Worthington's greater historical insight on the problem. But I still wish that SF and Fantasy were seperated on the shelves of my local Barnes and Nobles. I find that there are usually fewer than 3 SF books a month that have any interest for me. 

Fantasy just doesn't do it all. I even struggle to read Tolken, let alone some of the lesser lights.


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## j d worthington (Oct 22, 2006)

Parson said:
			
		

> ... I still wish that SF and Fantasy were seperated on the shelves of my local Barnes and Nobles. I find that there are usually fewer than 3 SF books a month that have any interest for me.


 
On that one, I agree. While I have a great love for fantasy, and have concentrated on that branch (as well as the older forms of horror) for some time now, I also have a great love for science fiction, from the more speculative and less technological, to some of the work of George O. Smith. I'd very much like to see more room given to sf proper, and would like to see the two each given their own section. Unfortunately, for the majority of the reading public, and therefore for the marketers, the two are interchangeable, I'm afraid.

That said, this is a trend, and not permanent. In a decade or so, I expect things will be completely different yet again -- how they'll be different, no one knows; but they will be different. It may not do any good... but why not write a letter to the companies, or to the local branch, asking for such a division? Perhaps if enough fans of the two genres made such a request, they might rethink their policies?


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## Valko (Oct 22, 2006)

So basicaly, what they're saying is Terry Brooks is a prophet?


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## phase38 (Oct 23, 2006)

According to many... Star Wars isnt Sci Fi... its fantasy. Based around magic.

I see sci-fi and fantasy as different. To really sum it up, in layman's terms, fantasy is orks and goblins, sci fi is computers and spaceships. 

I know im going to get slated for saying that, but Im not saying it in a derogatory sense, just in a very, very simplified way.


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## Who's Wee Dug (Oct 23, 2006)

phase38 said:


> According to many... Star Wars isnt Sci Fi... its fantasy. Based around magic.
> 
> I see sci-fi and fantasy as different. To really sum it up, in layman's terms, fantasy is orks and goblins, sci fi is computers and spaceships.
> 
> I know im going to get slated for saying that, but Im not saying it in a derogatory sense, just in a very, very simplified way.


As I see it in the future from SF some things will be possible,in Fantasy in will be impossible or improbable as it is pure escapism.


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## steve12553 (Oct 23, 2006)

Who's Wee Dug said:


> As I see it in the future from SF some things will be possible,in Fantasy in will be impossible or improbable as it is pure escapism.


 
Possible and impossible are definitely the key words. WHether it's Science Fiction or Fantasy has to do with how things are achieved and where they cc ome from. If the story is about a computer that come alive though magical means, it's Fantasy. If a Scientist discovers the missing link between man and animal and it happens to be an Orc, I think you've got Science Fiction. I don't believe books can be categorized by objects and settings near as easily as by ideas. I think of it as dealing with a particular set of rules. Science Fiction has to have a set of rules that somehow can be extrapolated or interpolated from reality. Fantasy needs a set of rules but they don't have to relate to the world outside of the book.  Good Science Fiction makes you believe that things can happen eventually within the rules of the book in the world we live in. Good Fantasy takes you to another world outside our universe or frame of existence and manages to create an interesting story without using the cop out of "It can happen cause it's magic." I think that's why you dream of a worrld of spaceships and aliens and you fantasize of a world of dragons and faeries.


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## Parson (Oct 24, 2006)

steve12553 said:


> I think that's why you dream of a worrld of spaceships and aliens and you fantasize of a world of dragons and faeries.


 
Not me. I dream and fantasize of a world where we can travel to other stars on the time frame of a 17th century sailing ship crossing an ocean. "Adift in the Sea of Stars" sounds like a promising SF title.


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## steve12553 (Oct 25, 2006)

Parson said:


> Not me. I dream and fantasize of a world where we can travel to other stars on the time frame of a 17th century sailing ship crossing an ocean. "Adift in the Sea of Stars" sounds like a promising SF title.


I've got no problem whether you take a sailing ship or a rocket ship to the stars, but if you climb into a taxi, don't call it a bus. I like both genre but there does have to be two of them to have a "both"


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## phase38 (Oct 25, 2006)

steve12553 said:


> I've got no problem whether you take a sailing ship or a rocket ship to the stars, but if you climb into a taxi, don't call it a bus. I like both genre but there does have to be two of them to have a "both"


Very well said.. i agree. 

Now where's my Taxi ticket.....


