# Fantasy vs Science Fiction: A Poll



## Culhwch

Inspired by HJ's race thread, a flat-out poll, where you can only vote the once.

And, yes, I purposefully put fantasy before science fiction. As any rational person would.


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## chrispenycate

What has rationality got to do with fantasy readers?

Mind you, as an SF type, I'm not that good an advertisement for logical, orderly thought.


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## Lady of Winterfell

I put in a vote for Fantasy. That's pretty much all that I read, and some historical fiction. I am just now starting to read some Science Fiction, but I still prefer Fantasy.


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## Talysia

Fantasy for me, too, although I do read some science fiction from time to time.


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## chopper

likewise: i see myself as a fantasy writer, even though over 50% of my short stories so far have gone SF. the Unfinished Epic is pure fantasy, so that's how i am.


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## Pyar

I read mainly Science Fiction, I used to read a lot of fantasy but lately I haven't read any. The last one I did read may have turned me off to it a bit.


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## Rodders

It's SF all the way for me. I have tried on several occasions to read some Fantasy, but for some reason, i just cannot get into it. Shame, i do feel that i could be loosing out on something.


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## J-Sun

Pyar: which was the last one?

A lot of people I read for their SF write fantasy, too, and I'll sometimes try that and sometimes like it - I've mentioned this regarding C.L. Moore and others on another thread, for instance. And there's a certain kind of what I guess is "urban fantasy" that I've read several stories of and even a novel or two that I liked. And, of course, from the prime _Weird Tales_-era and before, on back to ancient Greece, I read lots of stuff that is more fantasy than anything else because there wasn't much SF and it hadn't come to genre self-consciousness. But from the 1920s on, I'm pretty thoroughly in the SF camp and don't care for the pseudo-medieval wizard epics and so on. And, apart from history and questions of pure bulk, I appreciate SF much more as a thing than fantasy.


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## Connavar

SF of course.

Fantasy i read much of too but SF appeal to me more in general.  I can read any type.   Fantasy i only like a few types and avoid several of the famous ones like plague.

All SF fans in these forums must vote.  Not let the fantasy readers overnumber us like they do in sales.


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## nj1

My votes gone to FANTASY, i read a sci-fi book once and thought, never again


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## AE35Unit

SF for me! I have read fantasy in the past(the Hobbit,The Belgariad) and tho it can be good I prefer to be taken somewhere remotely possible rather than just leaving it to a dream like unreality where anything goes populated by people who talk like they knew Shakespeare and go everywhere on horseback. Space,thats where I wanna be!


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## Culhwch

AE35Unit said:


> SF for me! I have read fantasy in the past(the Hobbit,The Belgariad) and tho it can be good I prefer to be taken somewhere remotely possible rather than just leaving it to a dream like unreality where anything goes populated by people who talk like they knew Shakespeare and go everywhere on horseback. Space,thats where I wanna be!


 
I can assure you, AE, that you'll never go to space, but a trip to a fantasy land is as close as your local medieval fayre!


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## Teresa Edgerton

Didn't know you were in astronaut training AE35.

(My kids grew up, so to speak, at our local Renaissance Faire.  They wouldn't blink an eye if they were to step through the door into Narnia.)


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## Urien

For me the peaks and troughs of the fantasy I've read exceed those of SF. However, over time I've found SF of a more consistent standard. Hence I sit upon the dimensional gate, and yes it is uncomfortable.

It's indie rock and roll for me.


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## AE35Unit

Culhwch said:


> I can assure you, AE, that you'll never go to space, but a trip to a fantasy land is as close as your local medieval fayre!



But I travel into space every time I pick a book up of my favourite genre. I visit fantasy land when I close my eyes at night.


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## AE35Unit

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Didn't know you were in astronaut training AE35.



But Teresa,they say we are all made of stars. And its true!


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## ratsy

Fantasy for me thank you.


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## J-Sun

Culhwch said:


> I can assure you, AE, that you'll never go to space



I wouldn't count on that.


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## Rinman

I would put science fiction because it seems that with every fantasy book they have the same type of character based in them - elves, orcs, and that sort of deal. It seems with science fiction you can have more of a variety.


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## Pyan

Rinman said:
			
		

> ...with every fantasy book they have the same type of character based in them - elves, orcs, and that sort of deal.



That's like saying that all SF books are to do with space and aliens...try reading _Tigana_, by *Guy Gavriel Kay* sometime...


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## Culhwch

Or George R. R. Martin, or Scott Lynch, or Neil Gaiman, or Patrick Rothfuss, or...


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## Teresa Edgerton

Rinman said:


> I would put science fiction because it seems that with every fantasy book they have the same type of character based in them - elves, orcs, and that sort of deal.



When people say things like that I always wonder if they actually _read_ fantasy, or are simply going by some popular perception.


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## Rinman

Man I feel like I'm getting beaten up here...Teresa you know I'm completely new to this stuff - just from what I see and hear...Tolkien, Brooks, whoever wrote the Warhammer books (Not 40 000), Warcraft...they've all got similar aspects really.

Sheesh. *cries*


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## Culhwch

No one's beating any one up. Just making the point that fantasy encompasses worlds upon worlds more than Tolkien, Brooks, Warhammer and Warcraft (the latter two, and perhaps even three, most fantasy afficionados would more than happily omit from a list of some 'typical' fantasy).

The thing is, there is no such thing as typical fantasy, just as there is no such thing as typical science fiction (_bad _science fiction, yes, _boring _science fiction, yes, typical science fiction, no...*).

Try this on for size. It's at least a good jumping off point.

*prepares self for inevitable flaming


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## Teresa Edgerton

Culhwch said:


> ... there is no such thing as typical science fiction (_bad _science fiction, yes, _boring _science fiction, yes ...)



Wait -- haven't you disproved your own point?

Sorry.  Couldn't resist.  I don't really mean that.  I used to read a lot of science fiction.

That's a pretty good article, for Wikipedia, Cul -- although it does put some authors who write in a wide variety of sub-genres and a wide-variety of settings (Tanith Lee, for instance) into categories that are hardly representative of their body of work.

But if you scroll down as far as, say, Fantasy of Manners you will come across one or two very good authors.


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## Professor 0110

> Man I feel like I'm getting beaten up here...Teresa you know I'm completely new to this stuff - just from what I see and hear...Tolkien, Brooks, whoever wrote the Warhammer books (Not 40 000), Warcraft...they've all got similar aspects really.



You're getting that perception because many popular fantasy books (i.e the fantasy series harped on about by the media) deal with the epic battle between good and evil. You know, the stuff that a lot of people really love. Especially if it also contains a little romance.

My vote is for fantasy.


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## thaddeus6th

Went for fantasy. I just prefer swords and dragons to spacecraft. Overall, probably read more sci-fi than fantasy (although I got rid of a lot of sci-fi a few years ago and have read mostly fantasy and classical stuff since).


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## kythe

Fantasy.  I do read both, but the books I tend to get attached to and read over and over are fantasy.  Sci-fi can be thought provoking and stretch us in different ways, but fantasy is often more character driven and creates a greater emotional attachment.


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## ratsy

Rinman said:


> I would put science fiction because it seems that with every fantasy book they have the same type of character based in them - elves, orcs, and that sort of deal. It seems with science fiction you can have more of a variety.


 
This kind of stereotype really gets to me.  There is so much Fantasy out there that is way above the common misconception.  If all I read was LOTR and walked around if Hobbit slippers than I could understand but there are so many fantastic authors changing the genre all the time.

There is a new generation of great authors out in the past few years; Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson to name a few that are anything but typical  dragons, elves, coming of age journey with wizards and constant perils.

You know what, I do read some generic fantasy because they are classics just like I am sure SF fans still read Asimov but the Fatansy field isn't limited to these stories.  

I see what shows are on television for fantasy and in truth I don't blame people for not knowing how good it can be because of the junk they put on t.v.  Merlin??  Legend of the Seeker??  Come on...I really can't wait for GRRM's series to hit HBO so the world can see a great fantasy story.  

Anyone who doesn't read fantasy should try some of these new authors and see what they think.  What can it hurt?


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## AE35Unit

Saying fantasy is all the same is like saying SF is all the same,or all cars look the same. Totally irrelevant and these kind of What genre is best threads are quite pointless other than to get people hot under the collar.


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## Pyar

J-Sun said:


> Pyar: which was the last one?



*A Princess of Roumania* by Paul Park

It started out ok, but it devolved into a very bad plot with underdeveloped characters. It ended with a kind of cliffhanger that almost made me want to read the next one but it was just written so badly that I just couldn't.


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## Teresa Edgerton

AE35Unit said:


> What genre is best threads are quite pointless other than to get people hot under the collar.



Quite right.  People should be able to stick to saying what they like and why they like it without taking digs at what somebody else likes.

This poll doesn't seem to be attracting very many votes.  Maybe there should have been a "Who Cares?" option.


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## J-Sun

Pyar said:


> *A Princess of Roumania* by Paul Park
> 
> It started out ok, but it devolved into a very bad plot with underdeveloped characters. It ended with a kind of cliffhanger that almost made me want to read the next one but it was just written so badly that I just couldn't.



Ah. I've never read him, but always thought he was an SF author. Many authors can switch hit, but some can't. Maybe he's one of the latter and some born-and-bred fantasy would do better. (Then again, maybe he's not a good SF writer, either.)


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## Erin99

Teresa Edgerton said:


> This poll doesn't seem to be attracting very many votes.  Maybe there should have been a "Who Cares?" option.



Well, I missed this poll because it was hidden in this section, which I rarely visit these days......

But it's definitely fantasy for me. You can't beat being sucked into a different world, with strong, engaging characters and sweeping plots. 

Plus, though I'm a techy person, I've never been into the whole "spaceship" idea. Saying that, however, I do like Anne McCaffrey's _Pern_ series, because that feels more fantasy-like to me.


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## Lioness

Fantasy for me. 

A fantasy world usually resembles some sort of medieval or close-to-medieval world. Do note I said usually, I know that not all of them do, and in fact the ones that don't can be a pleasant surprise.

I just like getting lost in magic and tales and fantastical things.


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## Rinman

Ya know the funny thing is that I just realized, the stuff that I read is more science fiction, I prefer science fiction overall, but the things I want to write seem to be more fantasy. It's kind of like how Stephen King is a horror writer, yet his Dark Tower series ended up in the Science Fiction / Fantasy section at McNally Robinson's...


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## Culhwch

The thing is Stephen King isn't just a horror writer. That's just one genre he writes in. There's no rules saying you can't write across a number of genres.


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## Rinman

What other genres does he write in? I've only seen books in the horror section (Forget about the Dark Tower series - pretend it didn't exist). So yeah, what other genres?


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## Culhwch

Why would I pretend it didn't exist? The _Dark Tower _series and _The_ _Eyes of the Dragon _are both SFF, and a number of his novellas, such as _Apt Pupil_, _The Body_, and _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_, are definitely not horror. _The Green Mile_ I'd say is more of a supernatural fable, to coin a genre on the spot. _Hearts in Atlantis_ is another one that's hard to place, though certainly not horror.

Horror is just what he's best known for. I don't think it's even what he's best at. My opinion, though.


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## Rinman

What I meant by "pretend it doesn't exist" is if he hadn't written that, what other books would you find in genres other than horror. That's what I meant. Because I know you'd find The Dark Tower in Sci Fi / Fantasy. I've never heard of Eyes of the Dragon so there's one. That's what I meant.


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## AE35Unit

I'd say there's an awful lot of SF in King's books. The Skeleton Crew is a collection of stories that begins with The Mist,recently filmed,and is definitely SF. 
And of course Carrie employs Psi powers as the catalyst for the horror. The eponymous girl main character has Psychokinesis but King chose to use it in a horror context,at least in the film.


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## Urien

Supernatural horror is in my view a sub-genre of fantasy. When you're hunted by a vampire or werewolf then you're being hunted by a fantastic (non-existent) creature. Hence fantasy-horror or if you prefer horror-fantasy. If you're hunted by a human with a chain saw it's thriller-horror. If you're hunted by Frankenstein's monster it's science fiction-horror.


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## AE35Unit

Urien said:


> Supernatural horror is in my view a sub-genre of fantasy. When you're hunted by a vampire or werewolf then you're being hunted by a fantastic (non-existent) creature. Hence fantasy-horror or if you prefer horror-fantasy. If you're hunted by a human with a chain saw it's thriller-horror. If you're hunted by Frankenstein's monster it's science fiction-horror.



And of the 3 horrors,supernatural is my favourite! Can't beat being scared witless,and yet it rarely happens in the movies!


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## J-WO

Ah, fantasy readers.  They'll never understand the simple pleasures of watching a solar system explode...


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## J-WO

Then implode... Then EXPLODE AGAIN!!! Ha Ha HAAAAAAAA!!!


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## ratsy

J-WO said:


> Ah, fantasy readers. They'll never understand the simple pleasures of watching a solar system explode...


 
Close though... Raymond Feist destroys a planet in one of his books!

Also on the Stephen King note...I feel like most of the books I have read of his are kind of without a particular Genre.  That is one of the things that makes King universally appealing.  If you cross genres, in theory, you can catch a wider audience.  SFF fans will read the Dark Tower and branch to his other stuff and vise versa. 

(Eye of the Dragon was a great book...at least I thought so 10+ years ago when I read it, I have to find a copy of that)


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## reiver33

Push the boundaries of SiFi too far and you end up with Fantasy anyway. Definitions tend to create arbitary (and abstract) divisions which some prospective readers find off-putting. 

It used to be said that SiFi dealt with un-realised worlds and Fantasy with imagined ones, but I recently re-read 'Metropolitan' and I would say its an easy amalgam of both.

A person likes what they like, regardless.


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## Grimward

In truth, I read both.  I simply read more that are fantasy, and so align more in that direction.  I find crossover situations, where magic and technology merge/overlap, interesting when done well.  Would have been interested to see where (if anywhere) Zelazny went with Ghostwheel if he'd continued Amber.


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## Kayla

Personally Fantasy. Technological exploits are not my thing. Not that I don't find it entertaining I just prefer a sword to a ray gun. 

In the end people who don't understand the difference between Sci-Fi and Fantasy always put them in the same category so we might as well start appreciating and liking the other genre.


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## Ursa major

I read far more SF than fantasy - and I wouldn't want to write fantasy - but when it comes down to it, a good book is a good book, whatever its genre.

(And the same goes for bad books).


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## TheEndIsNigh

Ya!
 Whoopee and Ya boo sucks!

SF is back on top
​


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## Ursa major

I thought everyone would realise that the future is SF.


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## J-WO

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Ya!
> Whoopee and Ya boo sucks!
> 
> SF is back on top
> ​



Just thought it was worth quoting again.


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## Grimward

Just lulling you into a false sense of security (not that it's in your nature to have such), your TEiNship sir...


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## daveac

Voted Science Fiction.

If Sub-poll - 'Hard SF' or 'Science Fiction involving Time Travel'

Cheers from newbe - daveac


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## chongjasmine

I am into fantasy.


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## Granfalloon

Just curious - Is there such a thing as "future fantasy"? (or would that just be another branch of SF?) 

One of the main reasons I like SF is that I like to dream about what the future could be. I already know what the past was like, and Fantasy, although I don't hate it, always seems to be set in the past, or at least somewhere they don't have toasters and drive cars.


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## Sparrow

I've read SF almost my entire life, but I vote Fantasy.

Sorry, I think most of today's Science Fiction should be driven to the edge of town and rolled into a shallow ditch.  I find both the writers and the sf community in general to be tired and uninspired.  Perhaps the best sf is behind us.  Certainly it seems a narrowing circle, left to the terminally nostalgic, the unsexed, the lonely, and worst of all, the conservative.


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## Teresa Edgerton

I note an element of incivility creeping in.  

I suggest that anyone who doesn't perfectly recollect our Terms of Use, might wish to refresh his or her memory with a visit to our Forum Rules (particularly the section on Conduct) to be found in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.

For the most part, this has been an excellent thread, and I would hate to have to issue another warning or close it.


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## Hilarious Joke

Wow! I honestly thought after the success of the Race that fantasy would blow SF out of the water!

It's fascinating how close this is...

I voted fantasy, of course.


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## Ian Whates

Sparrow said:


> Sorry, I think most of today's Science Fiction should be driven to the edge of town and rolled into a shallow ditch. I find both the writers and the sf community in general to be tired and uninspired. Perhaps the best sf is behind us. Certainly it seems a narrowing circle, left to the terminally nostalgic, the unsexed, the lonely, and worst of all, the conservative.


 
Interesting comments, Sparrow. I wonder if this is a geographical thing, as I've heard similar viewpoints expressed before by some American fans, whereas here in the UK the complete opposite seems to apply.

This is very much a bright new age for British SF, with more high quality far-reaching and ambitious science fiction being produced than I can ever remember before, and most of it is anything but conservative with a small c. If you're talking Conservative with a capital, then the vast majority are again anything but -- Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Ian Watson etc. 

So perhaps your comment reflects the perceived situation in the US?


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## J-WO

Ian Whates said:


> Interesting comments, Sparrow. I wonder if this is a geographical thing, as I've heard similar viewpoints expressed before by some American fans, whereas here in the UK the complete opposite seems to apply.



I find that recent American novels are very solid- exciting, entertaining etc- but they fail to slide my brain down a helterskelter in the way British SF does.
UK SF has moments that miss the target, but those occasional failings are worth the scenes in books that I can't get out of my mind for days.

I suppose it's like the music scene in 76-77, when the USA churned out M-O-R Eagles-style stuff and Britain spat punk on the world.

(No offense to American forum-users.  We all know tables turn. Compare Hardcore to New Romantics only 3 years later!)


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## Sparrow

> Ian Whates~Interesting comments, Sparrow. I wonder if this is a geographical thing, as I've heard similar viewpoints expressed before by some American fans, whereas here in the UK the complete opposite seems to apply.



Dead on.
The love of sf was passed on from my dad who subscribed to two magazines, the only two I ever remember him getting... Asimov's and Omni.  One has long since gone away, the other will most likely suffer along for a few more years, and it too will die.  Interesting that both the fantasy and science fiction I read is almost entirely written by Brits.  Even the Abarat books which are very American in tone, are written by an Englishmen.

Perhaps it is geographical.
The English do Fantasy & SF best, always have.  Americans do Detective Noir best, always have.  What is happening in the States to the sf genre is anyone's guess.  My guess is that fans of sf have moved on past the literature branch of the genre, and besides Hollywood blockbusters and video gaming, are not involved in sf in any way shape or form.


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## GOLLUM

Too easy.

Fantasy all day everyday....

Actually considering SF is historically a subset of Fantasy I should be allowed to vote twice....


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## J-WO

GOLLUM said:


> Actually considering SF is historically a subset of Fantasy I should be allowed to vote twice....



In that case can I vote for the 'weird tale'?


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## Ursa major

GOLLUM said:


> Actually considering SF is historically a subset of Fantasy I should be allowed to vote twice....


 
That's the trouble with all these magic-based tales: scant regard for the rules.


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## thepaladin

Fantasy "technically" includes several "subgenres" horror, alternate history, urban fantasy.....all the subgenres if SF and so on. Most of us tend to mean High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, or Sword and Sorcery when we use the catch all "Fantasy"  It's probably simplier that way. If we get too hyper technical we won't understan what each the other may mean.....

Was that clear as mud?


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## J-WO

Perhaps someone should introduce a cataloging system of names. 

I.e: *1A* for high fantasy, *1B* for sword and Sorcery, *1A(b)* for high fantasy with an element of sword and sorcery...


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## Hilarious Joke

So close! Come on fantasy fans!


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## Connavar

thepaladin said:


> Fantasy "technically" includes several "subgenres" horror, alternate history, urban fantasy.....all the subgenres if SF and so on. Most of us tend to mean High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, or Sword and Sorcery when we use the catch all "Fantasy"  It's probably simplier that way. If we get too hyper technical we won't understan what each the other may mean.....
> 
> Was that clear as mud?



*Alternate history* is a subgenre of  science fiction and historical fiction 

Alternate history - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its like time travel, time is a SF thing.

Of course there is alternate history fantasy.  Nothing new there.  Like other genre blenders.


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## GOLLUM

Hilarious Joke said:


> So close! Come on fantasy fans!


Hey yeh!...Who else can we "recruit" to get Fantasy over the line? ....


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## Fried Egg

I wonder what would happen if we had a three way poll, with the addition of Horror?


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## Rosemary

I've just added my vote for Fantasy!  One point the difference now 

There are no Science Fiction books in my house but I have read some and they weren't too bad!  However, give me fantasy any day


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## Hilarious Joke

Rosemary! Haven't seen you around for a while! I should have known we could rely on you!!


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## Rosemary

Hilarious Joke said:


> Rosemary! Haven't seen you around for a while! I should have known we could rely on you!!



Thank you HJ!  Nice to see you too.


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## bobbo19

i may of perhaps put fantasy back when i was a 12 year old. But now i like to think im more sophisticated and put SF. SF FTW!!! (mind you i have not read any adult fantasy books)


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## Karn Maeshalanadae

Sci fi's possibilities are the very thing that keeps me FROM it. If I wanted something that could happen, I'd go outside and wait to get hit by a car or to be struck by lightning while....relieving myself....in a river. Chances of such things happening are low, but they COULD.

Fantasy on the other hand, wonderful escape from reality, and really drives the imagination beyond what can possibly happen to something that never could.


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## Hilarious Joke

So close but so far!


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## thepaladin

Strange I think I saw a warning about that on a sign the last time I crossed the Cumberland River bridge....


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## J-WO

Manarion said:


> struck by lightning while....relieving myself....in a river.



I put _Lord of the Rings_ down half way through precisely because this sort of thing _wasn't_ happening. I switched to SF and, as far as lightning storms and bodily waste goes, I've never looked back.


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## chrispenycate

thepaladin said:


> Strange I think I saw a warning about that on a sign the last time I crossed the Cumberland River bridge....



I'm not surprised, if many people in the region go around dressed like you. I mean, sharp, pointy metal bits with continuous grounding; you could get a job as a lightning attractor.

On the other hand (you do have hands in those gauntlets, don't you?) relieving oneself in a river doesn't seem to have been one of the suit's design characteristics; one suspects that a knight going into battle was recommended to lay off the ale; too much risk of rusting rigid.

Or is fantasy armour equipped with flies?


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## The DeadMan

Science Fiction!


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## Ian The Poet

I cannot vote as I like both science fiction and fantasy.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae

I still wonder why fantasy is getting put down in so many circles. With my own pitiful writings I'm a traditional fantasy author, but I've started to open my mind a bit more as a reader and veer away from the general conceptions. There's plenty of fun out there with fantasy, and the way it gets set up, there's really no chance of most of it coming to pass into reality. What's so great about reading realistic stories anyway? So-called "science fiction" is coming to pass in this world, so if you want spaceships and star flights all you have to do is wait. Why read something when it will one day become possible to live it?



I highly doubt a single human causing fire to rain from the skies or raising the ocean a hundred feet using only a few chanted words would ever be able to happen, especially with the laws of physics and whatnot in place, so the only way to get it is through movies, games, and books.


We've travelled to the stars. Been there, done that. We've created lasers and satellites and landed artifacts on other planets. Been there, done that. About all science fiction seems to have to offer us these days that we haven't done is daily contact with other intelligent lifeforms from other worlds, living on those said worlds, and creating a planet-destroying machine.


But have we ever ridden the skies on the back of a dragon or caused a jungle to grow out of a desert with words? No we haven't, and it's the impossible that fascinates me more than the possible.


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## Wiglaf

Manarion said:


> Sci fi's possibilities are the very thing that keeps me FROM it. If I wanted something that could happen, I'd go outside and wait to get hit by a car or to be struck by lightning while....relieving myself....in a river. Chances of such things happening are low, but they COULD.
> 
> Fantasy on the other hand, wonderful escape from reality, and really drives the imagination beyond what can possibly happen to something that never could.


I originally had the same thought but, I think that there might be more to it.  SF has 3 main problems for me: 1.  A lot of it explores a very defined issue way to explicitly, 2.  It is more likely to become dated, 3.  Bad SF dwells way too much on the technology.
Basically, 90% chance of liking the fantasy (all good, mediocre, and even some poor) and maybe 40% of SF (good and a portion of the mediocre).  In short, I picked fantasy because bad fantasy is better, in my opinion, than bad SF.


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## Wiglaf

chrispenycate said:


> Or is fantasy armour equipped with flies?


Small funnel and drainage hole integral with the cod piece.


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## Fireyfly

science fiction all the way for me! I'm not a big fan of most classic Tolkien universe fantasy save for Eragon, and even that I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm a total scifi nerd!


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## Karn Maeshalanadae

Fireyfly said:


> science fiction all the way for me! I'm not a big fan of most classic Tolkien universe fantasy save for Eragon, and even that I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm a total scifi nerd!


 
Just the exact kind of misconceptions of fantasy of people who don't read it. Try branching outwards with fantasy outside Tolkein style. As others will point out and have pointed out elsewhere, there's more than swords, magic, orcs, and elves, a lot more.


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## Connavar

Your own misconception of SF is the same Manarion !
SF is uninteresting its something that could happen ?Thats like saying fantasy sucks because the magical things that happen in an heroic fantasy might happen.Because i have read many SF that are set in 500 years in the future with things that will never ever happen.   *SF is just as fantastical as Fantasy*.   Its not all about Hard Science, even the most science correct books demand you to believe in things that cant happen IRL.Thats why we read the both genres to read fantastic things in the future or in ancient,medieval themed fantasy past.


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## Fireyfly

Connavar said:


> Your own misconception of SF is the same Manarion !
> SF is uninteresting its something that could happen ?Thats like saying fantasy sucks because the magical things that happen in an heroic fantasy might happen.Because i have read many SF that are set in 500 years in the future with things that will never ever happen.   *SF is just as fantastical as Fantasy*.   Its not all about Hard Science, even the most science correct books demand you to believe in things that cant happen IRL.Thats why we read the both genres to read fantastic things in the future or in ancient,medieval themed fantasy past.



SF is actually NOT as fantastical as fantasy, unless it is badly written imo. Some careless authors throw in things that could never ever happen which is where fantasy and scifi connect, but realistic scifi is quite believable and usually explains some of what is going on. Star Trek and Star Wars and other such things are a bit far fetched, but most of the plots DO have basis in hard science... obviously Star Wars is fantasy/scifi since it has elements of both, but fantasy is basically anything that could never happen based on our understanding today, whereas scifi is less or not at all far fetched, and being a hardcore science nerd, I like that.


----------



## J-WO

Manarion said:


> I highly doubt a single human causing fire to rain from the skies (...) would ever be able to happen,



Try napalm. Smells lovely in the morning, apparently.


----------



## Karn Maeshalanadae

J-WO said:


> Try napalm. Smells lovely in the morning, apparently.


 

Napalm is a chemical, not a spell.

And consider it in a world without planes or helicopters, devoid of any kind of flying machine at all.


----------



## j d worthington

Manarion said:


> What's so great about reading realistic stories anyway? So-called "science fiction" is coming to pass in this world, so if you want spaceships and star flights all you have to do is wait. Why read something when it will one day become possible to live it?


 


Wiglaf said:


> I originally had the same thought but, I think that there might be more to it. SF has 3 main problems for me: 1. A lot of it explores a very defined issue way to explicitly, 2. It is more likely to become dated, 3. Bad SF dwells way too much on the technology.
> Basically, 90% chance of liking the fantasy (all good, mediocre, and even some poor) and maybe 40% of SF (good and a portion of the mediocre). In short, I picked fantasy because bad fantasy is better, in my opinion, than bad SF.


 


Fireyfly said:


> SF is actually NOT as fantastical as fantasy, unless it is badly written imo. Some careless authors throw in things that could never ever happen which is where fantasy and scifi connect, but realistic scifi is quite believable and usually explains some of what is going on. Star Trek and Star Wars and other such things are a bit far fetched, but most of the plots DO have basis in hard science... obviously Star Wars is fantasy/scifi since it has elements of both, but fantasy is basically anything that could never happen based on our understanding today, whereas scifi is less or not at all far fetched, and being a hardcore science nerd, I like that.


 
I see a lot of misconceptions about both sub-genres here, mostly (it seems to me) based on familiarity only with the more modern (post-1980s or at earliest 1970s) examples of whichever field is on the receiving end.

Manarion, as for your comment above... try, for instance, Kuttner and Moore, especially such things as "The Children's Hour", "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", or "Vintage Season" -- you'll be hard-pressed to find stories less likely to happen, yet which are very much in the realm of possibility if such a thing as time-travel is ever made practicable... or any tales more heartbreakingly poignant and beautifully written. Or try C. M. Kornbluth's work -- one of the most bitter and cynical writers of the "Golden Age" (see, e.g., "The Little Black Bag" or "The Marching Morons"), but also one of the most dynamic... and who can occasionally throw you for a loop by having an absolutely charming and lovely little oddity such as "Gomez". Or Cordwainer Smith, with his tales of the Instrumentality of Mankind. Or Zenna Henderson, with her stories of The People. Or the mind-bending sf of Michael Moorcock (a few of his books _do_ actually fit into the genuine sf category) such as *The Blood Red Game*, or *The Rituals of Infinity*, or *Behold the Man* (that's not even mentioning the various Cornelius books). Or J. G. Ballard's work, such as *The Drowned World*, *The Drought*, *The Crystal World*, *The Atrocity Exhibition*, *Vermilion Sands*, etc., etc.; very haunting, surrealistic tales which are nonetheless classics of the genre. Or, for that matter, that staunch old standby, Isaac Asimov, with such pieces as "Eyes Do More Than See", "Dreaming is a Private Thing", "The Ugly Little Boy"... or even "Lenny", one of his stories of robots and Susan Calvin. Or even Robert A. Heinlein with "Waldo", among others ("-- All You Zombies", "And He Built A Crooked House", "By His Bootstraps", etc.), or several of his juvenile novels, such as *Citizen of the Galaxy*, *Red Planet*, or *Have Space Suit, Will Travel*, not to mention that very odd little book, *Beyond This Horizon*.... And this is only a few right off the top of my head. There are literally thousands of others.

And, even if it is _possible_, the stories themselves are often very powerful, as with Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" or Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon"....

And Fireyfly: The Time Machine? The End of Eternity? Nightwings? The Mind Parasites? The Demolished Man? The Stars My Destination? More Than Human? "The Game of Rat and Dragon"? (The list goes on, and on, and on.....) Not to mention the work of people like Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont....

The same can be said for fantasy -- it, too, is an enormously broad field, encompassing the Tolkienian "quest" fantasy; urban fantasy; dark fantasy (of various stripes); alternate-world fantasies (both serious and humorous); and dozens of other types of tales, some of which are darned near unclassifiable, such as Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan books, David Lindsay's *A Voyage to Arcturus*, Hope Mirrlees' *Lud-in-the-Mist*, Algernon Blackwood's *Jimbo* and *The Centaur*, James Branch Cabell's ironic comedies such as his massive 25-volume _Biography of the Life of Manuel_ (a long read, but one of the most unique experiences in all literature, Balzac and Maupassant notwithstanding, and a rich treat going from very thoughtful, pensive and poignant thought to outright belly laughs, in some of the most exquisite prose ever put on paper)... and so on, and so forth.

It has always puzzled me how someone who likes fantasy can't stand sf, and vice versa, as they really are, despite their differences, quite closely related. They are both modern forms of mythmaking, of realizing what has always been "impossible" dreams that most of humanity shares in one form or another; and, when well done, both are very warm and human experiences which are often deeply moving -- and good examples of either aren't really that hard to find. So this entire "either/or" thing simply baffles me, as it seems very much a case of not seeing the forest for the toothpicks, let alone the trees.....


----------



## Connavar

Heh saying SF isnt fantastic and only realistic is acting like many more books than J.D mentioned dont exist.

The Stars My Destination's jaunting will be seen as a superhero move these days....


----------



## Chinook

Wow! amazingly even distribution. Raise your glasses to SF and F!


----------



## Wiglaf

j. d. worthington said:


> I see a lot of misconceptions about both sub-genres here, mostly (it seems to me) based on familiarity only with the more modern (post-1980s or at earliest 1970s) examples of whichever field is on the receiving end.
> 
> 
> It has always puzzled me how someone who likes fantasy can't stand sf, and vice versa, as they really are, despite their differences, quite closely related. They are both modern forms of mythmaking, of realizing what has always been "impossible" dreams that most of humanity shares in one form or another; and, when well done, both are very warm and human experiences which are often deeply moving -- and good examples of either aren't really that hard to find. So this entire "either/or" thing simply baffles me, as it seems very much a case of not seeing the forest for the toothpicks, let alone the trees.....


I still say bad Fantasy beats bad SF, for me.  I have a high tolerance for stories of people traipsing about the countryside.  Used to do it myself with my buddies.  I fondly remember the journey to the farside of the Whoopdeedoos and the great quest for the waterfall.  Unfortunately, ours moms wouldn't let us have swords; we ended up using sticks for guns and playing 'Nam instead.  A motley crew walking through the woods reminds me of my childhood.


----------



## j d worthington

Wiglaf said:


> I still say bad Fantasy beats bad SF, for me. I have a high tolerance for stories of people traipsing about the countryside. Used to do it myself with my buddies. I fondly remember the journey to the farside of the Whoopdeedoos and the great quest for the waterfall. Unfortunately, ours moms wouldn't let us have swords; we ended up using sticks for guns and playing 'Nam instead. A motley crew walking through the woods reminds me of my childhood.


 
Nostalgic memories such as that will, of course, always color how one sees things, and make an individual more tolerant of such faults in one area, but not in another. To be honest, though, the main problem with the "bad SF" you cite earlier, which "bad Fantasy" doesn't have to contend with, is bad science -- or science presented badly, depending. (Even bad science -- Velikovsky, for instance -- has been presented well in sf, and made for some very good, entertaining stories.) Fantasy, having a much larger, more varied background of traditions and myths to draw on which do _not_ have to jibe with reality in the same fashion, can often have an easier time of it, even if, on all other levels (competency of writing, convincingness in characterization, level of imagination, etc.) they are on a par.


----------



## bobbo19

SCI-FI FTW.
(Hard sci-fi in particular!)


----------



## Ökuþórr

Although i love both, im going to have to choose Fantasy.


----------



## Omphalos

The poll is 37-36 after my vote for SF.  Im very surprised.  I always thought that users of this site vastly preferred fantasy to SF.


----------



## Connavar

At least in these forums us SF fans fight squarely with the popularity of fantasy.

I might enjoy reading fantasy but i will never vote for it before SF.


----------



## nixie

Fantasy, the few scifi I've read haven't gripped me in the same way.


----------



## w-three

I've gotta say sci-fi. But thats mostly on principle.

I find with fantasy it leaves so much room, allowing wonderful and amazing storylines and worlds that are so diverse.

But then, I've always preferred sci-fi, why? Not really sure, I'm just drawn to the idea of the future, and what it holds for humanity.

Still, what I enjoy about most fantasies is the wealth of detail that can accumulate behind it, like in Middle Earth. Creation myths, old legends and so on.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Arrrrghhh!


----------



## Kalyissa

Growing up I always prefered SF but in the last few years I have migrated more to Fantasy, I don't find I enjoy SF as much as I used to.


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## Hilarious Joke

Kalyissa, you rock!


----------



## J-WO

Grr... wheres my ray gun?


----------



## planetocean

Have to say that I do like both fantasy and science fiction yet would really be fantasy because it could never be real whereas science fiction some things can become real. But have to say am a fan of both.


----------



## Culhwch

Haven't checked this in a while. I'm surprised it's so close. I wonder if I start banning SF fans whether their votes are retroactively removed...


----------



## Vargev

I would probably say i'm on the SF side of the fence, i particularly like the large scale grandiose SF novels by the likes of Greg Bear.


----------



## thesoothsayer

I've always been a fantasy person, but I've been starting to really enjoy SF these past few years. Still, I've given fantasy a 2 vote lead in the poll.


----------



## Taltos

Somehow SF books tend to reach the top of my TBR pile at lot faster than the fantasy books, at least lately.


----------



## Teresa Edgerton

Culhwch said:


> Haven't checked this in a while. I'm surprised it's so close. I wonder if I start banning SF fans whether their votes are retroactively removed...



Hmmmm ... I like the way you think.


----------



## J-WO

Its like Stalinism with wands and Dragons!!!!


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## thepaladin

A purge????


----------



## CyBeR

I write fantasy but read Sci-Fi...how does that come? 
Of course, the only fantasy that I really do read and really do love is the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett right now. But most of what I've read this year has been Sci-Fi and that's where my vote went. Damn you Zamyatin, damn you Huxeley, damn you Pohl, damn you all for taking my elves away.


----------



## littlemissattitude

Science fiction, mostly because I was raised on it and only came to fantasy later.  Although to be honest, I see all kinds of blending of the two in many of the things I read.


----------



## nixie

Teresa Edgerton said:


> Hmmmm ... I like the way you think.


Me too


----------



## Pyar

Its all tied up! I guess we are really split down the middle.


----------



## drush9999

I mostly read fantasy but despise the genre on celluloid. Seems better left to the imagination. On the other hand I love SF movies, but don't read much SF.

Did vote for fantasy, as reading is my main past-time.


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## Miss Taylor

Fantasy all the way. It's just the idea of magic, which seems to play a much bigger part in fantasy, though it is not always absent in sci-fi. What can I say, I'm a child at heart


----------



## Shamu

I love me my fantasy - I love the variety that's out there right now.


----------



## Miss Taylor

Shamu said:


> I love me my fantasy - I love the variety that's out there right now.




 True! I'm like a kid in a sweet shop when you get me in the fantasy section in the library. Sci-fi can become a little bit generic I think, not all sci-fi, but I guess theres only so many things that can happen in space (to take this branch as a particular example).

Give someone a magic wand and the possibilites are endless


----------



## Karn Maeshalanadae

Miss Taylor said:


> Give someone a magic wand and the possibilites are endless




That's what I love most about fantasy my own self. Possibilities are endless-and sometimes, very often, frightening. I've personally come up with a type of creature that I doubt has ever even been seen in anyone's nightmare.


Fantasy is my part, and I'm not ashamed to tell anyone I love it. I far prefer it over most sci fi because there really isn't much that can be done in space-unless of course, you add another fantasy spill into the mix.


----------



## jojajihisc

Miss Taylor said:


> Fantasy all the way. It's just the idea of magic, which seems to play a much bigger part in fantasy, though it is not always absent in sci-fi. What can I say, I'm a child at heart





Miss Taylor said:


> Give someone a magic wand and the possibilites are endless



"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

                                                 ~Arthur C. Clarke


----------



## Esioul

I can't vote on this, because I just can't decide! Why not both?


----------



## GrownUp

I've read a lot of fantasy, because as a sci-fi fan I rather think I'm supposed to enjoy it. But I can't. I can't I can't I can't. Four books into any fantasy series with a handful of random magic/warrior/animal talking people still travelling on some bally quest and I'm BLEEDING FROM THE EYES.


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## thepaladin

There are some better than others. Have you tried "urban" fantasy? The Dresden books?


----------



## GrownUp

Urban fantasy? Gosh, can there be such a thing?

Have read Nightwatch, though, come to think of it. Is it similar?


----------



## thepaladin

By Sergey Lukyanenko? No...haven't found it. I've seen it mentioned, but haven't read it.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Woo! Fantasy!


----------



## GrownUp

thepaladin said:


> By Sergey Lukyanenko? No...haven't found it. I've seen it mentioned, but haven't read it.



It's set in modern urban Russia, with a sort of diplomatic police agency, or agencies, maintaining the balance between light and dark.


It's all very well, but I'd much rather a nice sci-fi. You can take the woman out of the future dystopia but you cannot take the future dystopia out of the woman.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

> It's all very well, but I'd much rather a nice sci-fi. You can take the woman out of the future dystopia but you cannot take the future dystopia out of the woman.


Hahaha, I can't quite tell if that's offensive or not. Either way, it's pretty funny.


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## thepaladin

Well...I've always found that so far as taste in literature goes words to live by are: "to each their own".


----------



## J Riff

Bring back Hugo Gernsback.


----------



## J-WO

So far I've only been able to reanimate his knees.  Will post updates.


----------



## elfdragonlord

Tough call, so I've left it blank.  I know, I'm a fence sitter

I love the atmosphere and wonder of fantasy and it has rich stories and characterisation.  But it also gets kind of samey with all the tolkien/d&d copyists.

SF on the other hand is full of ideas and every book is different and a lot of it really makes you think.  But often the characterisation seems a bit thin.

I find it hard to pick between the two because both have such a great potential for true brilliance but both are frequently very flawed unfortunately. (though don't get me wrong - SF and fantasy are the only genres I can actually read without getting bored, so they both win against other genres hands down)


----------



## Hilarious Joke

You are an elfdragonlord.

Vote fantasy.


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## elvet

I'm first and foremost a Fantasy fan, but have recently dipped my toe in SF - mostly trying out books by authors that impressed me with their fantasy fiction (Neal Stephenson, Richard Morgan). I also enjoyed Ender's game and Robert Sawyer's Hominids.


----------



## elfdragonlord

Hilarious Joke said:


> You are an elfdragonlord.
> 
> Vote fantasy.



fair point.

Fantasy is the one that I've loved the longest (I'm a bit new to scifi) so that's tipped it for me.  I voted Fantasy


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Yay!

That's a pretty juicy four-vote margin...

Can we declare Fantasy the winner now then?


----------



## Teresa Edgerton

It's see-sawed back and forth throughout the history of this thread, but I think this is the first time we've seen either genre take such a commanding lead.


----------



## Karn Maeshalanadae

Now don't get me wrong-sci fi has its uses for those who enjoy it.

I simply don't enjoy it. I'm well experienced in both fantasy and sci fi-at least, as well experienced with sci fi as I can be I suppose. (I guess mostly Bradbury and a slew of dystopian novels don't fully qualify me in the genre.)

There's just aspects that sci fi tends to have I usually don't like. And I'm not just talking about the paranoid, lantern-jawed super space captain style that was mass produced in the 50's to accomodate the alien invasion-obsessed society, but fairly more modern stories, like Piers Anthony's Visions of Tarot series and Stephen Donaldson's Gap series.


(Now good ol' Piers' Phaze/Proton novels were something of an intrigue to me-though in theory I knew of the practice, to combine strict magic fantasy to strict techno sci fi like that caught me off guard when I first read Blue Adept. But, he proved it can be pulled off.)



Funny-this response is bringing up deja vu for me.....


----------



## J Riff

There's no argument that works against SciFi, it is invincible ! 
 Undeniably some of the most important literature of our lifetime. 
TV and Hollywood have done their best trying to turn into into a replacement for westerns and soap operas, but _no_ -  a great SciFi novel is still better (  and better for you ! ) than Avatar or even Planet of the Apes !


----------



## J Riff

No offense to anyone but there's no winner - fantasy is simply an older genre than sciFi. This discussion was old in the 30s when SciFi appeared.


----------



## Teresa Edgerton

Except that fantasy wasn't considered _as_ a specific genre until the popularity of Tolkien made it into a viable marketing genre and then people began to separate it out from the mainstream.

In the 1970's, there was a lot more science fiction being written then there was fantasy.  Now the tables have turned.  They may turn again.


----------



## Rodders

So, does anyone get annoyed with the fact that SF and Fantasy are so very much tied together by people who don't appreciate either genre?


----------



## Teresa Edgerton

Since they are very much tied together by so many people who _do_ appreciate both genres ... not so much.


----------



## thepaladin

No. They have both been the "step children" of literature for so long....I suspect most of us are used to it.

By the way, no offense to actual "step children"...

They actually sort of "grew-up together in the so called "pulp era" and still share the same shelving areas. Many of us grew up reading both and thinking of it as "imaginative literature".


----------



## J Riff

S'truth.. it was Tolkein ..and I remember well when he surged in popularity in the 70s and the middle earth posters were everywhere. 
But.. it was Gernsback who wanted to put the brakes on what he called 'fantasy'. He had to do this because people were starting to write about things they hadn't before, things that were starting to become evident ; spaceflight and robots, technological issues..so he was right to put a cap on ' fantasy ' which has gone it's merry way.
In the really early writings ( even Voltaire wrote sciFi ) they often had to call it 'a fantasy ' if they went to the moon or down into the earth or anything weird. 
So I guess early sciFi was called fantasy as often as not. There's many a great yarn that mixes the two so let's call it a draw .... except :

If the SciFi characters took on the Fantasy creatures.. in an all-out war... who would win ? From the side of the SciFi-ers...I suggest we nuke the entire Elf-planet from orbit.


----------



## J-WO

J Riff said:


> :
> 
> If the SciFi characters took on the Fantasy creatures.. in an all-out war... who would win ? From the side of the SciFi-ers...I suggest we nuke the entire Elf-planet from orbit.




I suppose the closest we have seen to this is the battle at the end of Avatar, with its winged beasties versus VTOL craft with armour piercing rounds. The result was, as the actress said to the megalomaniac Hollywood Writer-Director , entirely unconvincing.

I guess in a _'real_' SF/ fantasy scrap, one side would lob magic fireballs, the other discharge its singularity cannons, and then both sides argue like kids in a playground as to who hurt who.

Thems the breaks in a clash of two sets of physics.


----------



## Urien

I always enjoyed the tiny Ewoks with their unbending limbs and stone age weapons defeating the Elite Imperial Storm Troopers. Still, we all know the best place to stand when an imperial storm trooper is shooting... right in front of him.


----------



## thepaladin

I know...very confusing. After all the first time we meet Obi-Wan (actually the third story in time line, but oh well, let's not go there) he says that "only Imperial Storm Troopers are so accurate" when pointing out the blast points on the Jaw's transport.... must be a different group of Storm Trooper.


----------



## Ursa major

Some must be clones, the others clowns.


----------



## Teresa Edgerton

J Riff said:


> S'truth.. it was Tolkein ..and I remember well when he surged in popularity in the 70s and the middle earth posters were everywhere.



Some of those posters adorned my bedroom wall.  I still have the enormous one with the Barbara Remington artwork, and very ugly it is, too.  But I still keep it because it's probably a collector's item, and if I threw it away or sold it on eBay someone would probably come along later and tell me that it's worth thousands of dollars.


----------



## J Riff

Millions. 
My Middle Earth map is gone, reduced to tatters, or I would trade it for something useful, like a house.


----------



## The_African

I've read a lot more science fiction and sci-fi has been my favorite genre since I was a child. Most fantasy novels are centered in medieval European culture and I can't really relate. In theory, however, I prefer the idea of fantasy over science fiction. Science fiction can allow you to experience a world that is drastically different from our world but like our world in that things are explainable and follow the same basic set of rules that our universe does. I think it takes more imagination to create a world with events that are unexplainable and follow a completely separate set of rules than events in our universe do. Besides, if you're writing a story about something that is logically impossible, why not just admit that it is logically impossible rather than coming up with a psuedo-scientific explanation for it?