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## Parson (Oct 25, 2006)

steve12553 said:


> I've got no problem whether you take a sailing ship or a rocket ship to the stars, but if you climb into a taxi, don't call it a bus. I like both genre but there does have to be two of them to have a "both"


 
What? I must be dense. I do not understand this post. What does "if you climb into a taxi, don't call it a bus" mean? 

Second, I understand and respect that you like both genre, but once again I'm befuddled to understand "but there does have to be two of them to have a "both." Of course there has to be two different genre to have a both. But it sounds more like you are trying to say that there is need of both genres to have either. Which is patently not true. Fantasy is at least as old as Greek literature and probably much older than that. SF on the other hand is relatively new, and there is at least one school of thought out there that the early SF writers had as their goal to give humans the stars, by causing them to dream about them. Believing that humans achieve anything they set their minds too. A wonderful 19th century view of humanity!


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## phase38 (Oct 26, 2006)

I think the point steve was making was that there can never be a cross over or a merging of the 2. SF is SF, Fantasy is Fantasy.

A taxi's sole purpose is to get you from A to B. So is a bus. But they're not the same thing.

I think thats what he meant anyway.....


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## steve12553 (Oct 26, 2006)

Not so much that there can't be a cross over but that they are two distinct things with definitions. Many people in today's world tend to redefine things to suit themselves. Our language and the many other lanuages that are understood among this group all have long histories and words mean what they mean. I'm just saying that the two genres are separate things and have separate definitions. By definition if a true supernatural element is added to a Science Fiction story it becomes Fantasy, but not the converse just as placing a dragon or other supernatural creature in a detective novel also makes it a Fantasy.


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## j d worthington (Oct 26, 2006)

steve12553 said:


> Not so much that there can't be a cross over but that they are two distinct things with definitions. Many people in today's world tend to redefine things to suit themselves. Our language and the many other lanuages that are understood among this group all have long histories and words mean what they mean. I'm just saying that the two genres are separate things and have separate definitions. By definition if a true supernatural element is added to a Science Fiction story it becomes Fantasy, but not the converse just as placing a dragon or other supernatural creature in a detective novel also makes it a Fantasy.


 
Hence the genre of "science fantasy", which I mentioned in a thread elsewhere.... It's essentially a fantasy story with some scientific trappings, but extrapolated from a fantasy, not scientific (or even pseudoscientific) element. Most of Moorcock's fantastic work falls into this category, for instance, as does the majority of Bradbury's work using science-fictional figures or ideas. It's a little closer allied to science fiction than what most people think of as fantasy... but that's largely because the definition of fantasy has become constrictingly narrow these days, following Tolkien. Before that point, the term fantasy encompassed a much, much wider variety of types of tale, from the faux-medieval fantasy of George MacDonald and William Morris to the oddities with a tinge of psychological fantasy, such as Shirley Jackson's "The Demon Lover", or quite a few stories by Borges, such as "Funes the Memorious".


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## phase38 (Oct 27, 2006)

I was talking to someone who said science fiction is when science is applied, and somewhat explained/justified.

For example, Back to the Future is science fiction, as the time travel is explained "scientifically" by Doc.

It wouldn't be sci fi if the films focused on Marty, and he just happened to time travel.

Do people agree with this?


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## Loner (Oct 27, 2006)

Ah! This hoary old chestnut? People have been arguing aobut sci-fi and fantasy since the two genres existed.

These days the lines are getting increasingly blurred, but yes phase38, once upon a time that was seen as the clear line between sci-fi and fantasy.
Sci-fi contained science that explained some of the unusual elements in the story. Fantasy contained mythic figures and magical elements which must be accepted as given in order to enjoy the story.

I'm not judging;I like both.


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## Sharukem (Nov 6, 2006)

What is the point of having a "lower class species" if really they are only us but smaller? And who really knows if the "lower class species" is really dumber than we are now? They could be twice as smart than we are. For all we know at the age of 5 they could pronounce the biggest word in the dictionay without flaw, we don't know. So really what I'm trying to say is don't assume that what the doctor says is true, even doctors have flaws in their studies. We have to wait and find out for our own if this is going to be true or not.


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## The Pelagic Argosy (Nov 6, 2006)

phase38 said:


> I was talking to someone who said science fiction is when science is applied, and somewhat explained/justified.
> 
> For example, Back to the Future is science fiction, as the time travel is explained "scientifically" by Doc.
> 
> ...


 
Finally, someone invokes Back to the Future.  And now I can ask a question that's been bugging me with this thread.   