Fantasy is the oldest genre of story telling (most likely), I just wish that there were more fantasy novels based on African mythology or involving Black characters. I ordered a bunch of fantasy novels online and, if I like them, I might start reading more fantasy than sci-fi. Two 'things' I love about science fiction that fantasy doesn't have are androids/robots and aliens.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

> I think it takes more imagination to create a world with events that are unexplainable and follow a completely separate set of rules than events in our universe do.


 
Isn't this an argument _for _fantasy?



> Besides, if you're writing a story about something that is logically impossible, why not just admit that it is logically impossible rather than coming up with a psuedo-scientific explanation for it?


 
I think simply because readers want to believe that what they're reading is true.

Welcome to the Chron, by the way!


----------



## The_African

> Isn't this an argument _for _fantasy?


 
Yes, it is. Even though I've read more science fiction and a lot fantasy novels don't appeal to me, the _idea_ of fantasy appeals to me more than the idea of science fiction. Besides Beloved, I can't think of a single, adult, fantasy novel I've read. Maybe once I read more, I'll find that I like even the 'stereotypical' fantasy stories.






> Welcome to the Chron, by the way!


 
Thanks.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

> Even though I've read more science fiction and a lot fantasy novels don't appeal to me, the _idea_ of fantasy appeals to me more than the idea of science fiction. Besides Beloved, I can't think of a single, adult, fantasy novel I've read. Maybe once I read more, I'll find that I like even the 'stereotypical' fantasy stories.


We'll make a fantasy lover out of you yet!


----------



## J-WO

Nooooo!


----------



## The Procrastinator

Voted I have.

For Fantasy, Precious!

In real life I find it impossible to choose and read (and love) both. So I picked the one on the top of the list. 

(Actually if I'm really honest I probably voted Fantasy because of the Lord of the Rings, which I love on many levels - and try as I might I don't have a sci fi equivalent of that kind of love...so there.)


----------



## Doctor Crankenstein

I voted for SF. 

I find it more interesting and more worthwhile to contemplate possible futures than possible pasts.


----------



## digs

I voted for fantasy. There's just something about the sheer scope of possibilities in fantasy that gets me. _Anything _can happen (within the logical boundaries of the world, of course - but good fantasy authors can push those boundaries pretty far). There are some scifi books that I absolutely love, like _Ender's Game _and a few of that ilk, but there are so many fantasy books that have touched and possibly even changed me in some way.


----------



## Connavar

The_African said:


> I've read a lot more science fiction and sci-fi has been my favorite genre since I was a child. Most fantasy novels are centered in medieval European culture and I can't really relate. In theory, however, I prefer the idea of fantasy over science fiction. Science fiction can allow you to experience a world that is drastically different from our world but like our world in that things are explainable and follow the same basic set of rules that our universe does. I think it takes more imagination to create a world with events that are unexplainable and follow a completely separate set of rules than events in our universe do. Besides, if you're writing a story about something that is logically impossible, why not just admit that it is logically impossible rather than coming up with a psuedo-scientific explanation for it?
> 
> Fantasy is the oldest genre of story telling (most likely), I just wish that there were more fantasy novels based on African mythology or involving Black characters. I ordered a bunch of fantasy novels online and, if I like them, I might start reading more fantasy than sci-fi. Two 'things' I love about science fiction that fantasy doesn't have are androids/robots and aliens.



You must read Imaro series by Charles.R Saunders.  An sword and sorcery series based on Ancient African history,myths.   Great writing and perfect for African readers like us.

I asked myself the same question until i saw that series.  The books are in print too.


----------



## The_African

Connavar said:


> You must read Imaro series by Charles.R Saunders. An sword and sorcery series based on Ancient African history,myths. Great writing and perfect for African readers like us.
> 
> I asked myself the same question until i saw that series. The books are in print too.


 
I read two of his short stories (Yahimba's Choice and Gimmile's Songs) in the Dark Matter anthologies and I loved them. I ordered the first two Imaro books from Amazon as well as My Soul To Keep by Tananarive Due but I don't know of any other African based fantasies. I have everything ever written by Octavia Butler but she mostly wrote science fiction.




> I find it more interesting and more worthwhile to contemplate possible futures than possible pasts.


 
That's another reason why many fantasy novels never appealed to me but maybe fantasy isn't preoccupied with the past so much as with low-technology societies where there's more of a need for magic. For all we know, future humans might return to pre-industrial, agricultural socieities (or even hunting-gathering), especially since running out of fossil fuels is inevitable. Or environmentally friendly, alternative sources of energy may become the norm, I don't know much about the subject so I don't know if solar power, wind power etc. is as efficient. The Sword of Shannara series takes place in the future.


----------



## Doctor Crankenstein

> The Sword of Shannara series takes place in the future.



And Star Wars takes place in the past.


----------



## Vertigo

I have voted SF. I do read and enjoy fantasy but find SF more consistently good and varied. Fantasy books all too often just seem to follow a standard template. I'm not saying all fantasy is like that but I find much more "same old same old" than there is in SF. There are obvious and remarkable exceptions to this, I just find them harder to isolate.


----------



## River Boy

Fantasy for me, though I prefer to think in terms of folklore and storytelling.

I'd love to find a sci-fi author I can really embrace, but for me sci-fi is used more for moral debate than to explore the imagination and it seems much harder to do well. I suspect I'll go through Philip K Dick's library at some point though, and perhaps HG Wells. My favourite two sci-fi novels are actually by CS Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.


----------



## steve100

In one respect, I see Sci-Fi as a way for humanity to search out its own potential, exploring avenues that could one day become real. The imagination 'daring' us to follow, if we are mad enough that is!!!!

Fantasy is a fine way to 'escape' the sometimes hard labours of life. I favour Fantasy, but do enjoy a good Sci-Fi film.


----------



## Rand

Vertigo said:


> I have voted SF. I do read and enjoy fantasy but find SF more consistently good and varied. Fantasy books all too often just seem to follow a standard template. I'm not saying all fantasy is like that but I find much more "same old same old" than there is in SF. There are obvious and remarkable exceptions to this, I just find them harder to isolate.




Agreed.

There was a time when it would have been very difficult for me to choose between the two, but then fantasy suffered from a glut of FRPG players who decided to write stories based on their gaming characters.  In some cases it worked out.  In most, it really didn't.

SF suffered from the cyber-punk trend a while back (Super Hackers battling Security and other Super Hackers in VR worlds), but that died out pretty quickly and, unlike the FRPG gamers' stories, didn't create viable enough by-the-numbers templates to influence writers who came later.


----------



## Allegra

I voted SF because my favourite writers are Kurt Vonnegut, Iain Banks and Douglas Adams. In fact as long as it's well written, I enjoy both.


----------



## Anne Lyle

I voted fantasy because that's what I mainly read (and exclusively write) these days. I don't dislike SF - I grew up on it, and loved it for many years, but after the heyday of cyberpunk I just couldn't find any new SF I really enjoyed. Maybe the odd "soft SF" novel here and there (_Ring of Swords_ by Eleanor Arnason - very Ursula K Le Guin), but New Space Opera leaves me cold.

I agree that a lot of fantasy is very same-y, which is why I've become a very selective reader. Besides, I don't have time to read a big fat fantasy epic a week _and_ work on my own stuff - especially when even my "leisure" reading is often research into the current market. Given the choice, I prefer to savour a good Tim Powers or re-read a favourite Pratchett (like _Lords and Ladies_).


----------



## TheEndIsNigh

Hey come on fellow SF lovers.

I thought we had this stitched up.

Polls like this are important. The publishing industry will use results like these as an excuse to profligate long winded  1000 page forest despoiling book worm loving obliques. You know the kind of book you need a fork lift to get it out of the shop. (volume one)

Plus they'll be changing the name of the site to Science Fantasy and Fiction.


----------



## FaerieMajikk

fantasy for me, i don't think that i have read any SF before!


----------



## chrispenycate

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Hey come on fellow SF lovers.
> 
> I thought we had this stitched up.
> 
> Polls like this are important. The publishing industry will use results like these as an excuse to profligate long winded  1000 page forest despoiling book worm loving obliques. You know the kind of book you need a fork lift to get it out of the shop. (volume one)
> 
> Plus they'll be changing the name of the site to Science Fantasy and Fiction.



Peter Hamilton can do some pretty impressive fork-lift requirements.

And a Pratchett fantasy (even if he does slightly overuse logic and rationality, he's always classed as fantasy) can be read in an afternoon.



> fantasy for me, i don't think that i have read any SF before!



So, what fantasy have you really enjoyed reading. I'll bet we can find an SF author who will tickle your fancy…

No, probably not a good idea. You'll already get enough suggestions in just one of the genres to build your "to be read" stack to architectural rather than interior decorating proportions; adding the second division is just cruelty to Strines.


----------



## Deathpool

I like science fiction the best.


----------



## manephelien

I like both, but lately I've read far more fantasy than SF. It varies, though.


----------



## Redthing

I read both, but I like fantasy better. Sometimes I go on SF binges!


----------



## Allanon

For me it's Fantasy as you'll see on my new thread in this forum


----------



## True Blue Mug

My head say sci-fi, but my heart says fantasy.


----------



## Palerider

Horror and Fantasy, in that order.


----------



## R M Tobias

What does book of the new sun come under?


----------



## mosaix

SF for me, every time.


----------



## Weasel Soup

My decision came down to do I prefer Martin or Gibson. Love them both but Martin wins.


----------



## Connavar

Close this thread for SF fans sake 

Of course the heroics of fantasy wins over the what ifs of SF,darker social stories,science babble stories.  A generlisation but fantasy is more popular so what.


SF fanboy rant over !


----------



## midworldman

Fantasy is for those who wistfully long for a world where their dreams are real.  A world that can never exist.  Science Fiction can oft times become reality.  Even it's most ambitious visions are just a question of engineering.


----------



## Michael01

I chose fantasy, but like others here I like both - very much. How can I not love stories like Dan Simmons' _Hyperion_ or Clarke's _Ender_ series (especially the Bean books)? I found as much wonder - and sometimes more - in them as any fantasy I've read.

And there really is a lot of same old, same old in fantasy. It's just that it has so much more _potential_ than it actually exhibits most of the time. I can imagine fantasy going places and doing things in many directions; yet, many writers keep to the same well-worn paths and rarely seem to venture off of them. I read many fantasy stories that I love, but I keep hoping for something that goes beyond the usual fare at the same time.

In the meantime, I still have my favorites: _The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever_, _Elantris_, _The Chronicles of Amber_, and so on....


----------



## mdlachlan

I prefer fantasy books but SF films. With the exception of Lord of the Rings and maybe Time Bandits, I struggle to think of a good fantasy film. And yes, I am including Highlander and Potter.
That said, can't we like both? I mean, I like tea, I like coffee, what's the problem?


----------



## Cynic

Definitely Fantasy.  I read Sci Fi now and again but if I want to read something scientific I tend to read Scientific papers or articles.  Fantasy will always be my favorite genre.


----------



## william b

I don't always care for hard sci-fi  but I like a good space adventure or a twist on old SF ideas.


----------



## Esspwebbb

I will go with science fiction.Its more interesting.


----------



## Starbeast

I couldn't vote. There are many elements of science fiction and fantasy I like, plus the combination of both can make for a wild story.


----------



## Abernovo

SF for me, and decent Hard SF, by preference. That said, my guilty pleasures include some Urban Fantasy, particularly Jim Butcher's 'Dresden Files' and Richelle Mead's 'Succubus' novels (I'm in touch with my feminine side - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Most other Fantasy does nothing for me. I have to admit I thought Lord of the Rings was pretty decent, but all other High Fantasy leaves me cold. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books, or maybe I'll go back one day and love some of them. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.


----------



## Needle

Simply put- dragons and magic trump spaceships and robots every time!


----------



## Vince W

For me it's scifi. I love to see the future and how it is envisioned. Fantasy is ok once in a while, but it can't hold my attention for very long.


----------



## CS Johnson

I can't answer this!  Somedays fantasy, others SF, then again ...  It's a bit like asking which of your children you prefer.


----------



## hopewrites

I chose fantasy because magic is more believable.

wait wait let me defend my statement.

The SF I've read is full of technical jargon and incomplete world building. I dont know where I am or what is going on. Where as fantasy explains things. 
I love watching Futurama, because they explain the SF end of it. Too often when I read SF and come to some techno-babel I, like Fry, just say "magic" and move on.


----------



## Jeni

I prefer fantasy.

I find it takes me a lot longer to get into and read science fiction... I can read a whole fantasy series in the time it would take to read one sci-fi novel. This is in part because I've never been able to get as emotionally connected to a sci-fi novel as I can to a fantasy novel... although I did get close with Asimov's 'The God's Themselves'.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Very very hard, I read more fantasy, but when it comes to creation, it's sci fi all the time, even when I don't mean it to be, and even though my knowledge and skills lean to fantasy, I suspect its the legacy of early reading.. Dune, C. S. Lewis, Scott card's short work. Whilst I love the fantasy its the sheer untouched potential that makes my main character a space boy, and I can't change that.  Heck, yes, it's sci fi, tried to talk myself down, but there you go... any tickets on the Virgin starship for less than a quid?


----------



## jojajihisc

This used to be close. Now we're inching towards a fantasy super-majority. Dammit SF fans, where are you?



hopewrites said:


> Where as fantasy explains things.



This is exactly what SF is supposed to be doing by definition, so keep searching or I could suggest a few...



hopewrites said:


> I love watching Futurama, because they explain the SF end of it.



"Good news." 







I like your taste.


----------



## hopewrites

I would gladly take your suggestion. Currently reading Tale of Two Cities and the modern parallels I'm drawing are frightening.


----------



## Quokka

hopewrites said:


> The SF I've read is full of technical jargon and incomplete world building.



That is only one aspect of sci fi, a lot of my favourite SF stories have very little science in them at all, with the focus on the personal or social. Like the book Flowers for Algernon or even the movie Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. It's science fiction in that a technology is used to achieve something that would be generally considered impossible today but that's only a starting point.

Still read a bit of both and other fiction but I started with mainly Fantasy and now it's mainly Science Fiction.


----------



## jojajihisc

"Flowers for Algernon" did have the technology that enabled the enhancement in it, although your right Quokka it focuses more on the personal relationships overall. 



hopewrites said:


> I would gladly take your suggestion. Currently reading Tale of Two Cities and the modern parallels I'm drawing are frightening.



Explained but not a lot of technical jargon? *_Gulp_* Maybe just a little? Let me ask you this. Which sounds like the type of explanation you prefer to read - deterministic and methodical or accessible and convenient? If the former then maybe you'll like some of the suggestions below. If the latter not all of these will be useful.

Ted Chiang - "Story of Your Life," "Understand," "Exhalation"
Stephen Baxter - *Ring*
Brian Aldiss - *Helliconia series*
Greg Bear - "Blood Music"
Allen Steele - *Coyote series*
Kim Stanley Robinson - *Mars trilogy* (probably most of his work)
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - *The Mote in God's Eye*, *Lucifer's Hammer*


----------



## THX-1138

SciFi by a small margin.


----------



## Tecdavid

I'm more of a fantasy patron, myself. In terms of both reading _and_ writing, and I think that has to do with the fact that fantasy can mess around in whatever the heck it wants, in whatever manner it pleases, whereas sci-fi has certain guidelines to follow; logic has a far more prominent place, and that restricts what one can do with the genre.
I love the sense of freedom that comes with fantasy. (Not that I'm _knocking_ sci-fi at all, you understand.)


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Oh, you see, I see it the opposite; with sci fi everything is possible.  Ok you have to a reason, but the future is there and open, where I see fantasy as more genre bound and less exciting. Having said that, I read a lot more fantasy but really good sci fi is the one which leaves me with a sense of wonderment, a sense of being a child again.


----------



## Tecdavid

Really? I've always seen sci-fi as the branching out from logic; the  evolution of what we have here and now. Whereas fantasy was _pure_  fabrication, and without boundary. But perhaps, when it comes to sci-fi,  I've just read/seen/played the wrong examples. What are your favorite  works of sci-fi? Maybe I ought to give them a try.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Oh gosh, put my money where my mouth is! Hardcore sci fi lovers will now groan at my choices, and as I say I do read much more fantasy, it's just I find it more formulaic and less likely to absolutely make me stop and say I know something new now and it was worth learning it.

I like Orson Scott card; unfortunately he did Ender to death.  I'd recommend Maps in a mirror, which is his short collection. I think his novels are better as short stories so Mikal's songbird is better than the novel it spawned, I think.  Quite a lot better, I think.   

I like Heinlein.

And, I suppose I'd include Dune, but it's a bit like LOTR it takes a long time to get there; I actually prefer Dune Messiah where the whole Paul and his legacy thing gets addressed a little better I think.

I'm just reading Ian Whates at the mo, and quite enjoying it although it's getting a little bit masculine in style for me in places.


----------



## Tecdavid

Well, I'll keep each of those in mind, then. I'll be looking for a few  new reads to add to the christmas list this year, so it'll be a chance  to take a look for myself. Thanks, Springs.


----------



## j d worthington

Tecdavid: Certainly "mundane" sf would tend to fit that description, as one of its precepts is to use only that which we understand to be established now as the basis for its speculations; hence even a lot of traditional sf tropes (time-travel, the variety of alien species, etc.) are seldom allowed there.

But sf itself is immensely broad and has often had a very close affinity with fantasy (Heinlein's *Glory Road*, Leiber's "Ship of Shadows", much of the work of the 1940s through the 1960s, the bulk of Moorcock's sf), so fantasy readers be more comfortable with some of this than they think.

I, too, would highly recommend *Flowers for Algernon* -- yes, it has the technology, but it is never made much of a point of. The entire focus of the book is on the human story of Charlie Gordon. It is also just a damn fine book, period. (And, for my money, the short story is even better in some ways!) I would also recommend "The Ugly Little Boy", "Eyes Do More Than See", "Dreaming is a Private Thing", "The Lost Past", and a host of other stories by Isaac Asimov; Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" (which has got to be one of the most heart-wrenching stories out there in its basic situation), 'Mimsey Were the Borogoves", "The Children's Hour", and "Vintage Season" by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore; a lot of Theodore Sturgeon, perhaps especially "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff", both the science fiction and fantasy of Harlan Ellison; *Dune*, by Frank Herbert; *The Demolished Man* and *The Stars My Destination* (a.k.a. Tiger, Tiger) by Alfred Bester; the bulk of Ray Bradbury's work; John Brunner's "ecological dystopian" trilogy, *Stand on Zanzibar*, *The Jagged Orbit*, and *The Sheep Look Up*; "Waldo", by Robert A. Heinlein; *A Canticle for Leibowitz*, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.; *A Case of Conscience*, by James Blish; Edgar Pangborn's *A Mirror for Observers*, *Davy*, or "Angel's Egg"; any number of things by J. G. Ballard (perhaps, particularly, the trilogy The Drowned World, The Drought, and The Crystal World, or the later trilogy -- though this one is particularly grim -- Crash, Concrete Island, and High Rise, or his more hopeful The Unlimited Dream Company;... or just picking up a number of anthologies, such as Damon Knight's *A Science Fiction Argosy*; Anthony Boucher's *A Treasury of Great Science Fiction*; *The Science Fiction Hall of Fame*, vol. 1 (ed. by Robert Silverberg) and vols. IIA and IIB (ed. by Ben Bova); *The Golden Age of Science Fiction*, ed. by Groff Conklin; or even the volumes of *The Hugo Winners*, beginning with vol. 1.

I think that, if you try a few of these, you'll find that sf is at least as broad as fantasy, if not more so; for fantasy has tended, for some time now, to be caught in a certain set of tropes (though that is gradually changing), whereas with sf (if one goes with the entire history of the genre), there is no limit save the writer's imagination....


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Thanks J.D. I knew someone would come to my rescue, I knew what I wanted to say but didn't quite get there!


----------



## j d worthington

De nada....


----------



## Tecdavid

I'm going to have to note those down. That's quite a list! 
But thank you very much for it. You're right that I've probably moulded  my definition of sci-fi around more mundane, over-done concepts, and  that there's plenty more for me to discover. It sounds like Isaac Asimov sports quite a collection, so I might look up a little more about his works, to begin with.


----------



## hopewrites

If your fantisy reading contains only the "usual suspects" I would recommend both sets of Melanie Rawn (if you know me you will see I am quite a fan of hers and recommend her a lot).
the two trilogies Dragon Prince and Dragon Star come together to tell the life of one character while still being full of character and characters themselves. I love the magic system she has set up here and the way she deals with politics, war, and life in general.
her unfinished series Exiles is by far my favorite, the magic system here is explored in depth, and the diametrically opposed factions shown for their similarities. I think its the second book Mageborn Traitor that has my favorite quote about hypocrisy... yes it is I just remembered where Glenin goes after giving it and that's definitely in the second book. This series takes on more social things although its as full of politics as the other two.

I personally like her style of story telling though each series has its own distinct narrative voice. She deals with the harder aspect of life in such a way that one cant help but think.
tried to keep from spoilering anything while giving enough information to help interested parties decide if it would be 'for them'.


----------



## Arwen Delyon

This is a toughy for me; I like them both, but as a fan I have to go with science fiction. Science fiction usually focuses on the future, fantasy the past, though on rare occasions the present. I like science fiction like Star Treck because it offers other possibilities for what could be, possibilities for not only invention, but social progress and equality that are still being discovered. I realize how philosophical that sounds, but I'm a philosophical person.


----------



## chongjasmine

I love fantasy more than science fiction. In fact, I rarely read science fiction.


----------



## AnyaKimlin

To be honest as a reader the story and characters have always been more important than the genre.  Vampires being about the only thing I tend to put back on the shelf.

Fantasy won purely because as a writer I am lazy and like the freedoms of the genre.


----------



## old wallie

It's almost a tie.


----------



## Tiffany

I started of by reading Sci-Fi, but once I read authors like Anne McCaffrey, Terry Pratchett etc, I found I prefered Fantasy.


----------



## biodroid

I like fantasy more than SF as I can't read hard SF. If I had to choose a style of SF then I would say if it was written in a Star Wars actiony kind of way then I would read it. I guess that's more Science Fantasy then.


----------



## Warren_Paul

I'm definitely a fantasy reader. First fantasy novel I ever picked up was Betrayal at Krondor, by Raymond E. Feist, was sold on the genre ever since. (even though that book was bad compared to so many others I've read since).


I read Star Wars in my youth, but that's as far as my sci-fi experience goes.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

ughhh, first time I've looked at this for a while. We sci fi-fans are getting trashed.


----------



## tangaloomababe

My vote is for SF by a mile. I have to admit I a not a huge fan of Fantasy, but SF I love.


----------



## calyxte

I've always liked science fiction best, the only fantasy I've ever liked is the Temeraire series.


----------



## Bowler1

SciFi of course, well mostly. I have read all of the game of thrones recently, interesting if aimless by the end, but great characters. But in general SciFi has more freedom when compare to fantasy and its not all hard SciFi out there.

What does really bug me is whenever I go into a book shop, the Fantasy/SciFi section has way more Fantasy on the shevles - why is that I ask? More movies come from SciFi books so why are we not knocking fantasy off the shevles. Rant/rave/rant


----------



## Fried Egg

Bowler1 said:


> What does really bug me is whenever I go into a book shop, the Fantasy/SciFi section has way more Fantasy on the shevles - why is that I ask? More movies come from SciFi books so why are we not knocking fantasy off the shevles. Rant/rave/rant


Fantasy sells more, simple as that. 

What it does...is another question.


----------



## Bowler1

But with all the hype and publicity movies generate you'd think a few more people would wonder if the original book was any better. SciFi should be getting ahead of fantasy because of this link, but I guess not.

However as I write SciFi, and this is blue sky thinking, when my book get mades into a movie - I'll be RICH!! 

Well, I can hope.


----------



## Vertigo

I think it is easier to make SF movies; you generally only have one or two different races to create with cgi/make up, whereas fantasy frequently has lots of different races (elves, dwarves etc) not to mention weird beast like dragons etc. CGI'ing space ships (which don't move very much relative to themselves) against a nice black space background with a few stars is going to be a lot easier than CGI'ing a dragon beating huge leathery wings against a background of hills/forests/mountains/clouds. Also in this day and age it is getting ever harder to find filming locations for fantasy without modern stuff impinging. All fixable with modern techniques but just maybe a little harder, and therefore more expensive, for the fantasy genre. Gross generalisation of course.

As for the reading preferences, SF tends to attract a certain type of person with a bit of a scientific bent, interest in technology etc. whereas fantasy _can_ appeal to a much broader audience. Another factor is there are probably more and bigger sub-genres of fantasy (possibly 'sub' only in how the shops often organise them). I don't just mean epic etc. versus space opera etc. But more the fact that, for example, vampire/werewolf style stories (of which there seem to be quite a few these days!) are typically lumped in with the fantasy books. Again more gross generalisation but possibly something to do with it.

I would also add - and I find this one just plain weird - that I know a _lot_ of people who love SF movies but wouldn't go near an SF book with a barge pole. On the other hand most people I know who love fantasy films also devour fantasy books.


----------



## Bowler1

Well said Vertigo. 

I think with technology these days flapping wings are not an issue but modern stuff impinging I will agree with. 

Peter F Hamilton reality dysfunction series, has the dead returning claiming bodies of the living, so SciFi can do horror. Yet still we don't get sub-genres shelf space.   

Your last point however says it all, and I find that a little weird as well. I can only assume our technology focus has put people off. Still its what I do and is my passion so head down, write away ignoring all the odds against me. Its hard tell an Irishman what he can't do!


----------



## Vertigo

I think it's hard to tell any author what they should or shouldn't write, and so it should probably be, I guess!

I think any of the sub genres can appear in SF, isn't that one of the beauties of SF? David Weber even managed to have vampires defeding Earth from invading aliens. However the difference is, I think, that they don't get separated out as they seem to elsewhere. They all just get lumped in as SF. Whether it's horror, detective murder mystery, military, pyschological, or even fantasy itself that's mixed in, it is still just SF. Mind you, in some ways I quite like that!


----------



## hopewrites

I think the reason they get lumped together is that people assume that SF is a sub of Fantasy.
*she says from a well concealed fox-hole to hide from the mob that will surely come after her for such a remark*


----------



## Bowler1

I will join you in that fox hole, Hopewrites, lock and load - prepare to defend.


----------



## J-WO

Two cent theory #29,241: Could it be possible that fantasy is more popular during an economic downturn whilst SF sales flourish during a boom? 

Afterall, who wants to hear SF's stark warnings about the future when you can barely see past paying next month's rent?


----------



## Vertigo

Hm I think you have a point there JWO. The great growth of SF really came in the post war boom period, when everyone believed the rapid advances in science were going to give us the universe within their lifetimes. There seemed to be nothing that science couldn't achieve. Now people are a bit more jaded. Somehow science never quite seems to deliver on its promises. Note by the way that that really means the promises journalists make on behalf of the scientist. The scientists themselves are generally way more cautious about their promises. So maybe now more people want the more explicit escapism of fantasy.


----------



## Bowler1

J-WO, I had to think about your question and with added punch from Vertigo it was a good question. After some pondering I disagree. Spaceships whizzing around, super smart computers and all sorts of aliens are all make beleive and escapism as much as any fantasy work. Our technology moves on with each generation but the laws of physics have nearly always been played with.

I suspect the science is simply putting the reader off. Not that a lot is needed but some basics have to be known. Fantasy does not have to have that basic understanding to start with so its easier to get started in fantasy, as a reader.


----------



## J-WO

OK, maybe not all SF then. Space Opera survives pretty well, but near-future stuff--a significant part of the market--takes a tumble.

The science element, as you say, does put people off currently.


----------



## Bowler1

I love a good space opera, that must give fantasy a run for its money. I don't think you can beat aliens and ray guns!


----------



## J-WO

Amen to that.


----------



## Vertigo

Oh Yes


----------



## Jo Zebedee

And a third; oh yey! Space opera is, I believe, underrated*  and often treated as the second cousin to hard sci fi by the sci fi fans and fantasy by the fantasy fans. Who doesn't love a nice, sexy pilot, some shoot'em ups and some realised characters in an exciting story.

*but, ahem, I would say that, since I'm trying to flog a space opera book.


----------



## Bowler1

There are three of us just waiting in the wings for a good space opera so get flogging!


----------



## nightdreamer

I refuse to vote.  That's like asking which is more important, your heart or lungs?  Both are essential for survival.


----------



## hopewrites

yes but your lungs wont work without your heart, and your heart will work without your lungs. so ....



thats be being nitpicky because i havent eaten.
i better go see if there is any filet of dragon left in the hover fridge.


----------



## Bowler1

I'll read both but given a choice such as, what to take with me if I were stuck on a island for a year then it would have to be SciFi.


----------



## David Evil Overlord

Iiiinn this corner, weighing in at four hundred and eighty seven kilograms*, Sciieeeeence Fiction!!

And iiiin this corner, weighing in one hundred and thirty five pounds**, Faaaantassssyy!!

Now, let's get ready to rummmmbble!!!!! 

*Power armour is heavy.

**Chainmail bikinis are not so heavy.***

***May not include the weighht of the average Fat Fantasy Trilogy, Dead Tree Edition.


----------



## Bowler1

Ahhh nooo, I don't want to be the big fat one, DOE, what have you done........


----------



## hopewrites

you forgot to mention how comfortable chainmail bikini's are.


----------



## Bowler1

Hmmm, then again, chainmail bikini's......


----------



## hopewrites

its probably easier to mount a lightspeeder than a dragon though. and aliens are notoriously easier to negotiate with than anything fey.


----------



## Bowler1

If I were fighting fantasy I'd take the easy route. I'd stay in space and chuck rocks at you from a great big distance. Not very brave but effective!


----------



## hopewrites

Yes but how's your cloaking device? And can my fey friends bypass its technology with their magic?
Also how are you supposed to appreciate the view of chainmail bikini clad Amazonian women mounted on flaming dragons from space?
Makes it rather hard to be enchanting ...


----------



## Bowler1

Makes it rather hard to be enchanting ...

Your 100% right Hopewrites, all possible fantasy enchantments would be wasted on a spaceman high in orbit. That would Nulify one of fantasy's greatest strengths and give me a fighting chance. Not very brave, not very fair, but it’s got to give me an advantage. There is only one type of fight that counts, the one you win!  

Now, where did I leave all those big rocks?


----------



## hopewrites

In the care of my dwarves of course


----------



## J-WO

hopewrites said:


> Also how are you supposed to appreciate the view of chainmail bikini clad Amazonian women mounted on flaming dragons from space?



Somewhere in California, there's a van with this image airbrushed on it.


----------



## David Evil Overlord

Somewhere out in space, there are dwarf asteroid miners with that image airbrushed on their spaceship.


----------



## Colbey Frost

Fantasy to escape the real world and its army of bots!


----------



## Gramm838

wh'at pu'ts me of'f abo'ut fan'tasy is the num'ber of wor'ds that inc'lude un'necessa'ry apost'stop'hies...not every fantasy location or name has to have an arabic or oriental basis to it, does it?


----------



## hopewrites

maybe those writers just want to point up how many contractions it took to give birth to their world.


----------



## Abernovo

Gramm838 said:


> wh'at pu'ts me of'f abo'ut fan'tasy is the num'ber of wor'ds that inc'lude un'necessa'ry apost'stop'hies...not every fantasy location or name has to have an arabic or oriental basis to it, does it?


Sorry to be pedantic, Gramm, but apostrophe use does not denote 'an arabic or oriental basis'. Quite often, I take apostrophes in Fantasy words to represent a glottal stop, which is common in many languages, including your own.  Scots Gaelic to Polynesian, many cultures have it in their language.

In a different world, I would expect the names to be a little unusual. However, I do take the point that an apostrophe _might_ be used by a lazy writer to create a false air of exoticism, which I think would come across crassly unimaginative.



hopewrites said:


> maybe those writers just want to point up how many contractions it took to give birth to their world.


On the other hand, I think Hope's answer here is perfect.


----------



## Gramm838

Abernovo said:


> Sorry to be pedantic, Gramm, but apostrophe use does not denote 'an arabic or oriental basis'. Quite often, I take apostrophes in Fantasy words to represent a glottal stop, which is common in many languages, including your own.  Scots Gaelic to Polynesian, many cultures have it in their language.
> 
> In a different world, I would expect the names to be a little unusual. However, I do take the point that an apostrophe _might_ be used by a lazy writer to create a false air of exoticism, which I think would come across crassly unimaginative.
> 
> On the other hand, I think Hope's answer here is perfect.



Maybe I should have used the word 'exotic' then...but my point still stands!


----------



## Action Avenue

Sci-Fi "speaks" to me more than fantasy.  Both are engaging and are usually worth the trip through the passages.


----------



## chongjasmine

I like to be in a world of fantasy rather than science fiction.
I like the 'uniqueness' of the fantasy world where anything can be out there.
I don't really like science fiction.


----------



## Hermit the frog

I like both, although sci fi is the one that I always come back to. They both offer escapism, but whereas fantasy is a beautiful dream, sci fi is more, a dream that could become a reality. I can transport myself into both and enjoy it, its just that with sci fi the promise or threat that what you're reading could take place grounds me in the story a bit more.

Stumbling over what I feel, hope you get the idea.


----------



## Influx

I'm a fan of both genres, however of late the vast majority of my reading choices fall within Science Fiction. 

I went through a period where I was reading fat fantasy series which may have lead me to suffer an overdose on Fantasy somewhat.


----------



## Warren_Paul

Gramm838 said:


> wh'at pu'ts me of'f abo'ut fan'tasy is the num'ber of wor'ds that inc'lude un'necessa'ry apost'stop'hies...not every fantasy location or name has to have an arabic or oriental basis to it, does it?



To be honest, I don't find all that many fantasy novels that actually do this, and to claim they all do is a gross exaggeration. And putting all the apostrophes in your words like you've done doesn't reflect their proper intended use because you're putting them in random, incorrect places without any clear understanding of the purpose behind their use - which isn't solely rooted in fantasy (I imagine you will find plenty of examples in literary works as well), even sci-fi novels use the apostrophe in this way for its alien races dialects. In fact, they are even more likely to than fantasy. 

The only time I've used it in my writing would be the following tribal village name: Equi'te. The sole reason was to create a pause between the I and the T. But the apostrophe doesn't look out of place either, unlike your examples, and taking it out would give the word a completely different pronunciation which just sounds wrong.


----------



## nerd literature

I always want to say fantasy but I have to admit to myself I think science fiction is more my cup of tea even beyond literature. The shows I go back to time and time again are all science fiction: Fringe, X-Files & Farscape as well as the authors: Asimov, Bradbury, Wells, Herbert. That's not to say I don't love me some fantasy either.


----------



## allmywires

Gramm838 said:


> wh'at pu'ts me of'f abo'ut fan'tasy is the num'ber of wor'ds that inc'lude un'necessa'ry apost'stop'hies...not every fantasy location or name has to have an arabic or oriental basis to it, does it?



Very rarely do fantasy series base themselves accurately on Arabic or Oriental cultures, although I'll admit that apostrophitis does annoy me too. Constant medievalism of fantasy annoys me more, though - of all our time periods, that's the most exciting? Sheesh.

I like science fantasy. Science fiction to me is generally too unbelievable - at least stuff that isn't a humorous take on it, like Futurama - and standard Tolkien-esque ripoff fantasy gets samey after a while.


----------



## Southern Geologist

Both genres have been present with me since childhood--largely in the form of literature--but I'll admit that fantasy has historically been my preference throughout my life.  In spite of that, I had to pick science fiction.  It has grabbed me recently and not let go and I actually have the desire to write sci fi.  I've never had a strong desire to write fantasy.

Also, space opera rules. 

By the way, I don't have any intention of getting heavily involved in the competition but I'm pretty happy to see this poll/thread here merely to gauge where the board stands on the matter.


----------



## biodroid

I am steadily getting bored of the same fantasy tropes out there, so I will be trying my hand at some SF like Gary Gibson and Alastair Reynolds etc. I still want to read Janny Wurts Wars of Light and Shadow series and Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series but so far that's about it.


----------



## Southern Geologist

If you're interested in Donaldson and sci-fi I'd recommend his Gap series, a space opera.


----------



## Mr Fraaz

I voted Fantasy...

But I include the so called "space fantasy" genre in "fantasy".


----------



## Bick

Almost always it's SF for me.  I dip into Fantasy occasionally (such as King's Dark Tower), but it's a rare departure from the norm.


----------



## Handsome John

Look, SF is amazing (Kim Stanley Robinson, anyone? Philip Jose Farmer? Star Wars?) but Fantasy is clearly supreme.

Tolkein
Jordan
Martin
Brooks
Feist
Hobb

just to name a few.


----------



## steve12553

I kicked my vote to Science Fiction. This is one of the rare polls that I have seen that makes any sense. I don't have a favorite color, book, movie, or any of of those many things that people seem to be concerned about. At my age I've gone through many favorites and will revisit with mood. But in this case I've read at a ratio of hundreds to dozens Science Fiction to Fantasy. I've enjoy both but that's where my interest lies.


----------



## Ted Cross

I voted fantasy but only because I read slightly more of it than sci-fi. I love both of them pretty much equally.


----------



## JoanDrake

Following Clarke's Law, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from Magic. Modern physics says that at a Black Hole Singularity anything is possible so Magic might be possible to a technology that could utilize Singularities. Therefore I voted for SF, but there really isn't any difference between the two genres


----------



## chongjasmine

I chose fantasy, because I prefer to read it more than science fiction.


----------



## Mariella

I have read and enjoy both but have to give the nod and the vote to fantasy.  It is a pretty close vote.


----------



## ed9428

This is alot closer than I thought. I chose Sci fi, but I thought fantasy would have a bigger lead.


----------



## Darkchild130

I can't stand fantasy, with the exception of Game of thrones (tv show, not books). Something about magic really gets my back up.


----------



## lauren$77

I love fantasy the best! I do like watching sci-fi, but think we need a little magic in this scientific world that we live in


----------



## The_Sci_Fi_Guy

Science fiction all the way. Just can't get into fantasy. I love all sci-fi, especially hard-core, whether it be novels, movies, TV, comics or video games.


----------



## Bob Whitely

With all due respect to the OP, I just don't get the poll. By that, I mean that both are clearly very popular in all areas, fantasy being generally more popular, I believe (perhaps due to familiarity with base concepts), but I love them both. I think most people tend to find science fiction a bit more difficult to identify with, simply because there's far more fantasy stories out there and they've been around for so long. But that doesn't make fantasy better.

I could never choose one over the other, and my preference by a very large margin (as my Avatar tag shows) is a blend of both. Also, the genres listed are very broad, and people get confused on what belongs to what genre (for example: Some would say Star Wars is science fiction, others, fantasy, and still others would adopt other various classifications for it). Me, I prefer the term "blended-genre" and find some distinctions between it and multi-genre, but I have my reasons, and the waters are all pretty muddy. 

Even authors don't always agree on the classifications of their own works. Their readers have one opinion and they have another, and sometimes the bookstores have yet another.

No matter how much I love pure fantasy and love pure science fiction, I've always far more enjoyed when there's at least some overlap! Just my two cents. I have nothing against people that love their genres pure, like I said.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Sounds like you do get the poll; you just can't pick.


----------



## Bob Whitely

Hm... it's not really a matter of being unable to pick... it's not seeing a reason to pick, other than asked to. Not to be contrary to the OP or the poll. I don't see the genres at odds, nor one being any better than another. 

Since I guess my angle does not fit well with the topic, I'll just stop posting on this thread. My points stand, however, and I see there are some for which the poll does apply, so that's good. Ah well. Have a great day all.


----------



## Scathach

My vote went to SF.
I was a keen Fantasy reader for many years but then I started to get tired of the genre.
SF is definitely my cup of tea!


----------



## monsterchic

Fantasy for me.  I enjoy some SF, but as I'm into more of the historical stuff (not that fantasy is historical, just more elements of history)...that's got my vote.


----------



## kythe

Years ago, I voted fantasy in this poll.  But my interests have changed over time.

People usually associate fantasy/sci fi with each other.  I realized I tell people I'm a sci fi fan, mainly because of Star Trek I guess, but I have read little of the genre.  So within the last 3 or so months, I have now read about 8 sci fi classics.  I've discovered sci fi isn't half bad.    Now I've got to "catch up" on what I've been missing all these years.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Welcome to the Dark Side, Kythe...


----------



## Cat's Cradle

So, a vote that balances...a tie now at 124 all. I have swung both ways, in the last 40 years, with these genres but now I find myself drawn mostly to science fiction...though Rothfuss might change that in the near future.


----------



## Rafellin

Strange poll but I'll play. Fantasy.

Actually, science fantasy by preference.


----------



## Wendigo

Tie restored to 125-all!

For me, it's sci-fi. Probably because I'm a science nerd in the first place. I like space, I like technology and I like to speculate on what the future might be like, so sci-fi it was.

That said I have read a few fantasy books here and there. Liking one doesn't mean you can't like the other, after all.


----------



## JonH

Ooo! I read both, but I love being a tie-breaker. Science fiction is more about ideas than fantasy is, and I like exploring new ideas. So SF edges ahead by one.


----------



## Jesse412

Technically science fiction is just a form of fantasy.  For the most part I prefer science fiction to swords and sorcery.  Tolkien is one of the few fantasy authors that can hold my attention.  Recently I've read quite a bit of Roger Zelazny books that have been gotten me more into fantasy.


----------



## JonH

The poll will have been running five years in a couple of weeks and it's still anybody's race; flipping a coin would have given a bigger variation.

Culhwch, your baby will be five! Are you going to bake it a cake?


----------



## Michael Colton

Theoretically, the various themes of fantasy appeal to me - but in my experience, little of it manages to keep my interest when I actually partake of it. I am not entirely sure why. That holds across all mediums, as well.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

It depends on the author ...


----------



## Darkranger85

I voted for fantasy even though I love both genres.

My first love was R.A. Salvatore and his books in the Forgotten Realms.


----------



## psikeyhackr

I voted for science fiction.  I got hooked on the stuff at 9 and the nitwit nuns at my grade school never taught science so much of what I learned was at least indirectly derived from sci-fi.  But things were different before *Star Wars* corrupted the psychosphere and the Moon landing was still something to be imagined.

psik


----------



## Kerrybuchanan

I like both, but have loved more Fantasy books than SciFi, so I voted Fantasy.

I preferred SciFi for years as a teenager and YA but after reading Lord of the Rings I became a confirmed Fantasy geek. Terry Pratchett and Anne McCaffrey probably pushed me further down that road...

Having said that, I like SciFi films and series possibly more than Fantasy. It seems to translate better to the screen and they get better actors. Like Benedict Cuddlybums...


----------



## chongjasmine

I prefer fantasy to science fiction.


----------



## Ursa major

I'm sure Fantasy was well ahead the previous time I looked.

I'm glad to see SF more than holding its own.


----------



## Nerds_feather

It's a close one for me, but in the end I find that my favorite SF novels leave a stronger lasting impression and, as literature, aim higher than my favorite fantasy novels. That isn't to say that I don't appreciate and value fantasy--I do!


----------



## Ice fyre

I am going for Fantasy, while I still love Sci-fi, think I have gone off hard Sci-fi. I think my reading is leaning towards Urban fantasy and Flintlock Fantasy.


----------



## althea

I voted for fantasy.I read both,but prefer the scope of fantasy.


----------



## willwallace

I also went for fantasy, although it's a tough choice.  134 vs. 135, SF is barely ahead.


----------



## BAYLOR

Both with no real preference.


----------



## Dan Jones

Culhwch said:


> Inspired by HJ's race thread, a flat-out poll, where you can only vote the once.
> 
> And, yes, I purposefully put fantasy before science fiction. As any rational person would.



Tough one - I ummed and arred before casting the vote, and was pleasantly surprised to see both genres locked on exactly 50% each - there's a reason we're such good bedfellows, clearly


----------



## SciFine

I prefer Sci Fi. I write Sci -Fi. But I also like Fantasy. I like the freedom you get with both worlds, but generally I feel Fantasy can get a little preachy.


----------



## psikeyhackr

I think the point is that science fiction can serve a useful purpose.  Selected practical works should be mandatory in grade school.  We are now living with 50s & 60s sci-fi but the LA iPad fiasco is proof that our educators can't handle it.

Orphans of the Sky is better than Catcher in the Eye.

psik


----------



## HareBrain

How can it be this close?

Also, what happens if you've changed your mind in the last five years?


----------



## VALIS13

I like both, but currently read more Sci-Fi.

It's very close! 135-137 as I write.


----------



## psikeyhackr

psikeyhackr said:


> I think the point is that science fiction can serve a useful purpose.  Selected practical works should be mandatory in grade school.  We are now living with 50s & 60s sci-fi but the LA iPad fiasco is proof that our educators can't handle it.
> 
> Orphans of the Sky is better than Catcher in the Eye.
> 
> psik



Damn Android predictions.  That was supposed to be "Rye" not "Eye".  Smartphones are dumb, or is it just programmers?

psik


----------



## Boaz

It is now 136-137... I voted for Fantasy.  I like Sci-fi... I'll never forget what _Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers_, and _Flash Gordon_ did for me between 1976 and 1980... my impressionable years of ten to fourteen.  But, in all honesty, Sci-fi has never fired my imagination like Fantasy.  Maybe it's because there was so little Fantasy on the screen that I had to read it... and it's all in my head.  Maybe it's the link to all the Greek mythology I began to read when I was eight.  Maybe it's the stories my babysitter told me about Bilbo and Frodo.  Maybe it's just easier for me to wrap my head aroundsome amorphous magical ability than to try and comprehend the science behind warp drives and lightsabers.


----------



## chongjasmine

Even now, I still prefer fantasy.
Something about the world-building in fantasy just fired up my imagination.


----------



## Nechtan

Just voted. Annnnnd.... it's a tie. Still like both though.


----------



## F.J. Hansen

Science fiction to me, though I do love dragons.


----------



## Deep Space Nina

For me also science-fiction, what does not mean that I dislike fantasy. I guess most SF-people also like fantasy or the other way round.


----------



## HanaBi

Fantasy over SciFi, for me - at least for today!


----------



## Ihe

Sci-fi is at the same time boundless and possible. It is the absolute escapism. Sci-fi for me.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Fiction in books 





Ihe said:


> is at the same time boundless and possible. It is the absolute escapism.



I like all Fiction. Fantasy and SF


----------



## Ihe

Ray McCarthy said:


> Fiction in books
> 
> I like all Fiction. Fantasy and SF




Good Point. All fiction in general can be boundless and possible, true, but I meant it from a perspective of degrees, not in absolute terms, god forbid. Fantasy can be amazing, but I consider SF a shade more boundless and a whole spectrum more possible than it. But then again, my stance is most definitely biased, as all of us here are (except you, it seems ). It's hard to keep from categorizing, comparing, and hierarchizing everything. Our brains are wired for it, and they spark when presented with polarizing questions such as the one asked in this thread. But if you absolutely HAD to choose, would you maintain neutrality? Are you really as neutral as you say? We are bound to like things more than others at the biological and evolutionary level. You can't outrun this or any dichotomy. I, for one, let myself be caught. Call me lazy, haha.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

@Ihe  No, I couldn't vote.
I've been reading SF for maybe 50 years. A lot is not remotely possible. Some is pure entertainment, some Speculative fiction, some the SF aspect is a McGuffin. Ray Bradbury famously claimed that Martian Chronicles ISN'T SF and Fahrenheit 451 ISN'T about censorship!
The first Pern books seem just like Fantasy ... Dragons and a Mediaeval style culture? Esp if you skip intro.