Orson Scott Card, in his book, "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" defined them thusly:  Science fiction is what could be but isn't; fantasy is what couldn't be. 

So, what about "science fiction" where the "science" is so far removed from anything that resembles real science that it is completely unbelievable, and might as well be considered "magic."  For example, Doc did not explain time travel scientifically.  He explained it, well...comically.  Based on all accepted scientific principles that I know of, time travel cannot be accomplished via car and lightening strike.  Back to the Future would, in my opinion, fall into the "what couldn't be" category, and it would be...fantasy?    

However, Back to the Future does explore a common theme of time travel sci-fi:  interfering with the past and messing up the future.  So, does Back to the Future qualify as science fiction?  Is there a certain minimum level of scientific plausiblity that a writer would have to meet to have the work qualify as science fiction?  

If a work has to meet a certain level of plauiblity, then a lot of early science fiction may no longer qualify, as our level of scientific understanding grows.


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## j d worthington (Nov 6, 2006)

I think that's where the real hornet's nest gets stirred up....  And I think that the majority of people in the field would agree that a lot of earlier science-fiction, and even of those works that were the precursors to sf, should still be considered such with the caveat that _they were within the bounds with the scientific_ (or, in some cases, pseudoscientific) _understanding of their time, but that our information has now superceded that_. I don't know how many on here are aware of it, but until around the late 1930s, and even well into the 1950s, science fiction was considered to be a branch of fantasy. (I make the qualification because some of the fans began to differentiate it from outright fantasy without any scientific element about the 1930s, but it was a slow process, and even many of the best editors in the field continued to consider them part of the same thing until well into the 1950s.) (How's that for throwing a spanner into the works of this discussion -- even my own comments?)

However -- I think that the majority (based upon the various arguments I've seen, and the various statements by writers and editors and sf historians and critics alike) would come down in favor of the system I note above: Let the older entries in the field maintain their status with that caveat; but for newer things they must be much more stringent on their application of the word "science" because it has become so differentiated from fantasy _per se_. (And, just for the record, I'd class the Back to the Future films as definitely fantasy with scientific trappings but no science; i.e., science fantasy the same as Moorcock's Eternal Champion, several pieces by Ellison, etc.)

Also, just so I'm clear on this ... I tend toward the older idea myself; that's a definite shift for me, as I began by reading sf considerably more than fantasy; but as I learned more about the history of the field, the more I began to see that the older classification makes a lot more sense, and gets rid of the whole conception that because the science in a story is no longer valid, the story isn't valid -- which is utter nonsense. If the story itself is well done, it is still a good _story_, no matter _how_ erroneous the science is.


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## phase38 (Nov 7, 2006)

Science Fantasy... interesting...

So what is Star Wars?


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## j d worthington (Nov 7, 2006)

phase38 said:


> Science Fantasy... interesting...
> 
> So what is Star Wars?


 
By the above definition, it would certainly be science fantasy. The "science" in it is virtually nonexistent; it is all cloudy mysticism and magic with some flashy-looking (but never realistically grounded -- or extrapolated) technology. Which -- lest someone take that view -- is not to denigrate any such story; I'm very fond of both the first and second (original) Star Wars films, about 50/50 on the third, and abominate the last three to be released. But, given the third category, they most certainly aren't science fiction. (I'd have called them fantasy rather than sf to begin with.)


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## chrispenycate (Nov 7, 2006)

I suspect that the writing style more than the content sets into which branch a particular work falls. I've seen science fiction dragons, elves, vampires, psionics, while fantasy has used parallel dimensions,alternate realities, time travel, even space travel (though elves are too wedded to the Earth to travel in space, or perhaps it's all that nasty cold iron)
A.C. Clarke's "the city and the stars" is purest SF, but its technology is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable…, Cordwainer Smith's "Instrumentality of mankind" with all its mythical tie-ins?M.Z. Bradley's  "Darkover" is an SF universe, but the swords, Talents and gothic atmosphere make it quite recognisable to fantasy fans, while some crossover artists build hybrid universes, in the hope of grabbing both halves of their audience (Particularly Piers Anthony, or Stashieff, but I'm sure there are others)
Even scientifically trained writers can tend towards specialisation (Baxter, as an example, is practically untrappable in physics, but has some loose ends in biology) but occasional loopholes don't downgrade (big, silly grin) a work to fantasy, if the writing is done in a science fiction style. Similarly, using lasers and cryonics to detect and trap demons doesn't force a work into either camp; the handling of the concept is all (though if you aim it at the SF market you'd better be _very_ convincing with your descriptions)


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