Spoiler: Really?



But the settlers came by spaceships, the three sisters and the "Dragons" are genetically engineered fire lizards. Still very Fantasy.


Most of Star Trek's SF is nonsense.
Philip K. Dick, the point is not about the Technology, it's SF though.
There is a continuous spectrum from Realistic through to pure High Romance Fantasy (in original meaning of Romance). I adore both ends if well written. SF with too much Fantasy pretending to be science is harder to enjoy than unashamed Fantasy.
The threads here when people try (mostly without success) to define SF, soft SF and Hard SF are interesting, especially when people give examples that sound interesting.


----------



## Mirannan

I think that either genre could be said to include the whole of fiction, if one pushes hard enough. The reason is that both genres involve changes in the currently-understood laws of physics, at least if one excludes near-future SF. Hyperdrive and time travel are beyond the currently understood laws of physics; so are many of the themes of fantasy.

It's also true (IMHO) that the two genres cross over more than some people would like to admit. For example, Dune includes such things as prescient powers and mind control that have no basis in currently-understood science, whereas fantasy often includes such things as opening gates to alternate realities - ditto - and magic is often strongly bound by its own set of rules.

Clarke's Third Law is also relevant, as is its reverse.


----------



## BAYLOR

One of my favorite universes is the Warhammer 40K. It's a Dystopian science fiction with fantasy elements. It's a very improbable , but it's great fun to read .


----------



## Ray McCarthy

I thought it was a game and the thick books were rules?


----------



## BAYLOR

Ray McCarthy said:


> I thought it was a game and the thick books were rules?



It started out as a game , first .  Warhammer the fantasy series, then the 40k came along.  Later on they began to write novels taking place in the universe. My two favorite writers of  Warhammer novels, are Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell. 

Then there's the Horus Heresy  saga which takes place 10,000 before.  It shows how the 40 k universe became a dystopic war wracked mess .


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Our house has lots of the little models, some even painted.


----------



## Ihe

I agree that a lot of SF can be bogus, reason why I didn't say "probable", but "possible". Even if the final product is flawed, its manufacturing process tries to be sound (if the author is any good), and in my paltry experience so far, average SF is as much about the how as it is about the what and the other 'W's, giving it an extra dimension compared to average Fantasy (I'm, of course, thinking average books for both SF and Fantasy, with often-used elements in their respective niches). 

To be more specific, magic cannot hold a candle to technology (because technology would use LEDs and plasma and gadgets that go "piririp kwitng beep beep") in both plausibility and variety of mechanics. Even if both genres tackle the same ludicrously impossible thing like, say, talking to the dead, I will always see Ubik to be more accurate/possible/creative in its take on necromancy than anything magic has to offer, even if I know the concept is ridiculous. This isn't to say that a lot of Fantasy doesn't try to set up internally consistent mechanics to their supernatural elements (I'm thinking Rothfuss's "empathic links", for example).

What it comes down to, for me, is falsifiability in the methods. We already know lots of supernatural things in fantasy cannot be. Due to technological restraints, there are many things in sci-fi that we suspect cannot be, but we cannot disprove 100%. That in itself grants SF, no matter how improbable the element, an edge in terms of suspension of disbelief at the very least.

With that said: I am a hopeless SF fanboy. Please forgive the literary bigotry. I can't help it. I like Fantasy, but SF is my first love. We tend to idealize first loves and the tendency is hard to shake.

PS: Warhammer 40K is a frustrated hobby of mine. I envy anyone who has it in any form. Necrons were the coolest.


----------



## BAYLOR

I like both science fiction and fantasy , though I tend to gravitate toward fantasy.   The biggest problem with science fiction , any science fiction,  is that it gets dated. It's far less of a problem for fantasy.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Ihe said:


> magic cannot hold a candle to technology


Ah ... you aren't an engineer or scientist?

Also what about "magic" in a contemporary 70th Century alien setting (they have Electricity 5,000 years ago) rather than usual Bronze / Iron / Mediaeval / Renaissance age settings?

It may have been Larry Niven rather than A.C. Clarke that first discussed difficulty of telling Science and Magic apart  when the observer hasn't knowledge of either.


----------



## Venusian Broon

BAYLOR said:


> I like both science fiction and fantasy , though I tend to gravitate toward fantasy.   The biggest problem with science fiction , any science fiction,  is that it gets dated. It's far less of a problem for fantasy.



Which is great as a SF writer because you always have to write the next thing that isn't dated.  Planned obsolescence! 

I agree that Fantasy can (although not always) have a long shelf life.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Some really good SF doesn't date. The really good SF that is Obsolete/Dated is still brilliant.


----------



## althea

I agree that really good SF,even dated is good.
I've been reading several of PKD's books and the technology part of the books is dated.The stories,characters and dialogue are not dated though and they carry the books through into present times.His ideas were wonderfully creative when you realise the times he wrote in.


----------



## Ihe

Venusian Broon said:


> I agree that Fantasy can (although not always) have a long shelf life.



Spot-on. SF needs to reinvent itself over time (and SF readers need to adapt over and over again.). Fantasy doesn't have that pressure, and there's a risk of it stagnating at some point (not that it has, but it could).



Ray McCarthy said:


> It may have been Larry Niven rather than A.C. Clarke that first discussed difficulty of telling Science and Magic apart  when the observer hasn't knowledge of either.


I can't argue the Third Law. At some point SF transmutes into Fantasy, willingly or not. This raises a question for me: just how many fantastic elements not key to the plot can SF works allow before stepping over the line into Science Fantasy? This might not be the thread to discuss it, though. Not sure. It is related at least, as Science Fantasy is the middle ground between the two genres discussed--its love child, if you will.


----------



## J-Sun

BAYLOR said:


> The biggest problem with science fiction , any science fiction, is that it gets dated. It's far less of a problem for fantasy.



Yes, some SF _gets_ dated; fantasy is dated to start with.


----------



## Mirannan

J-Sun said:


> Yes, some SF _gets_ dated; fantasy is dated to start with.



Not necessarily. Fantasy in a modern setting does exist; admittedly such stories do date, but no more than "mainstream" fiction does. This can be to do with technological change and/or linguistic drift. Amusing examples of the latter are the Enid Blyton kids' books (lots of examples of characters feeling queer, for example) and something that Stephen Fry did a mini-skit on during QI, from the Sherlock Holmes stories. When the stories were written, for a character to ejaculate out of a second-floor window was entirely reasonable. 

Less amusing examples of modern concerns intruding on the appreciation of 19th century books might well include Huckleberry Finn. A similar concern applies to the much-rumoured Dambusters remake; I'm going to find it very interesting to see what they do about the name of Guy Gibson's dog.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Mirannan said:


> for a character to ejaculate out of a second-floor window was entirely reasonable


I found it in a 1949 novel.


Mirannan said:


> Amusing examples of the latter are the Enid Blyton kids' books (lots of examples of characters feeling queer, for example) and something that Stephen Fry did a mini-skit


I think you have to be like Stephen Fry to find that amusing or odd.
Lots of ordinary words and symbols have been "hijacked" by special interest groups and absolutely still obviously mean what they meant when the book written 70 years ago. The context is rather obvious as we are not as primitive as "Google Translate" or "kindle Text to Speech".


----------



## psikeyhackr

Ray McCarthy said:


> Ah ... you aren't an engineer or scientist?
> 
> Also what about "magic" in a contemporary 70th Century alien setting (they have Electricity 5,000 years ago) rather than usual Bronze / Iron / Mediaeval / Renaissance age settings?
> 
> It may have been Larry Niven rather than A.C. Clarke that first discussed difficulty of telling Science and Magic apart  when the observer hasn't knowledge of either.





> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - A. C. Clarke
> 
> The Third Law is the best known and most widely cited, and appears in Clarke's *1973* revision of "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination". It echoes a statement in a 1942 story by *Leigh Brackett*: "Witchcraft to the ignorant, ... simple science to the learned".[2] Even earlier examples of this sentiment may be found in Wild Talents (1932) by the author Charles Fort, where he makes the statement: "...a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic."
> 
> [2] "The Sorcerer of Rhiannon", Astounding February *1942*, p. 39.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

Brackett beat Clarke by 31 years.

psik


----------



## MAJE Mike

Sorry for me it is an age thing, (my age). I loved A C Clarke. Stories at there best.


----------



## althea

You never have to apologise for your age or your taste in books,MAJE Mike.
Sometimes, age has no relation to the books one reads,and sometimes,it does.
We are all different and that's what makes life interesting.


----------



## BAYLOR

MAJE Mike said:


> Sorry for me it is an age thing, (my age). I loved A C Clarke. Stories at there best.



Arthur C Clarke was a great writer.   Lots of readers like him.


----------



## Vaz

Erm, I'm a bit of a cross-genre writer but I went for Fantasy.

Main Reason: *Dragons > Droids *


----------



## juelz4sure

I do enjoy science fiction, although sometimes they go over my head which is why I lean more toward fantasy.


----------



## thomas sweetman

Lady of Winterfell said:


> I put in a vote for Fantasy. That's pretty much all that I read, and some historical fiction. I am just now starting to read some Science Fiction, but I still prefer Fantasy.


Ha your me. In lady form


----------



## thomas sweetman

Pyar said:


> I read mainly Science Fiction, I used to read a lot of fantasy but lately I haven't read any. The last one I did read may have turned me off to it a bit.


What did you read last


----------



## thomas sweetman

Fantasy for me. Sometimes historical fiction but it feels like cheating. To already have a story to bend an shape.....


----------



## logan_run

Science fiction


----------



## michaelhall2007

I've never been big on fantasy. I love'd "The never ending story" in my early teens, but 10 simple words changed my life.
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".


----------



## Old_Man_Steve2016

I voted for SF since the tech in a sci-fi novel, while not possible _today_, doesn't mean it won't be possible _tomorrow_. 
You can't really bring fantasy to life, unless it's Science Fantasy (or SF masquerading as fantasy).


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Old_Man_Steve2016 said:


> You can't really bring fantasy to life, unless it's Science Fantasy (or SF masquerading as fantasy).



Um, I think you clearly forgot you can use a simple wardrobe to get into Narnia.


----------



## althea

When I read,I'm looking for a rattling good story that keeps me gripped all the way through.
I don't really care what category it fits into.
I just happen to find, I am more likely to enjoy immersing myself into a fantasy world where unusual possibilities may happen.


----------



## Old_Man_Steve2016

Hilarious Joke said:


> Um, I think you clearly forgot you can use a simple wardrobe to get into Narnia.


I never read Narnia, but if you did, could you tell me if the book went into any sort of detail as to how a simple wardrobe held (or generated) a transdimensional wormhole? Especially without said wardrobe, room, and probably the entire building not getting sucked into Narnia along with the kids.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

Old_Man_Steve2016 said:


> I never read Narnia, but if you did, could you tell me if the book went into any sort of detail as to how a simple wardrobe held (or generated) a transdimensional wormhole? Especially without said wardrobe, room, and probably the entire building not getting sucked into Narnia along with the kids.


The Magician's Nephew explains some of it. But it is set up to be a fantasy, not a sf - although obviously Lewis is also a pretty recognised SF writer.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Jo Zebedee said:


> The Magician's Nephew explains some of it.


Though a late "retcon" (penultimate book published and should be read then too). In practice portal stories, SF or Fantasy rarely explain or care how it works.
"Aslan" explains something about "portals" in Prince Caspian (which actually initially doesn't even use one, only for going home). Dawn Treader uses a painting.

It's best not to explain.

C.J Cherryh: Morgaine series is sort of Fantasy / SF with portals too.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Old_Man_Steve2016 said:


> You can't really bring fantasy to life


You can in your head. 

Also SF isn't really about the possible science. That's only "hard SF" and almost everything alleging to be that on Amazon isn't. SF is basically usually a McGuffin purely to have the setting or examine social / ethical questions without "obvious" Magic. Almost no good SF is genuinely about predicting or helping development of science and technology, except by accident. Most of it *IS* fantasy with the "magic" hidden by technobabble and contemporary near future, alien or future instead of the now and past of most fantasy. But some Fantasy is set in far future (Wondla series that might be mistaken for SF and Shannarra series)


----------



## althea

Anyone who reads sci/fi or sci/fantasy,expecting it to be fact rather than fiction,is in for a disappointment.
When I start a story,I suspend belief and just go with the plot.
Often,after reading a story,I think about it and realise the premise the story was based on,was preposterous.
But during the time of reading I get caught up in it and don't start analysing until afterwards.


----------



## Old_Man_Steve2016

A quick peak at the Smithsonian website informs me of several inventions inspired by Science Fiction (sub, helicopter, cell phones, etc). 
Don't know if you'd call "Star Trek" good sci-fi or not, but it did inspire some scientists to make things based off of what they saw on the show. 
As far as Fantasy goes, it seems exceedingly difficult to bring magic (or magical animals) to real-life. And given what goes on in those novels, you'd have to be pretty damn crazy to even *want* to. _There's no way you'll ever fit that Dragonlance in your garage..._


----------



## althea

You haven't seen my garage!


----------



## psikeyhackr

Desilu said:


> Anyone who reads sci/fi or sci/fantasy,expecting it to be fact rather than fiction,is in for a disappointment.



It depends on what you mean by that.  I started reading SF in the 60s while the space programwas going.

Obviously no one expected any of the details of any SF story to match any real Moon landing, the event itself was a classic SF trope.  In an interview after the Moon landing Isaac Asimov talked about the huge number of SF stories about the event, but he said none included television transmissions from the Moon so millions of people could watch on Earth.  So any a way reality beat fiction.

The technology we are using to discuss this subject could be regarded as exceeding the expectations of some science fiction.  The problem is are we doing anywhere near what we could with it.

psik


----------



## althea

You make a good point,psik.
I'm sure we're not using  using our technology to anything near it's capabilities.
I still haven't got over the thrill of having a computer in my home that puts the world at my finger tips.


----------



## J-Sun

Old_Man_Steve2016 said:


> A quick peak at the Smithsonian website informs me of several inventions inspired by Science Fiction (sub, helicopter, cell phones, etc).
> Don't know if you'd call "Star Trek" good sci-fi or not, but it did inspire some scientists to make things based off of what they saw on the show.
> As far as Fantasy goes, it seems exceedingly difficult to bring magic (or magical animals) to real-life. And given what goes on in those novels, you'd have to be pretty damn crazy to even *want* to. _There's no way you'll ever fit that Dragonlance in your garage..._



As Tom Purdom said, "Nobody ever became a wizard because they read fantasy. But plenty of people have become physicists and biologists because they read science fiction."


----------



## Ray McCarthy

psikeyhackr said:


> Moon so millions of people could watch on Earth. So any a way reality beat fiction.


Then (1968 orbit, landing in 1969) who would have believed it would all end inside four years? Last mission ended 19th December 1972!


----------



## Ray McCarthy

J-Sun said:


> But plenty of people have become physicists and biologists because they read science fiction."


Some have. I think that's over rated.
Also we are tortured with stupid Junk because of people thought the SF was a blueprint.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Ray McCarthy said:


> Then (1968 orbit, landing in 1969) who would have believed it would all end inside four years? Last mission ended 19th December 1972!



Another Moonwalker just died in February.

James Irwin died on August 8, 1991, of a heart attack. He was 61 years old.
Alan Shepard died on July 21, 1998 at the age of 74.
Pete Conrad died on July 8, 1999 in a motorcycle accident. He was 69.
Neil Armstrong died on August 25, 2012, at age 82.
Ed Mitchell is 84 years old.  died 2/4/16


Buzz Aldrin is 86 years old.
John Young is 85 years old.
Alan Bean is now 84 years old.  3/15/32
David Scott is 83 years old.
Gene Cernan is now 82 years old.
Charles Duke is 80 years old.
Harrison Schmitt is 80 years old.  geologist

There are only 7 left, all in their 80s.

We should have had drones on the Moon prospecting for about 10 years now.  I am not sure there is much point in having people there.  But how much  information gathering and infrastructure building couldbe done remotely along with justifiable reason for robotic development.

psik


----------



## Ray McCarthy

psikeyhackr said:


> We should have had drones on the Moon prospecting for about 10 years now. I am not sure there is much point in having people there. But how much information gathering and infrastructure building couldbe done remotely along with justifiable reason for robotic development.


Agree 100%
Same applies to Mars and moons of Jupiter.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Ray McCarthy said:


> Some have. I think that's over rated.
> Also we are tortured with stupid Junk because of people thought the SF was a blueprint.



I decided on engineering before I graduated from grade school because of Arthur C. Clarke's *A Fall of Moondust*.  I was debating between mechanical and electrical.  Went with electrical.

SF is not like it was in the 60s.  Yeah there was stuff as bad as *Star Wars* but all of SF was not painted with the same silly brush.  The science was not regarded as irrelevant.  Now there is talk about STEM education for future scientists and engineers when this was done in 1959:

*Science fiction as a factor in science education* (Gross)
Science fiction as a factor in science education - Gross - 2006 - Science Education - Wiley Online Library

Even some SF which does not itself contain accurate science has a "scientific attitude".  I think grade school kids need to develop that even when they don't go for STEM careers themselves.  This Global Warming argument emphasizes the problem of science ignorance.

psik


----------



## Ray McCarthy

psikeyhackr said:


> SF is not like it was in the 60s.


No, it's changed and a lot is really Fantasy dressed as SF, I enjoy it all the same.


psikeyhackr said:


> I think grade school kids need to develop that even when they don't go for STEM careers themselves.


Yes.
Logic, reasoning and mathematics, especially statistics and probability as we have no intuition for those.


----------



## Mirannan

Off on a tangent somewhat:

I think that one of the factors involved in the continuing popularity of science and engineering (such as it is) among young people is one that would have been laughed at if put into a work of fiction. I speak of Mythbusters.


----------



## Brian G Turner

psikeyhackr said:


> SF is not like it was in the 60s.



IMO the genre overall has lost its visionary approach. Too much modern SF is little different from "man with a laser gun has adventures in space!". Or is simply derivative of Star Trek. Perhaps that's why science fiction as a genre has shrunk? Meanwhile, even traditional fantasy has been able to expand its boundaries to being something nearer to historical fiction.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Brian Turner said:


> Too much modern SF is little different from "man with a laser gun has adventures in space!". Or is simply derivative of Star Trek. Perhaps that's why science fiction as a genre has shrunk?


I think so. Also a lack of engineers and scientists writing it. I looked at the Hard SF category on Amazon and I struggled to see any, it seemed to all be space opera (which is fun but not remotely hard SF). The other tendency is to latch on to current "buzzwords" in science and technology such as nanotech or genetics or AI then basically have self indulgent "magic" fantasy with these as sources of techo-babble, that's not "hard SF" either.


----------



## Brian G Turner

I forgot to add that there are space operas and general SF I do enjoy. But there are precious few attempting anything visionary, and that leaves a gaping hole in the genre.

And, no, I don't mean engineering manuals by proxy, which would be dull and date quickly - I mean those writers who make a serious attempt to imagine, and predict, what the future might really look like.

It doesn't require a Ph.D to do that - just vision and imagination. But none of the modern big names in SF seem to be trying to use it.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Brian Turner said:


> I mean those writers who make a serious attempt to imagine, and predict, what the future might really look like.


I don't think many where ever trying to do that as main goal, it was mostly a setting for examining characters, social issues etc. It can be a bit self fulfilling too.

It does need a proper knowledge of science, tech and maths, not just extrapolating the media (which often describes developments completely wrong) or you end up with gibberish. Also as well as economics and human motivation.

I agree there is very little "what if" stuff being written.


----------



## althea

My grandson is doing a degree in Astrophysics.He has never read a sci/fi book.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Desilu said:


> My grandson is doing a degree in Astrophysics.He has never read a sci/fi book.



I will send aliens to abduct him.  Outliers cannot be tolerated.

psik


----------



## sinister42

I voted sci fi but the truth is I read mostly cross-genre stuff and "weird" or "slipstream" fiction.  China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, Neil Gaiman, Lovecraftian fiction (which is sci fi/horror), Pratchett/DNA (sci fi/fantasy/humor), Christopher Moore (whatever the heck his brand of wackiness is).  The only pure sci fi I've read in quite a while is the Expanse series.  I read the hell out of the classics when I was younger - Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Frank Herbert, PKD - but those aren't really my go tos anymore.   Although I did recently read The Man in the High Castle by PKD, which is a chilling abstraction of a book (and a hell of a TV series).  I also really like noir, but that's neither here nor there.


----------



## The Big Peat

Fantasy for me; it occupies the sweet spot between history and mythology, the two obsessions of my childhood.


----------



## psikeyhackr

The Big Peat said:


> Fantasy for me; it occupies the sweet spot between history and mythology, the two obsessions of my childhood.



But what will it be like in 5,000 years if civilization never collapses?  5,000 years with electricity and people look on life without electricity as we look upon the ancient Egyptians.  What will happen to mythology by then?  Asimov wrote about interstellar civilization where historians argued about the planet of origin.  We don't even remember the great horse manure crisis of 1894.  ROFL

psik


----------



## The Big Peat

5,000 years into the future sounds like someone else's problem.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

psikeyhackr said:


> We don't even remember the great horse manure crisis of 1894.


We still remember the 5th Century, October 1171, 1690 and the 1840s potato famine. 
I don't remember the manure crisis. Didn't they at about the same time invent cars, simultaneously at turn of century there was steam, electric, petrol and diesel models, with steam having the speed record for a while. Though the Germans still had horses in WWII. Presumably somewhat behind the panzers.


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

Fantasy is ice cream for the intellect.

SF is Salmon and broccoli.

I like a minority of both. The fraction of fantasy I find worthwhile (which isn't quite synonymous with "enjoyable") is far smaller. The very best of it (de Camp and Meyers), is pretty good though. But that isn't why I voted for SF.

Part of the problem is discussing this is that as SF came be perceived by the masses as cool, a market opened up for dumbed down SF, and the field is now diluted by it.

SF, done right, especially when read by bright youngsters, is of profound social importance. Better people than I have expanded on this topic. See some of Asimov's essays in Forty Years of F & SF. With all respect, although I like some of it, and respect some of it's creators, this isn't true of fantasy.

The typical spirit of fantasy is "wouldn't it be fun if" or, worse, "wishing will make it so". The typical spirit of SF is "Possibilities are constrained by reality. These are possible futures. Choose."




Sparrow said:


> I find both the writers and the sf community in general to be tired and uninspired . . . terminally nostalgic, the unsexed, the lonely, and worst of all, the conservative.


I can't think of many adjectives I could apply to fantasy readers generally, probably because I'm one of those low vocabulary, intellectually challenged SF types who majored in mechanical engineering because I couldn't hack the tougher curricula, like drama, journalism, or English lit.  But I have observed at least one fantasy fan to be incredibly stupid and rude. and worst of all, probably a fascist who imagines h'self a liberal. You know the type I mean, the kind that always want to ban speech they don't like in the name of "civility".  Most of 'em are OK, though. Maybe just a little goofy.





Ian Whates said:


> conservative with a small c. If you're talking Conservative with a capital


I doubt he'll follow the distinction. Quite apart from not having parties with those names, in the U.S., outside of the community of libertarians and fellow travelers, most people think you're speaking Martian if you even distinguish between Republicans and republicans, Democrats and democrats, Libertarians and libertarians, or Greens and greens, and those are party labels we DO have.


bobbo19 said:


> i have not read any adult fantasy books)


You mean the kind that used to have titles like "The Traveling Salesman, The Housewife, The Babysitter, and Rover Explore Kink"?





Karn Maeshalanadae said:


> We've travelled to the stars. Been there, done that.


Did I miss something?





Rodders said:


> So, does anyone get annoyed with the fact that SF and Fantasy are so very much tied together by people who don't appreciate either genre?


Well, morons will be morons. . . . Seriously though, yes. What disturbs me more is people who actually consider themselves fans who don't get the distinction.


psikeyhackr said:


> We don't even remember the great horse manure crisis of 1894.


I have an excuse. I was offplanet.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> The typical spirit of fantasy is "wouldn't it be fun if" or, worse, "wishing will make it so".


I'm a fantasy lover and have read a lot of it, and I think I have to disagree with you there. I think that statement is only true of a small and non-representative subset of fantasy. If I had to summarise the typical spirit of fantasy, which is of course a futile endeavour given the huge variety of it, it would be "in world still full of mysteries and unknowns, how do people live and find meaning, and what are they capable of?"


----------



## psikeyhackr

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> Fantasy is ice cream for the intellect.
> 
> SF is Salmon and broccoli.



You mean somebody wired my taste buds incorrectly?



> Part of the problem is discussing this is that as SF came be perceived by the masses as cool, a market opened up for dumbed down SF, and the field is now diluted by it.
> 
> SF, done right, especially when read by bright youngsters, is of profound social importance. Better people than I have expanded on this topic. See some of Asimov's essays in Forty Years of F & SF. With all respect, although I like some of it, and respect some of it's creators, this isn't true of fantasy.





> Well, morons will be morons. . . . Seriously though, yes. What disturbs me more is people who actually consider themselves fans who don't get the distinction.



This is rather interesting: A Look at What the Public Knows and Does Not Know About Science

I got 12 out of 12 but though I am not sure that might have been true when I was 14.  I definitely remember calculating the miles in a light year in grade school.  That was because of SF.  But I don't seeany practical science questions in that survey like,how cars work or what is electricity.

Actually I get the impression that some fantasy fans resent SF for having a practical side but then want to associate them to add status too fantasy.  Maybe it's just me.

psik


----------



## Ray McCarthy

I like all kinds of Fiction. Fantasy and SF.
I mean doesn't EVERYTHING fit into either one of those?


----------



## The Big Peat

psikeyhackr said:


> Actually I get the impression that some fantasy fans resent SF for having a practical side but then want to associate them to add status too fantasy.  Maybe it's just me.
> 
> psik



I see so many fantasy fans very deeply concerned with the practicalities of what they read though; and a fair dollop of SF that has no practical side at all.

Once upon a time I deeply resented the association, mainly because I didn't want to browse through sci-fi at the bookshop. Now I increasingly see them as two heads on the same beast of "What If" and the amount of thought put into the "What Ifs" is part of what's led me here. Most people don't, or at least don't do enough.

Maybe I'm in a minority. But that's a view based in part on what I see as the views of those around me.


----------



## Randy M.

J-Sun said:


> As Tom Purdom said, "Nobody ever became a wizard because they read fantasy. But plenty of people have become physicists and biologists because they read science fiction."



Okay, but how many people became more aware of the vastness of time and space because they read Lovecraft? I mention that because he mostly straddled whatever line is between sf and fantasy.

Another thought, how many readers came to think more deeply about the wellsprings of their culture from reading LOTR? Or to seriously consider issues of loyalty and honor after reading LOTR? Among the defenses posted by readers of the Harry Potter series was its concerns with learning (Hermione and the library), friendship, loyalty, trust, teamwork, etc, all of which it managed without preaching.

I wonder if it isn't a false dichotomy to maintain sf leads to physicists and then ask, what does fantasy lead to? Ask rather, what does fiction lead to, and do fantasy and sf differ in their influence from other forms? My guess is, yes, but I'm not sure the difference would be all that great.


Randy M.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

Randy M. said:


> Harry Potter series


Very strong anti-racist angle.

Mudbloods


----------



## Randy M.

Ray McCarthy said:


> Very strong anti-racist angle.
> 
> Mudbloods



Good call.

Randy


----------



## althea

The Big Peat said:


> Fantasy for me; it occupies the sweet spot between history and mythology, the two obsessions of my childhood.


You said it so much better than I ever did.That is exactly how I feel.
I do read a wide range of subjects beside SF, and SFan,but I keep returning to them.
Reading The Way of Kings,by Brandon Sanderson at the moment and loving it.
It's great sci/ fantasy.


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

psikeyhackr said:


> This is rather interesting: A Look at What the Public Knows and Does Not Know About Science


Good link, Psikeyhackr. Those are shockingly easy questions. And only 6% got all of them. Did you inspect the graph and table of results? More than HALF of people missed more than a THIRD of them! 2 specific questions were missed by almost 2/3 of people. But the problem is NOT limited to science. 2 books that came out at about the same time are noteworthy:

Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter
by Rick Shenkman
Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter: Rick Shenkman: 9780465014934: Amazon.com: Books

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future
by Mark Bauerlein
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585427128/?tag=brite-21

From an NPR interview, I had the impression Shenkman was a Harvard history prof at the time his book was published, but I can't find confirmation of that with a cursory search, so I may have misheard. Bauerlein is an English prof at Emory.

Shenkman's title is misleading - he hasn't made any effort to gather and tabulate the huge wealth of material that answers the question his title poses. And there really is no excuse, because there are a lot of things like your link out there. The book was extremely well promoted, and while I don't disagree with anything in it and concur with his thesis, in truth, this was a lazy book - it has about 2 op ed's worth of information padded to make a book. It IS worth reading, but not worth buying. He actually seems to be more focused on showing the bad effect of TV than determining the answer to the question in the misleading title. Which is ironic, since apparently he's become a TV personality.

Bauerlein's book is true to his title, so the focus is unfortunately narrow. But he does address that focus well. Worth buying.

Both writers are more focused on how the problem is changing over time than on the problem itself. A Martian reading them might get the idea that people weren't stupid in 1940. They aren't focused on science literacy, and in other intellectual areas, their thesis that things are getting worse, can be justified. But in truth, the problem has ALWAYS been pretty bad. And the net result has been that democracy has become a lot like putting a bunch of 12 year olds in charge of NORAD and the Fed. And to paraphrase the late, lamented George Carlin, "Nobody seems to care."



psikeyhackr said:


> I got 12 out of 12 but though I am not sure that might have been true when I was 14.


I did too and I suspect most people here would. I also suspect you of excessive humility. 14 is typically 8th grade or first year of high school. Of course you would have gotten 12/12. The biggest part of the problem is simply that most people don't read at all, more so than that they choose less enlightening material. When the "Heather Has Two Mommies" debate was raging, I recall some calm voice looked at a lot of the material given children to read at this age, and came to the conclusion that the biggest problem wasn't content that offended, but that, because so many things were proscribed as no-nos, that what remained was boring as hell. Give 'em pirates, westerns, blood, gore and maybe even that greatest of horrors, sex, if that is what it takes to get them in the habit of reading.




psikeyhackr said:


> I definitely remember calculating the miles in a light year in grade school.  That was because of SF.


I'll see your geek anecdote and raise you one. In the 5th or 6th grade, a test question was the earth-moon distance. I hadn't read the book. I NEVER read the book. I was reading SF, and maybe more importantly the non-fiction penumbral lit of SF, meaning stuff like the Good Doctor's column in F & SF, and the non-fiction in Analog. I didn't have that number memorized. But I DID know the relative masses of the Earth and Moon, the diameter of the earth, and the location of the center of gravity of the earth-moon system relative to the surface of the earth (hint for Fantasy fans: it's a round number, near enough). To know those numbers with reasonable accuracy, I only had to remember 4 non-zero digits, and you could get by with 3.  So I calculated it.



psikeyhackr said:


> But I don't see any practical science questions in that survey like,how cars work or what is electricity.


That is a curious omission, though I doubt it would have changed the results much. And I'm not sure that "what is electricity" is a good example of "practical". A better example would be:
"What happens when switch A is closed and switch B is open in the following diagram?". After all, people were using electricity before Thompson.


psikeyhackr said:


> Actually I get the impression that some fantasy fans resent SF for having a practical side but then want to associate them to add status too fantasy.  Maybe it's just me.


I can't say I've noticed that, although maybe I just don't hang out with many fantasy fans. However I do believe many pretentious, high brow "literary" types that tend to sneer at both communities, resent SF because they don't understand it, don't understand either it's content, purpose, or standards, and don't want to make the effort. But it is superficially too much like their chosen field to ignore and they don't want to admit ignorance. That, also, is a specific example of a more general problem - the bad influence of glib posers on the naive, but that's another subject.


----------



## galanx

Ray McCarthy said:


> I like all kinds of Fiction. Fantasy and SF.
> I mean doesn't EVERYTHING fit into either one of those?



Elwood:What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western.


----------



## galanx

.





Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> SF, done right, especially when read by bright youngsters, is of profound social importance. Better people than I have expanded on this topic. See some of Asimov's essays in Forty Years of F & SF.



So we SF fans have told ourself for going on a century- no indication that it's true.



> The typical spirit of fantasy is "wouldn't it be fun if" or, worse, "wishing will make it so". The typical spirit of SF is "Possibilities are constrained by reality. These are possible futures. Choose."



The possibilities of FTL, teleportation, psi, the Time Patrol and Galactic Empiresl are constrained by reality?




> I can't think of many adjectives I could apply to fantasy readers generally, probably because I'm one of those low vocabulary, intellectually challenged SF types who majored in mechanical engineering because I couldn't hack the tougher curricula, like drama, journalism, or English lit.  But I have observed at least one fantasy fan to be incredibly stupid and rude. and worst of all, probably a fascist who imagines h'self a liberal. .



So you were out sick the week they did stats?


----------



## psikeyhackr

galanx said:


> .So we SF fans have told ourself for going on a century- no indication that it's true.



There is that "done right" business.

I suggested categories and gave public domain examples some time ago.

Science Fiction Categories: A Proposal

Plenty of stuff called science fiction does not have a "scientific attitude".  Lots of exposure to that kind of SF would be absorbed into a lot of kids by osmosis.   But I could not tell that when I was 9 years old.

psik


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

galanx said:


> So we SF fans have told ourself for going on a century- no indication that it's true.


You are confusing the meaning of "indication" with that of "proof", perhaps?

Walk about in any physics department in any major university and chat with any faculty members you can. Then do the same in in the history department. There is plenty of indication. Proof isn't terribly practical. A purist may insist that 'e can't prove anything but his own existence. Speaking casually, I'd accept a double blind study giving one set of children SF and another fantasy and evaluating the results 20 years later, without allowing them to become aware of the hypothesis. I could even design a sound, though expensive, protocol. But it would not (and rightfully would not) make it past any ethics review board.

That the CORRELATION is real is something I don't think anyone who has had significant social interactions with a substantial number of hard scientists could possibly doubt. The only realistic doubt is whether the correlation exists because SF leads to science or because something else leads to both, and leads to SF sooner.

There are other types of social importance as well. If you doubt that 1984 has been a more important influence on society than LOTR, perhaps we have different ideas of what's important.



galanx said:


> The possibilities of FTL, teleportation, psi, the Time Patrol and Galactic Empiresl are constrained by reality?


What I said was:
'The typical spirit of SF is "Possibilities are constrained by reality. These are possible futures. Choose."'
That is hardly the same as saying that no SF has ever contained anything impossible. I think, given the context, the meaning is pretty clear. Nor do I consider everything labeled "sci-fi" to BE SF, nor do I consider all SF to be "done right".



galanx said:


> So you were out sick the week they did stats?


My sarcasm meter went off the scale, but frankly, I can't see any connection between that and the quotation you put it under. If you're trying to insult me, you'll have to make it comprehensible to one of my limited intellect.


----------



## psikeyhackr

galanx said:


> .So we SF fans have told ourself for going on a century- no indication that it's true.



The limited evidence is good enough for China:



> China is the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But it doesn’t invent or design most of the things it manufactures. China wants to capture the creativity and imagination of the culture that has produced companies like Google and Apple. *So Chinese researchers talked to people involved with those and other companies to see what factors they had in common.* The answer?
> 
> _*They all read Science Fiction.*_
> 
> The Chinese acted upon this research and today, throughout China, Science Fiction is a thriving and respected genre, read widely; which is very different from the early eighties, when _Science Fiction was declared to be “spiritual pollution” and banned by the government_. Back then, Science Fiction in China all but disappeared. But it has come back stronger than ever, appealing to a new generation of Chinese who see themselves as part of a world-wide cultural phenomenon, which includes Hip Hop, Fashion, Movies and Science Fiction.


What We Can Learn From The Chinese

psik


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Thank you for sharing that Psik, that is really interesting!


----------



## hopewrites

*blink*


*blink*



well on that correlation note, I always figured it was a good way to see if one had a scientific mind, one liking SF (still want to call it Sci-Fi personally). If reading technobable (SF's term, not trying to be rude) gets one going, where it gets one going is usually back to the science workshop one had to begin with.

If reading alchemy texts gets one going, where it gets One going is usually the kitchen/lab.

If reading about dragons gets one going, ... where do I go again? Oh right, trans-dimensional journeys through inner realities.


----------



## galanx

Well, a lot of cops and lawyers say they got their interest from watching cops and lawyer shows. Doesn't mean without Law and Order we wouldn't have law and order.


----------



## galanx

Lew Rockwell Fan said:


> My sarcasm meter went off the scale, but frankly, I can't see any connection between that and the quotation you put it under. If you're trying to insult me, you'll have to make it comprehensible to one of my limited intellect.



 My apologies on that. I blitzed over your closing statement.



> Most of 'em are OK, though. Maybe just a little goofy.



Confirmation bias on my part.


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

galanx said:


> My apologies on that. I blitzed over your closing statement.


Thank you. Accepted. Peace. I lay down my anti-matter powered, magical +4 flame thrower. I would like to call your attention to the fact that that closing was a specific response to Sparrow's post, quoted above it, and not directed at fantasy writers or fans as a class. Since Pratchett was nominated for 4 Prometheus awards and won one, and since, imo at least, the most reasonable interpretation of LOTR is as an allegory Lord Acton would have been proud of, only a ill-read fool would impute a mindless, faux-liberal fascism to the community as a whole.


----------



## hopewrites

After several days of introspection inspired by this thread, I've discovered that my personal dissatisfaction with Sci-Fi as a whole is that it tries to keep its feet mired up to the knees in a present reality while reaching for the limitless possibilities that are immediately accessible through fantasy.

Which made me realize what my major trip up was in opening up to other people. I'm not the type of being who sees any necessity in existing in only one reality. I can jump from one to another no problem. Why build a bridge when instantaneous transport is available?

Well, now. I have to admit that the reason I've had trouble relating to others is that I don't allow for bridges between their reality and mine.

I'll still love fantasy best for loving it first, but now when I go to the Sci-Fi I've got, and the Sci-Fi I'm going to get, I'll try to see it for what it's intended... A bridge between one reality and another.

Thanks guys.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

hopewrites said:


> I've discovered that my personal dissatisfaction with Sci-Fi as a whole is that it tries to keep its feet mired up to the knees in a present reality while reaching for the limitless possibilities that are immediately accessible through fantasy.


Or maybe a lot of it, especially since 1980, isn't very good?


----------



## hopewrites

Yes but there is a lot of not good stuff in any genre... and I now hang out with a community *cough-Chrons-ah* where I can get pointed in the general direction of The Good Stuff.  

Always a plus when wandering into strange / unfamiliar territory.


----------



## psikeyhackr

hopewrites said:


> If reading alchemy texts gets one going, where it gets One going is usually the kitchen/lab.



That one doesn't count because alchemy turned into chemistry.  

Damn that back stabbing science.

psik


----------



## Ray McCarthy

psikeyhackr said:


> because alchemy turned into chemistry.


John Dee was a scary sort of scientist. He might have liked the LHC. He did have an impressive library, was it the largest in British Isles?
Was Isaac Newton the last "old school" Alchemist in the John Dee tradition?


----------



## hopewrites

psikeyhackr said:


> That one doesn't count because alchemy turned into chemistry.
> 
> Damn that back stabbing science.
> 
> psik


I know.
I was going to work in pharmaceuticals because I thought alchemists were soo cool.

Then it was as just counting pills out for everyone under a PhD. 

I'm now dabbling in the mystical art of cooking.
 Chefs still use their morter and pestle.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

hopewrites said:


> it was as just counting pills


Or testing the print quality of the packaging. Yes, they had expensive equipment and a department for that. Another place I was upgrading their network and one PC had a dead mouse inside it.


----------



## hopewrites

Ok I'm laughing.
 But I'm not laughing that there was a dead mouse... That's not cool.

I'm laughing because I thought the kind of computer mouse that has button to click, not the kind of computer mouse that has a heartbeat.
 I'm laughing because my second thought wasn't "no, that's silly." But "huh. What an odd place to store dead mice." (Which I think says something about the company's I've worked for. And or the squirrelyness of IT persons.)
I'm laughing because my third thought was; well how did you know it was dead, if it was wireless it could have just needed fresh batteries or to be resinked.

I'm laughing because it took that long for me to think; wait, what if he means the kind of mouse snakes eat. 
Then; ew! Who let's mice die in their computer!?!!!??


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

Dead mice have no heartbeat.

You may ignore my chronic smartassery.


----------



## Ray McCarthy

hopewrites said:


> it could have just needed fresh batteries or to be resinked.


I didn't do an autopsy, but it was stiff and bounced in the bin.

Computer mice look more like pebbles to me. No teeth, no legs, no eyes, no fur, no pee.


----------



## Wraith01

I like them both but after taking a look at my book shelves I seam to own much more Fantasy than Sci Fi...
And thats because I tend to stick to Fantasy series but not with Sci Fi series. So Fantasy got my vote.


----------



## hopewrites

The few sci-fi series I've picked up were more like stand alones in the same universe, so I can understand that. My favorite fantasy series tend to make reading the whole series a must!

Also, welcome!


----------



## althea

Yes,welcome to SFF Chrons,Wraith01.
I am another fantasy fan,though I have read a lot of sci/fi too.


----------



## tinkerdan

I have bookshelves full of what has been labeled as science fiction; but it all reads like fantasy to me.
And I had a snake eat my mouse once--very irritating because it took days before I had the courage to get close enough to unplug the thing.
Giacomo Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist, but that probably doesn't count for much.
What's this thread about?


----------



## key13

Love both, thought this more difficult and complicated a question than at first glance 
I somehow have far more fantasy series novels on my shelves, than pure science fiction, but then some wonderful scifi novels that REALLY made me think of the future, other possibilities, and wonders of the universe.
Still, swords are cool...and light sabers are cool.


----------



## althea

Welcome to Chrons,key13.I am sure you find plenty to interest you here.
I know I certainly have.


----------



## key13

Thank you! On info overload right now browsing all the threads!


----------



## AstroZon

I grew up with scifi of the 50s and 60s, so I'm a fan of that genre.   I've read a lot of fantasy too, but I like heady science fiction the best.


----------



## Eli Grey

The thing about science fiction is that what was science fiction 100 years ago is the reality we live in. There's a lot of dystopian science fictions though and that's scary. They always have dark undertones.


----------



## BAYLOR

Eli Grey said:


> The thing about science fiction is that what was science fiction 100 years ago is the reality we live in. There's a lot of dystopian science fictions though and that's scary. They always have dark undertones.





*1984* by George Orwell 
*Brave New World* by Huxley 
*We *by Zamyatin 
*The Iron Hee*l by Jack London
*Limbo* by Bernard Wolfe 
*The Caverns Below*  a .k a.  *The Hidden World  *by Stanton Coblentz 

and others.


----------



## althea

The word dystopian seems to be all the rage at the moment. I hope some more positive sci/fi themes will start to become popular soon.


----------



## Hilarious Joke

althea said:


> The word dystopian seems to be all the rage at the moment. I hope some more positive sci/fi themes will start to become popular soon.


Me too!


----------



## Lafayette

I read some science fiction, but I mainly read fantasy. The reason for this is because I'm not scientifically or mathematically inclined.

When SF writers start throwing out scientific formulas or jargon I start zoning out.

One of my other quirks is when I'm reading the promos for Ray Bradbury that boast that he is the Greatest Science Fiction writer I get bent out of shape and want to yell at someone for telling such a whopper.

I have read Heinlein and Asimov and Bender's Game and enjoyed them and for the most part understood them. However, I have read Tolkien, Donaldson, Brooks and Guy Gavriel Kay and have enjoyed them a whole lot more.


----------



## Ronald T.

Although I love certain SF, most particularly 'DUNE", I can identify far more with the characters and worlds that are created in Epic Fantasy.  I suppose it can be attributed to the fact that conflict is carried out on a more personal level:  hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword.  For the most part, no advanced technology or machinery stands in the way of a face-to-face confrontation.  However, I will admit there were some great close-up fighting scenes in Dune.  I guess that's why I enjoyed it so much.


----------



## RX-79G

Ronald T. said:


> Although I love certain SF, most particularly 'DUNE", I can identify far more with the characters and worlds that are created in Epic Fantasy.  *I suppose it can be attributed to the fact that conflict is carried out on a more personal level:  hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword.  For the most part, no advanced technology or machinery stands in the way of a face-to-face confrontation. * However, I will admit there were some great close-up fighting scenes in Dune.  I guess that's why I enjoyed it so much.


Which is interesting, because as a modern person I'm willing to bet you have used your intellect and technological prowess to solve problems, and you have probably never been in a true physical altercation.

It seems like hand to hand combat is more wish fulfillment than the kind of methodical process a sci fi character (like in _The Martian_) steps through to vanquish their antagonist.


----------



## Ronald T.

Rx, you're absolutely correct on your first point.  Because I am a modern person, and I do use intellect and technical prowess to solve problems.  I think all sane people do.  I agree wholeheartedly.

But you're wrong on your second point.  I've been in more than one physical altercation.  And because of that, I studied and practiced Kung Fu for more than fifteen years.  Hand-to-hand, on-on-one, face-to-face, combat -- or sparring if you prefer -- was always a part of that.  It was a battle of one fighter's abilities against another.  And there was not technology separating the combatants.

So, in my post, my references were based on my own experiences.  I've never killed anyone with a sword or a dagger, so can't speak about that sort of experience.  I can only say what I find enjoyable in the books I read. 

I hope you understand I was making no judgement call on Science Fiction.  I was simply stating my preference, and why I have it.

If I offended you in some way, you have my most sincere apology.  That was never my intent.


----------



## RX-79G

Ronald T. said:


> But you're wrong on your second point. I've been in more than one physical altercation. And because of that, I studied and practiced Kung Fu for more than fifteen years. Hand-to-hand, on-on-one, face-to-face, combat -- or sparring if you prefer -- was always a part of that. It was a battle of one fighter's abilities against another. And there was not technology separating the combatants.


I was treating your post as a general statement, rather than a personal one. We all respond to the physical stuff as you describe, despite most of people not having any experience fighting at all. It is clearly something built into us to be excited by impulses that we largely have abandoned by inventing civilization.


----------



## J Riff

SF is turning back into Fantasy, if you watch recent movies, that is. The new Hugo Gernsback must save us. * )


----------



## RX-79G

J Riff said:


> SF is turning back into Fantasy, if you watch recent movies, that is. The new Hugo Gernsback must save us. * )


When was this not the case? When were the "good" sci fi movies that aren't simply adventures or horror movies?


----------



## Lafayette

I agree to some extent with Ronald T that swinging a sword is more personal. With me it's not a matter of technology getting in the way it's a matter of less satisfaction. In my mind a three year old can just as easily pull or press the trigger of a ray gun just as easily as I can. Who in their right mind wants the satisfaction of being a mightier warrior than a three year old? Swinging a sword or an ax you can say I did it and not the stupid trigger.


----------



## Ronald T.

RX-79G said:


> I was treating your post as a general statement, rather than a personal one. We all respond to the physical stuff as you describe, despite most of people not having any experience fighting at all. It is clearly something built into us to be excited by impulses that we largely have abandoned by inventing civilization.



Well said, RX.  And I agree wholeheartedly.  And as I said, that trait is still strong in me.  That's why I love the heroes who can stand up and make a difference by the strength of their arm, the depth of their honor, and their unwillingness to give up, even when continuing might mean death.  And that goes for all protagonists -- male and female.

And although I wasn't upset by your first post, I appreciate your clarification all the same.


----------



## hopewrites

You guys got me thinking, perhaps it's the objective distancing that SF prefers that puts me off.

The wish fulfillment aspect being interacting with one's environment. To talk to trees and people and animals. To be understood, or able to fight for understanding.

Perhaps I don't care for SF because I do relate to it, and prefer fantasy because I want to learn how to relate to my world better.


----------



## Abernovo

hopewrites said:


> You guys got me thinking, perhaps it's the objective distancing that SF prefers that puts me off.
> 
> The wish fulfillment aspect being interacting with one's environment. To talk to trees and people and animals. To be understood, or able to fight for understanding.
> 
> Perhaps I don't care for SF because I do relate to it, and prefer fantasy because I want to learn how to relate to my world better.


Then, may I suggest some different sf? Have you tried _Doomsday Book_, by *Connie Willis*? Time travel novel which dealing with huge social events, but in relation to personal interactions and their environment. There's also *Ursula K LeGuin*'s classic _The Left Hand of Darkness_, basically a travel novel through a wintery planet, the intrepid adventurer exploring issues of society and gender as he goes; and the novels of *Nancy Kress* and *Octavia Butler*, who write beautifully, and often about people in environments - some like our own, others not so much. You could also check out the new kids on the block, *Becky Chambers*, and our own *Jo Zebedee* (she's not so much nature-orientated, although there is some, but definitely centres on people).
Just some of my preferred authors.

But, if you prefer to read fantasy, then nor is there anything wrong with that. 
EDIT: I like both and, although I tend to read more sci-fi, I don't think of it as an either/or choice. Sometimes, it just depends upon my mood. Sometimes, I read romance, or poetry, or detective fiction. Even magazines in the dentist's waiting room.


----------



## J-Sun

hopewrites said:


> You guys got me thinking, perhaps it's the objective distancing that SF prefers that puts me off.
> 
> The wish fulfillment aspect being interacting with one's environment. To talk to trees and people and animals. To be understood, or able to fight for understanding.
> 
> Perhaps I don't care for SF because I do relate to it, and prefer fantasy because I want to learn how to relate to my world better.



But it's better to relate to the world on a rational, realistic, objective basis. When people operate on wishful thinking and emotions we end up in the disastrous mess we're actually in, which includes a direct assault on science in the US and throughout the world (and a coinciding rise in the popularity of fantasy and dystopian sf). Granted, most of these emotions people are operating on are hate and resentment and so on, and the wishful thinking (while it may be to further their own lives) usually entails tearing other people down and that's not what you're talking about, but the Terror of the French Revolution and the Third Reich and possibly whatever we're in or headed towards now derive from outbreaks of unreason. It's possible to get too emotionally invested reason as well, ironically. The French Revolution's madness initially manifested in hyper-rationalism and the Soviet revolution was utterly deluded pseudo-science but an even-keeled, skeptical reason and a methodical rigorous science is probably the best path, IMO. Intuition and emotion are also important (and dangerous) but I'd want fellow humans to be able to talk to each other (which has proved impossible so far) before I'd worry about trees.


----------



## RX-79G

J-Sun said:


> But it's better to relate to the world on a rational, realistic, objective basis.


This is true, for dealing with real life. I can understand why people up to their eyeballs in rationality would like to take a break from it when pleasure reading with fantasy or romance.

Personally, I find the real world fairly banal, so I look forward to reading something where people are doing something more adventuresome than shooting third world insurgents and more technologically thrilling than programming better cross-marketing platforms.


----------



## hopewrites

Trees are easier to talk to imo than humans.


----------



## RX-79G

hopewrites said:


> Trees are easier to talk to imo than humans.


But they're crummy dancers.


----------



## hopewrites

True enough!


----------



## J-Sun

I dunno - pines can shimmy pretty well. 

(Good point about the "fiction as an alternative/change of pace," btw.)


----------



## hopewrites

I could have the opinion that what with all the objectivity that everyone has been so keen to have, that humanity doesn't really know what the heck to do with its emotional and irrational bits. That one's emotions are like any other bit needing conditioning and training to be used and experienced effectively. 

But I'm tired and don't want to have that opinion today. It depresses me. So I'll chat up a cat, borrow some inner peace from a nearby flowering bush, and perhaps nap while contemplating the complexities of interconnectivity between human beings.


----------



## Lafayette

If you are trying to get away from most of the hardware and space operas of science-fiction try Clifford D. Simak. I believe in 'City' he has talking dogs. You may also want to try Ray Bradbury. I disliked Bradbury as a sf writer because he seldom spoke about the technical or hardware side of science.


----------



## BionicGriff

It was a tough pick for me, but ultimately I had to go with Sci Fi, though I really do enjoy both genres. I think the thing I like about Sci Fi, is that, as far fetched as a story may seem, often its not outside the realm of possibility. Using some classic, stereotypical versions of each genre (for simplicity), its safe to say that at no time in the past, nor in the future, are humans likely going to be able to use magic, find an enchanted sword in a forgotten dungeon, or make a trip to a goblin market in search of some magical trinkets. However, its really not possible to say that at some point, humanity will not be part of a United Federation of Planets, searching out new life and new civilizations, defending out planet from invading aliens, and participating in space battles aboard colossal space ships.

I understand these are only a few classic examples of scenarios within each genre, and there are plenty others that could go from one side to the other, but I think most people reading will get the point I'm trying to make.

Perhaps a simpler summary would be that its entirely possible that before I die, I could be cryogenicaly (sp?) frozen, only to be awoken in 2 or 3 hundred years aboard a star ship with whatever ailment I had healed, where I'll be able to explore the galaxy for the rest of my life.


----------



## Lafayette

Perhaps a simpler summary would be that its entirely possible that before I die, I could be cryogenicaly (sp?) frozen, only to be awoken in 2 or 3 hundred years aboard a star ship with whatever ailment I had healed, where I'll be able to explore the galaxy for the rest of my life.

I still prefer fantasy, but your reasons are pretty logical which may explain your preference. For science one needs to be logical. I'm not that good at science and when it comes to math forget about it. I don't think I have as much faith as you apparently have in science. Its been more than fifty years and they still have a cure muscular dystrophy.reason


----------



## BionicGriff

Lafayette said:


> Perhaps a simpler summary would be that its entirely possible that before I die, I could be cryogenicaly (sp?) frozen, only to be awoken in 2 or 3 hundred years aboard a star ship with whatever ailment I had healed, where I'll be able to explore the galaxy for the rest of my life.
> 
> I still prefer fantasy, but your reasons are pretty logical which may explain your preference. For science one needs to be logical. I'm not that good at science and when it comes to math forget about it. I don't think I have as much faith as you apparently have in science. Its been more than fifty years and they still have a cure muscular dystrophy.reason



I hear you, I truthfully love both, and only chose one because the poll didn't give me an option for both. I don't know if I would necessarily say I have that much faith in science, but maybe hope would be the better term. My example about waking up hundreds of years in the future actually comes directly from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where that exact scenario plays out. I always thought it would be awesome to wake up in that situation, aboard a starship, in a world where most of humanities problems (war, money, disease, etc) had been wiped out and people just worked towards living the best life they could, without the stresses of modern day life we have now.


----------



## NbDawn

I can't decide!


----------



## Cathbad

When in doubt, pick Fantasy.


----------



## Victoria Silverwolf

It's interesting that this poll has been going for quite a long time, and it's always been very close.  That seems to me to be a good thing.


----------



## RX-79G

Victoria Silverwolf said:


> It's interesting that this poll has been going for quite a long time, and it's always been very close.  That seems to me to be a good thing.


It might be inaccurate because sci fi people are over-represented on the internet while a good portion of fantasy people only interact at boffing tournaments and medieval fairs.


----------



## Cathbad

RX-79G said:


> It might be inaccurate because sci fi people are over-represented on the internet while a good portion of fantasy people only interact at boffing tournaments and medieval fairs.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Victoria Silverwolf said:


> It's interesting that this poll has been going for quite a long time, and it's always been very close.  That seems to me to be a good thing.



When people can get elected who say that Global Warming is a Chinese Hoax it's a bad thing.

I have watched people on the Internet talk about generation ships that rotate to produce gravity say that gravity was at the center and yet this is obviously not the case as described in *Rendezvous with Rama*.  I find the supposed SF fans somewhat disappointing.  I have tried Iain Banks and Ann Leckie and scenes involving gravity don't make sense.  What kind of science fiction fans do not care about science?  Many don't really read it any differently from fantasy.  That is why the evenness of the scores makes sense but it doesn't really make sense to me that it should happen.

psik


----------



## RX-79G

psikeyhackr said:


> I have tried Iain Banks and Ann Leckie and scenes involving gravity don't make sense.


Which Banks scene are you talking about? You aren't talking about the Algebraist, are you?

Most of the time when I see SF fans object to something science wise, they just missed the context or details. People are very quick to say "gotcha!"


----------



## psikeyhackr

RX-79G said:


> Which Banks scene are you talking about? You aren't talking about *the Algebraist*, are you?



I have tried 4 of Banks books, finished 2, don't intend to try any more.  Finished *Player of Games* and *Look to Windward*.

In *Look to Windward* a character is hanging upside down by his tail.  This character was a human in some kind of modified body.  The characte drops a 'stylo' and then waits a little while deciding what to do.  A stylo is some implement that allows 3D drawing somehow so I presume it is something like a pen with added features.  The character releases his grip and falls after the stylo can't catch up and then activates propellers on his ankles.

It is as a result of this fall that the character discovers some sick animal like a giant whale but much larger.

This entire incident occurs in an air sphere which I have never seen a good explanation for its creation and maintenence but I let that slide.

I went back and read this incident 3 or 4 times and concluded this cannot happen at Earth normal gravity.  Up to that point there was nothing in the story indicating how strong the gravity field was.  So I tried rerunning it at fractional G's.  Regardless of the G forces the stylo should have less wind resistance than a person and Banks describes the characters clothing flapping in the wind of the fall.

It was researching these air-spheres on the Internet that confirmed the fractional G field but no information on what fraction.  No explanation of the physics of air-spheres.

Niven's smoke ring in *The Integral Trees* has way more realism and he presents the information about the workings of the environment from the very beginning.

In a low gravity environment just walking is going to be different from walking in 1 G.

psik


----------



## RX-79G

psikeyhackr said:


> Regardless of the G forces the stylo should have less wind resistance than a person and Banks describes the characters clothing flapping in the wind of the fall.


That isn't how terminal velocities for falling objects work. It isn't just density and aerodynamics, but size that matters. That's because larger objects have different ratios of mass to frontal area from smaller objects of the same shape and density, which is due to the fact that volume and frontal area/surface area do not have a geometric relationship. They are plots on a curve.

In this case, a person head down has a terminal velocity in 1G that is around 200mph, which also happens to be very close to a lead rifle bullet dropping. The lead bullet is more streamlined and has 11 times the density of a person, but the person has a higher mass to drag ratio because they are 5000 times heavier by don't have 5000 times the drag.

In the case of a stylo, pen or similar density object, the terminal velocity is going to be much lower than a bullet, and a head down skydiver would have little trouble catching one.

Cyclists usually become aware of this principle when they find that bigger riders go downhill faster, despite being in the same aerodynamic tuck as the smaller rider.


So in this case, your instinct for the physics involved was wrong, so it made you assume that the writer is wrong. But that description of objects falling is consistent with physics, so I would say Banks had it right, which illustrates my point about people being quick in assuming errors that actually end up being their own.


Did this misunderstanding on your part actually make the book not pleasurable to read?


----------



## psikeyhackr

RX-79G said:


> That isn't how terminal velocities for falling objects work. It isn't just density and aerodynamics, but size that matters. That's because larger objects have different ratios of mass to frontal area from smaller objects of the same shape and density, which is due to the fact that volume and frontal area/surface area do not have a geometric relationship. They are plots on a curve.





> Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets in the 1920s and calculated that .30 caliber rounds reach terminal velocities of 90 m/s (300 feet per second or 204 miles per hour). A bullet traveling at only 61 m/s (200 feet per second) to 100 m/s (330 feet per second) can penetrate human skin.


 Google search:  terminal velocity bullet



> In stable, belly-to-earth position, terminal velocity is about 200 km/h (120 mph). Stable freefall head down position has a terminal speed of 240–290 km/h (around 150–180 mph). Further minimization of drag by streamlining the body allows for speeds in the vicinity of 480 km/h (300 mph).


Google search:  terminal velocity skydiver

The character is described as having flapping clothing and had no reason to anticipate skydiving according to the story.

He used propellers:


> 974 Praf seemed to draw herself in, bringing her wings even closer to her body and stretching her neck. She gained very slightly on Uagen, starting to move past him downwards, then relaxed, and drifted back up. "I cannot go any faster."
> 
> "Right, then. I'll see you in a bit."
> 
> Uagen clicked a couple of buttons on his wrist. Tiny motors in his ankle bracelets swung out and revved up. "Keep clear!" he shouted to the Interpreter. The motors' propeller blades were expandable, and while he would not need much extra power to increase his rate of fall sufficiently to catch up with the stylo, he had a horror of accidentally mincing one of Yoleus' most trusted servants.



psik


----------



## RX-79G

psikeyhackr said:


> Google search:  terminal velocity bullet
> 
> 
> Google search:  terminal velocity skydiver
> 
> The character is described as having flapping clothing and had no reason to anticipate skydiving according to the story.
> 
> psik


Not sure what you're getting at, but the speeds you posted agree with mine - that even a lead "stylus" isn't going to drop much faster than a person who is in diving position, and the stylus isn't lead. So what is your objection?


----------



## psikeyhackr

RX-79G said:


> Not sure what you're getting at, but the speeds you posted agree with mine - that even a lead "stylus" isn't going to drop much faster than a person who is in diving position, and the stylus isn't lead. So what is your objection?



The speeds I posted had the bullet falling 20 to 50 mph faster than a person except with deliberate streamlining which I presume would mean no flapping clothing.

The character should have known instantly that he could not catch the object.  It had a significant head start because the character dithered.  But then we don't learn about the propellers because the character did not use them for a while.  So he should have turned on the propellers from the start.  But what really annoys me is that Banks did nothing to let the reader know that it was a low gravity environment long before this action started.

This scene has the character falling for kilometers with limited visibility and not much thrust from these propellers.  The low but unknown gravity may reduce the risks.  Oh yeah, he has some kind of vacuum balloon.

psik


----------



## RX-79G

psikeyhackr said:


> The speeds I posted had the bullet falling 20 to 50 mph faster than a person except with deliberate streamlining which I presume would mean no flapping clothing.


20 to 50 to catch a lead bullet, not a lightweight pen.

The actual story is about a very low gravity place where the terminal velocity of both the stylus and a person was probably under well 40 mph, since his clothes didn't even flap at first. In a situation like that it is going to be like chasing something underwater, not jumping out of plane.



psikeyhackr said:


> But what really annoys me is that Banks did nothing to let the reader know that it was a low gravity environment long before this action started.


You would prefer that writers give you a nice, clear data dump instead of describing the environment through the action?


----------



## Cathbad

psikeyhackr said:


> The character should have known instantly that he could not catch the object.  It had a significant head start because the character dithered.  But then we don't learn about the propellers because the character did not use them for a while.  So he should have turned on the propellers from the start.  But what really annoys me is that Banks did nothing to let the reader know that it was a low gravity environment long before this action started.
> 
> psik



Hey, if James Bond can catch up to a falling airplane, in gear with its propellers going, _anything's_ possible!


----------



## Lafayette

If one has to be this brainy to enjoy science fiction then I'm not sure if I even want to try reading SF.

Strange I don't remember Dune or Ender's Game being difficult to understand and I enjoyed both.


----------



## RX-79G

Lafayette said:


> If one has to be this brainy to enjoy science fiction then I'm not sure if I even want to try reading SF.
> 
> Strange I don't remember Dune or Ender's Game being difficult to understand and I enjoyed both.


I don't think you need to be brainy to accept what the author is telling you is "true".


----------



## psikeyhackr

Lafayette said:


> If one has to be this brainy to enjoy science fiction then I'm not sure if I even want to try reading SF.



Enjoying and appreciating are not quite the same thing.  Some people enjoy beer.  I am into Black Russians.

The trouble is there are very different things called science fiction and usually you have to read 50 pages to get a clue.  Spending $8 on a 300 page book to learn I don't want to read passed 50 kind of pisses me off.

psik


----------



## psikeyhackr

RX-79G said:


> 20 to 50 to catch a lead bullet, not a lightweight pen.



The author called it a "stylo" and it did things pens do not.  Some pens are heavy, the author said nothing about the weight.

psik


----------



## Lafayette

psikeyhackr said:


> Enjoying and appreciating are not quite the same thing.  Some people enjoy beer.  I am into Black Russians.
> Spending $8 on a 300 page book to learn I don't want to read passed 50 kind of pisses me off.
> psik



Point taken. I can appreciate the skill and dedication of jazz musicians, but as a rule I don't like jazz. The same thing goes for opera singers. I don't like beer, however I like wine and brandy.

You may want to try e-books. I gotten them from 99 cents to 9 dollars.


----------



## RX-79G

psikeyhackr said:


> The author called it a "stylo" and it did things pens do not.  Some pens are heavy, the author said nothing about the weight.
> 
> psik


So you're presuming that it is as dense as lead?

Look, there is no sensible reason to assume that a small object is going to fall faster than a person trying to catch it. I don't know where you got this idea, but it is wrong. There is nothing wrong with the science of that Banks book as it is written.


----------



## psikeyhackr

RX-79G said:


> So you're presuming that it is as dense as lead?



I don't need to presume anything.  If the character had turned on the propellers immediately he should have caught the object before either of them had reached terminal velocity.

But the whole point of the incident was to find this sick creature that was kilometers below.  Admittedly all stories are contrived but some contrivances are less believable than others.  And like I said, the author should have done something to account for the low grav environment and not force the reader to figure it out from a scene that doesn't make sense.

psik


----------



## hopewrites

RX-79G said:


> I don't think you need to be brainy to accept what the author is telling you is "true".


Which is the case with ether genre.

Fantasy writers tell you what does / doesn't exist in their creations... SF writers tell you how they do or don't bend know scientific laws...


----------



## Marvin

Just looked at the results, almost exactly half & half at this point - thats fair for a forum that calls itself a science fiction & fantasy community. Well done everybody!


----------



## althea

It strikes me,that if it is "truth" you want in books,read factual books not fiction(science or otherwise.)
You probably can't rely on Factual books to be completely true anyway.


----------



## Randy M.

Depends on what "truth" you're looking for. Ursula Le Guin, both fantasist and s.f. writer like so many of the older generations, has said her profession is lying to tell the truth (paraphrase), and she's not the first to make that assertion. 

If you're looking for facts, fiction is not useful. If you're looking for more insight into the workings of the human mind, of how various people act and think, and what it means to be human, then fiction is one of the places to search, lies and all.


Randy M.


----------



## Cathbad

I really do enjoy science fiction... until it gets too... "sciency".


----------



## Danny McG

Don't analyse, just enjoy the stories 

Bruce Lee said  "Don't think, feel....it is like a finger pointing a way to the moon"


----------



## Ronald T.

The key to good Science Fiction is simple -- just as it is with Fantasy and all the other genres -- it must make you feel something emotional or it's just a text book.


----------



## Cathbad

That's why /i didn't enjoy Niven.  He spent pages and pages explaining the science behind an effect.  I think it's important _he_ understands the science behind his effects - just like I understand the specifics behind the magic in my fantasy world:  But as a reader, I'm interested in the story - not the specifics.


----------



## psikeyhackr

dannymcg said:


> Don't analyse, just enjoy the stories



But I enjoy A Fall of Moondust.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was just mostly dumb.

We just have to be scientific about it.  There are at least two different types of science fiction fans.

psik


----------



## Cathbad

But Hitchhiker's was _supposed _to be dumb!


----------



## BAYLOR

Cathbad said:


> But Hitchhiker's was _supposed _to be dumb!




Hitchhiker Guide was laugh out loud absurd .


----------



## Lafayette

BAYLOR said:


> Hitchhiker Guide was laugh out loud absurd .


One of my favorite lines "I should have listened to my mother."

"What did she say?"

"I don't know. I wasn't listening."


----------



## Ihe

God how I wish I could wipe my memories to read "Hitchhiker's" for the first time again...(and to watch the first Matrix movie too).


----------



## psikeyhackr

Ihe said:


> God how I wish I could wipe my memories ...(and to watch the first Matrix movie too).



I agree with that.

psik


----------



## psikeyhackr

Lafayette said:


> "I should have listened to my mother."
> 
> "What did she say?"
> 
> "I don't know. I wasn't listening."



Then how do you know you should have listened to her?


----------



## Lumens

psikeyhackr said:


> Then how do you know you should have listened to her?



Because you regret not listening.


----------



## Emphyricist

Between eleven and sixteen, I read a lot of fantasy, and what I quickly discovered is that while young adult and some children's fantasy was fun and creative (Jane Yolen, Patricia Wrede, Dianne Duane, Dianna Wynne Jones), I generally found adult fantasy rather less so.  Part of the issue, I think, is that people I knew mostly read epic fantasy, and epic fantasy generally ranges from OK (David Eddings) to utterly terrible (Dennis McKiernan), and pretty much all of it is heavily influenced by Tolkien.  

After I got into science fiction, I think the only fantasy I've read since then—not counting stories by people like Jack Vance, Fritz Lieber, L. Sprague DeCamp, and Ursula LeGuin who also write science fiction—was Mercedes Lackey.  I read a lot of her books, and liked them well enough as escapism, but I didn't have the feeling of wonder I had reading children's fantasy or a lot of science fiction.  Now, it's possible there's some truly innovative, well-written stuff going on in the world adult fantasy, but the problem is that with fantasy, the people who recommend books to me seem to have questionable taste.  With science fiction I've mostly either gotten recommendations from my father (who as similar tastes to me), or found new authors via anthology.  

On the other hand, I have an anthology of classic fantasy short stories, and the only story that inspired me to look up the author was one of Jack Vance's _Dying Earth_ stories.  (On the flip side, that anthology is how I discovered Jack Vance.)  So I think that for whatever reason, there's a difference in how SF writers and adult writers of fantasy approach storytelling, and I like the former better.


----------



## Cathbad

Emphyricist said:


> there's a difference in how SF writers and adult writers of fantasy approach storytelling, and I like the former better.



I don't comprehend this.

But to each his own, I guess.


----------



## hopewrites

Facts vs Emotion.

Not that facts can't be emotional, or connect on a visceral level. Nor that emotions take no bearing from facts, or convey any less truth.


The SF that I've read is like reading fun doctorate dissertation (emphasis on the fun).

The fantasy that I've read is like reading psychological case studies without the case.



If I were to guess, that's the sort of thing @Emphyricist is talking about when they mentioned different approaches to writing.


----------



## Charles Gull

For me it all comes down to two aspects:

1. Storytelling / Worldbuilding rigour;
2. Sanitation

1. I absolutely, utterly, unwaveringly detest and loathe lazy handwavium alla Deo ex Machina. With this in mind it is simply a question of statistical levels of rigour. From all the fantasy and scifi I have read the balance comes out slightly in the favour of scifi.

2. Almost all retero-historic works run into the question of plumbing and soft toilet paper. It is a question of pragmatism. I simply don't like the idea of not being able to wipe my behind without it itching insufferably.

With this in mind, if I must vote for only one despite having a fondness for both, it must be the logic cistern of science fiction.


----------



## Cathbad

Charles Gull said:


> It is a question of pragmatism. I simply don't like the idea of not being able to wipe my behind without it itching insufferably.



That's... um... kind'a hard to argue with...


----------



## althea

Charles Gull said:


> For me it all comes down to two aspects:
> 
> 1. Storytelling / Worldbuilding rigour;
> 2. Sanitation
> 
> 1. I absolutely, utterly, unwaveringly detest and loathe lazy handwavium alla Deo ex Machina. With this in mind it is simply a question of statistical levels of rigour. From all the fantasy and scifi I have read the balance comes out slightly in the favour of scifi.
> 
> 2. Almost all retero-historic works run into the question of plumbing and soft toilet paper. It is a question of pragmatism. I simply don't like the idea of not being able to wipe my behind without it itching insufferably.
> 
> With this in mind, if I must vote for only one despite having a fondness for both, it must be the logic cistern of science fiction.



Fair points. I'm a fan of good sanitation myself.


----------



## 2DaveWixon

As far as I can tell, in neither Sf nor fantasy does this question ever arise -- so isn't it a moot point?


----------



## Charles Gull

2DaveWixon said:


> As far as I can tell, in neither Sf nor fantasy does this question ever arise


Oh contrare! I know of at least one SF book ('The Ice Palace' I think it was called) that addressed sanitation and hygiene quite well.
As a general trend, I have lost track of the number of Fa books that describe various levels of 'fetid stench' in poorly plumbed city quarters. Do you propose that under developed drainage can co-exist with fluffy toilet paper? Or perhaps everyone just 'hexes' their buts clean in Fa?


----------



## 2DaveWixon

There are many possible sources of fetid stenches, and while they often involve poor sanitation, the issue here seems to have been soft toilet paper -- and that has little if anything to do with sewers and stenches...
Underdeveloped drainage, as you put it, existed long before there was soft toilet paper.
And who ever said that all the butts in fantasy were clean?
My point was primarily aimed at the fact that very seldom do either fantasy stories or sf stories actually get into such issues -- a fact of which I'm glad.


----------



## Cathbad




----------



## 2DaveWixon

That's okay, pal -- I'm sorry I had to go into such stinky details...
Why don't you go lie down? Maybe have a drink?


----------



## Stewart Hotston

I hate dues ex machina tales. For me, as a one time proper scientist, I find poorly written sci fi irritating in the extreme and by that I generally mean sci fi that doesn't look at science and say 'holy sh*t this stuff's counter intuitive...what if???'. It's why I can't watch Star Trek.

As for Fantasy, well, for me at least, worlds have to be self-consistent. If you've got magic, make it systematic, make it obey an internal sense of rigour. Now, you don't have to tell the reader how it works (Erikson never really did until right at the end of a 10 books series) but I can sense a writer who's decided that they need to do the fantasy equivalent of reverse the polarity.

I like stories that are layered, I sometimes like grimdark but not for its own sake. In general I like both, finding that both can be politically subversive, both can be rigorous, both can be challenging to today's world (although because SF tends to be slightly closer thematically to ours it is often easier to do that in SF). So I love Erikson, I like Adam Roberts, Jeff Vandemeer. Generic sword and sorcery bores me silly as do most space operas. I'm not really interested in yet another young orphan hero discovering s/he is the key to world/galactic salvation no matter how interesting the world building.  It's why, having just finished Nevernight, I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. It's effectively the grimdark version of harry potter - yet another orphan goes to magic school.

Having said that, and I'll finish my ramble here. The best fantasy I've read (other than Erikson) is Pratchett and he's really better described as compassionate satire because of his focus on reflecting our world in the trappings of the discworld and then remorselessly poking fun at our tropes, prejudices and (british) sensibilities.


----------



## Cathbad

I agree that both Fantasy and Sci-Fi stories have to be grounded in/based on a set of rules; but as a reader, I don't want to suffer through the explanations.  That's what turned me off Niven.

If you have a laser pistol, don't give me a description of the schematics - just don't change it's functions mid-story.

If you have magic that is based on a caster's stamina, I don't want to be told exactly how much stamina is lost per spell - just don't have one man who seems to have infinite stamina.

I've found you can usually tell when an author has his stuff together, and when he's fudging - or just winging it.


----------



## Lumens

Cathbad said:


> I've found you can usually tell when an author has his stuff together, and when he's fudging - or just winging it.


* Quietly leaves the thread by the back door. *


----------



## Mirannan

2DaveWixon said:


> There are many possible sources of fetid stenches, and while they often involve poor sanitation, the issue here seems to have been soft toilet paper -- and that has little if anything to do with sewers and stenches...
> Underdeveloped drainage, as you put it, existed long before there was soft toilet paper.
> And who ever said that all the butts in fantasy were clean?
> My point was primarily aimed at the fact that very seldom do either fantasy stories or sf stories actually get into such issues -- a fact of which I'm glad.



Indeed. It is true, though, that cleaning magics in a lot of magic-containing fantasy milieux are rather basic and commonly used. Unfortunately, the D&D group of which I'm a part seems to have ground to a halt - but I came up with the idea of a gambeson (look it up!) with permanent magical enchantment to keep it clean and dry. Using their rules, it would be rather cheap - and probably rather popular with warrior-types especially those who commonly wear heavy armour. Much the same enchantment could be applied to the armour itself; armour that never goes rusty would be even more popular!

The relevance to this? Well, a self-cleaning sponge would be just as easy.

Actually, one common problem with fantasy game design is that magic is grossly under-used - almost as bad as Star Trek's technological amnesia. Self-cleaning surfaces, maintenance-free street lighting, disease control - all simple, using fairly low level magic. One has to come up with a reason why it doesn't happen.

(An example of the Star Trek amnesia is that according to one Next Gen episode, the Enterprise crew invented (on the fly!) a procedure for immortality. It has to do with the transporter; no more spoilers!)


----------



## Charles Gull

Mirannan said:


> the Enterprise crew invented (on the fly!) a procedure for immortality. It has to do with the transporter


Ha! That's ironic based on the fact that 'The Fly' was all about a guy that almost killed himself with a teleportation device.


----------



## logan_run

I pick science fiction. because i like stories of space exploration.


----------



## Jo Zebedee

logan_run said:


> I pick science fiction. because i like stories of space exploration.


With a user name like that, I'd have been surprised to see otherwise!


----------



## SilentRoamer

This is a difficult choice for me - mainly because there are some Fantasy and SF writers who separately hold a collective fondness from me. So I would, in making a choice, have to send much loved authors and stories to be relegated into the dangerous and desolate unloved places of my mind.

As everyone here who knows me knows I hardly ever eschew a dissenting view, so forgive me for my continuance or contrarianism but I feel it is an unfortunate necessity. (Internet sarcasm can be so hard to parse).

So my vote goes to Science Fantasy and I am sat so firmly on the fence it's starting to get sore.


----------



## Harpo

SilentRoamer said:


> (Internet sarcasm can be so hard to parse).



[sarcasm] very difficult indeed [/sarcasm]


----------



## BigBadBob141

Fantasy or SF.
I don't mind which as long as they are well written.


----------



## Caliban

I can’t choose. I honestly just file Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror under one category of my brain and I know I like those genres but it don’t think about separating them really because it’s ridiculous as many authors mix genres. 

Clive Barker is Fantasy/Horror
Alastair Reynolds is often Sci Fi/Horrror

Epic Fantasy is something I enjoy slightly less than other speculative fiction genres but I’ll even read that if I get a recommendation. 

Part of this is my interest in reading almost anything I mostly don’t care what. I’ll happily read Emma by Austen then some new Sci Fi by Chris Beckett for example and then the latest Zadie Smith Novel. Maybe I’d throw some old Greek philosopher and a Stephen King book in as well. 

I’m aware that lots of people stick to one genre and won’t read Sci Fi for example unless it’s rigorously hard sci Fi and I just don’t understand the mentality. There are brilliant and sh*t books in every genre.


----------



## 2DaveWixon

SilentRoamer said:


> ...
> 
> So my vote goes to Science Fantasy and I am sat so firmly on the fence it's starting to get sore.



Why would the fence be getting sore?


----------



## Cathbad

It would if my big butt was on it!!


----------



## psikeyhackr

BigBadBob141 said:


> Fantasy or SF.
> I don't mind which as long as they are well written.



Good writing makes SF better better but good SF is about more than writing.   Ursula leGuin is a better writer than Asimov ever was, but he was a better SF story creator.

Writing is not two separate functions like playing versus composing music.  Asimov could compose but leGuin played better.  Lathe of Heaven is really fantasy not SF.  How much science is in the Dispossessed? 

This is why I wrote the computer program that counts science and fantasy words.   It provides objective though limited data that reviewers do not.

psik


----------



## Hilarious Joke

psikeyhackr said:


> Writing is not two separate functions like playing versus composing music. Asimov could compose but leGuin played better.



I like that analogy!


----------



## Serendipity

I find it fascinating that whilst the vote for the preference between science fiction and fantasy is evenly split here, about six times as many new novels are published in fantasy than in science fiction..... my brain hurtz...


----------



## Ihe

If I had to guess, SF fans might be more vocal, but Fantasy is more mainstream? Anyway, the vote is pretty even, so we might not be that much more vocal than Fantasists at all .


----------



## Joshua Jones

While I like some fantasy, I am much more into SF. That said, one of my projects is high fantasy, and the other is SF.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Serendipity said:


> I find it fascinating that whilst the vote for the preference between science fiction and fantasy is evenly split here, about six times as many new novels are published in fantasy than in science fiction..... my brain hurtz...



That is what is disturbing about this poll.  I encountered a high school teacher with lots of pristine Harry Potter books on top of a cabinet.  She was disappointed that she could not get her students to read them.  But this teacher later demonstrated that she did not know meters from kilometers.

How are we supposed to deal with the Global Warming problem with a world of scitech-illiterates?  Part of our problem is that we turn education into boring work and lots of so called SF is scientifically illiterate.


----------



## Onyx

psikeyhackr said:


> How are we supposed to deal with the Global Warming problem with a world of scitech-illiterates? Part of our problem is that we turn education into boring work and lots of so called SF is scientifically illiterate.


Reading Foundation isn't going to make anyone science literate. Science class will, though.


I think the poll reads like it does because it asks that everyone takes a position for one or the other, and plenty of people might only feel 51% stronger about SF over fantasy, and are happy to read 6 fantasy books to every one SF book. But they're still going to give the nod to SF. I think an "either/or" would have made the poll interesting.

Personally, I don't feel like fantasy and SF are that similar. Reading Sherlock Holmes is an experience much closer to a good SF book than reading fantasy is for me. But most people don't see that line.


----------



## mosaix

psikeyhackr said:


> That is what is disturbing about this poll.  I encountered a high school teacher with lots of pristine Harry Potter books on top of a cabinet.  She was disappointed that she could not get her students to read them.  But this teacher later demonstrated that she did not know meters from kilometers.
> 
> How are we supposed to deal with the Global Warming problem with a world of scitech-illiterates?  Part of our problem is that we turn education into boring work and lots of so called SF is scientifically illiterate.



I'm a bit confused about your post Psi. I agree with the general gist of it but I'm not sure how that relates to the poll.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Onyx said:


> Reading Foundation isn't going to make anyone science literate. Science class will, though.



That was part of the reason for my word counting program.

Reading *A Fall of Moondus*t by Arthur C. Clarke would explain a lot about infrared.  It uses the word 17 times and the phenomenon is integral to solving the problem of the plot.

There is:
SCIENCE Fiction
Science Fiction
and 
science FICTION

But SF can supply words and concepts and stimulate curiosity to be researched elsewhere.  I would read an SF book with 3 encyclopedia open on my bed to learn what the author was talking about.  The nitwit nuns I had for teachers never taught science.  We can never tell how bad any kids education might be.  Now with a tablet they can access GKW.

Books: science fiction (sorted by release date)


----------



## Onyx

psikeyhackr said:


> But SF can supply words and concepts and stimulate curiosity to be researched elsewhere.


It can, and I love that about SF. I'm just not certain that science that is integral to a story makes people previously uninterested in science more interested, or if the science makes them uninterested in SF.

And that's assuming that we aren't talking about Star Trek or some other SF else with zero science in it, or stuff that sounds like science but is actually more likely to give people the wrong idea about how things really work.


----------



## psikeyhackr

Onyx said:


> Reading Foundation isn't going to make anyone science literate. Science class will, though.
> 
> And that's assuming that we aren't talking about Star Trek or some other SF else with zero science in it, or stuff that sounds like science but is actually more likely to give people the wrong idea about how things really work.



There is HUGE variation in what we call SF.  I have rather liked the Flinx and Pip series by Alan Dean Foster over the years but I readily admit it is scientifically meaningless, but it goes into the SF genre anyway and is not regarded as fantasy.

The interesting thing about the Foundation series is that it started before WWII and one wonders what the conceptions and misconceptions about atomic power were at the time even among relatively educated people like the young Isaac Asimov.  I need a floating throne, I am getting old.  LOL

But I have seen someone refer to the science in Star Trek as "rubbery".  There is a TNG episode that mentions "Soliton Waves".  I had never heard the term.  This is embarrassing since it relates to electrical engineering.  When an electrical signal is sent down a long transmission line like ten miles of coaxial cable the transmission line can change the shape of the wave largely because of its capacitance.  But this can be analyzed and the starting wave can be deliberately distorted in the revers manner probably with digital signal processing.  That way the transmission line removes the distortion and the received wave is as it was originally intended. 

I learned that because of Star Trek.  Admittedly I have not actually needed it but I did not need Shakespeare either.  Oh yeah, that is is Next Generation too.


----------



## picklematrix

Tough call. I think fantasy has more specific connotations for me, and so less range and variety as a genre.


----------



## Onyx

psikeyhackr said:


> But I have seen someone refer to the science in Star Trek as "rubbery". There is a TNG episode that mentions "Soliton Waves". I had never heard the term.


Star Trek is "rubbery" because they take a basic concept like a soliton - which is found in many kinds of waves, not just in electrical systems - and repurpose it into something that most people are going to assume is fiction due to the presentation. It is almost worse than not mentioning it at all because of the mistaken ideas it can impart to viewers.

"Stardate 6.6.6: Doctor Funkyboots is testing his "molecule" technology, which promises to revolutionize stuff."


I've been reading SF for nearly 40 years, and I think the only authors that actually imparted any real world science or history to me have been Stephenson, Gibson, Watts, Clarke and Pohl. I love the speculative ideas of Vinge, Herbert, Reynolds, etc - but what I'm enjoying is the pleasure of logical extrapolation, not actual scientific theory playing out. That kind of SF is fantastic for encouraging critical thinking and speculation - which are probably more important in creating scientifically minded people than exposure to the metric system.


----------



## Lew Rockwell Fan

psikeyhackr said:


> I encountered a high school teacher with lots of pristine Harry Potter books on top of a cabinet. She was disappointed that she could not get her students to read them. But this teacher later demonstrated that she did not know meters from kilometers.


And she probably calls those half-gallonish pop bottles "liters". I had a high school teacher who bragged, not admitted, BRAGGED, that she took a course in astrology for her single required science credit. And yes, she did understand the difference. I quizzed her on that. She figured that proved how clever she was and was proud of it. Needless to say, we didn't get along. One of 2 teachers in HS I called BS on frequently, for which I have no remorse. Sometimes incivility is a duty. These people shouldn't be allowed to teach. Frankly they shouldn't be allowed to vote either. And from everything I read, it's only gotten worse.


----------



## Anthoney

Currently I prefer to read fantasy and watch sci-fi.  When I was a teen my reading weighed more towards sci-fi but D&D changed that before the end of high school.   I guess I'm at a 65/35 split.


----------



## Happy Joe

I switch between the two; I like both well written fantasy and well written (hard to find) SF.
currently I'm reading Fantasy but after a couple of weeks of elves, swords and spells  I will probably change back to actual hard SF; possibly space opera or military SF for a bit.


----------



## EdLincoln

I used to love sci fi, but lately there is just so much more fantasy I consider readable.  I used to love sci fi that dealt with space or First Contact stories, but those seem to have become rare.  
I just don't care about the cyberpunk, computer science focused stuff, or military sci fi that seems to predominate now.


----------



## EdLincoln

Rinman said:


> elves, orcs, and that sort of deal.



A lot of Fantasy used to use the Tolkien/D&D template, but that's become rare.  Urban Fantasy seems o have taken over.  A lot of that is just as derivative, but it's a different template.  

Sci Fi can have an enormous scope, but not many writers seem to be taking advantage of it.  

If you want Fantasy with a different kind of charterer, how about "The Cloud Roads" by Martha Wells.


----------



## Boaz

Anthoney said:


> Currently I prefer to read fantasy and watch sci-fi.


That about sums it up for me.


----------



## Cathbad

I prefer to read fantasy... and um... watch fantasy.  *shrugs*


----------



## Lafayette

One of the things that inspired me to write my book was the  lack of Tolkien and Donaldson type fantasies. I just love  elves, orcs, giants, good and evil wizards, dragons, fair maidens and noble heroes. 

Most of what I read seemed to be cookie-cutter fantasies like Raymond Feist. It seemed like he just threw in things just to be different. However, I'm not into vampires and zombies. There are however exceptions: Brandon Sanderson and Kevin Hearne.


----------



## Cathbad

Lafayette said:


> One of the things that inspired me to write my book was the  lack of Tolkien and Donaldson type fantasies. I just love  elves, orcs, giants, good and evil wizards, dragons, fair maidens and noble heroes.


Oh, man!  Totally agree!  It seemed like, suddenly, these things were anathema!


----------



## Triceratops

Wow. So close. My SF is my most lucrative genre, but I'm writing and marketing fantasy. So it was fantasy, just be a hair.


----------



## Hummus

It really depends on my mood. Great sci-fi for me is dystopian and/or satirical, like a bad trip or what have you. Great fantasy, is uh, _fantastic. _Takes you beyond the limits of reality. (guess I'll be voting fantasy)


----------



## biodroid

I prefer reading Fantasy and watching Sci Fi especially the TV shows. The only good "Sci Fi" movie I have enjoyed lately is Interstellar, I am not counting Ready Player One as SF. I think I have read maybe 2-3 SF books my whole life. I have mostly read Stephen King and Dean Koontz and Joe Abercrombie.


----------



## Laura R Hepworth

I read/watch/write both, but I think I favor Fantasy over Sci Fi. I find Sci Fi more likely to fall into ruts than Fantasy and start to get kind of same-same after awhile. I do enjoy a good Science Fantasy hybrid though.


----------



## Cathbad

Laura R Hepworth said:


> I read/watch/write both, but I think I favor Fantasy over Sci Fi. I find Sci Fi more likely to fall into ruts than Fantasy and start to get kind of same-same after awhile. I do enjoy a good Science Fantasy hybrid though.


I used to say I don't like my fantasy and scifi mixed.  Then I noticed I keep slipping scifi into my own fantasy!!


----------



## Hilarious Joke

Anyone read *Red Rising *by Pearce Brown? I think that's a great example of a fantasy/ sci-fi mix.


----------



## BAYLOR

Hilarious Joke said:


> Anyone read *Red Rising *by Pearce Brown? I think that's a great example of a fantasy/ sci-fi mix.



You might like *Morlock Night* by K W Jeter


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## Ian Fortytwo

Although I have read both, fantasy gets my vote. I love the Hobbit, and one day I may attempt to read the Game of Thrones series, but as they are quite chunky I am put off, unless someone can convince me to read them.


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## nixie

Ian Fortytwo said:


> Although I have read both, fantasy gets my vote. I love the Hobbit, and one day I may attempt to read the Game of Thrones series, but as they are quite chunky I am put off, unless someone can convince me to read them.


Although A Song of Ice and Fire is not my favourite series, it was one I always recommended specially to people who love  the TV series, I'd tell them if they really wanted the true feel of the richness of the characters and world read the books. I even stopped watching the TV series, not wanting anything to mar the enjoyment of reading.
I've give up now and I'm currently binge watching the series need some sort of closure as I've lost faith in the books being finished. Still worth a read but I'm disappointed would preferred the written version complete before the visual.


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## Ian Fortytwo

nixie said:


> Although A Song of Ice and Fire is not my favourite series, it was one I always recommended specially to people who love  the TV series, I'd tell them if they really wanted the true feel of the richness of the characters and world read the books. I even stopped watching the TV series, not wanting anything to mar the enjoyment of reading.
> I've give up now and I'm currently binge watching the series need some sort of closure as I've lost faith in the books being finished. Still worth a read but I'm disappointed would preferred the written version complete before the visual.



I've never seen the series, because I don't have sky.


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## Hilarious Joke

I second nixie, except I haven't given up hope that the series won't be finished (I am worried though!).


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## OHB

I prefer sci-fi. I never could get into fantasy that much. I think it's because a lot of the fantasy that I've seen or read could be very contrived at times. "Oh, you need to get to the top of the mountain? Well, I have a magic [fill in the blank] that can transport you there in the blink of an eye." How convenient...


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## Laura R Hepworth

Hilarious Joke said:


> I second nixie, except I haven't given up hope that the series won't be finished (I am worried though!).


Those of us waiting for Jasper Fforde to continue/finish his series(s) know exactly how you feel! We've been waiting for book 8 of Thursday Next for 7 years, book 3 of Nursery Crimes for 13, and the 4th and final book for Chronicles of Kazam for 5. I hold out hope we may yet see them, but it dwindles every year that continues to pass with no books in sight.


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## Hilarious Joke

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Those of us waiting for Jasper Fforde to continue/finish his series(s) know exactly how you feel! We've been waiting for book 8 of Thursday Next for 7 years, book 3 of Nursery Crimes for 13, and the 4th and final book for Chronicles of Kazam for 5. I hold out hope we may yet see them, but it dwindles every year that continues to pass with no books in sight.



Has he in fact finished any series??


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## Laura R Hepworth

Hilarious Joke said:


> Has he in fact finished any series??


Not yet. He did release a stand-alone last year along with an apology and promise that he will actually finish his series. I saw this tentative list for his upcoming releases.


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## Forkkrul

Tough choice. But the dearth of SF books I've read lately swung it.


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## olive

The well written one.


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## BAYLOR

olive said:


> The good written one.



A book ive been recommending alot lately is* Islandia *by Austin Tappan Wright.


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## olive

Thanks, Baylor. And you caught it so quickly, I wasn't fast enough.


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## BAYLOR

olive said:


> Thanks, Baylor. And you caught it so quickly, I wasn't fast enough.



I love to recommend books books that ive read and like Olive .


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## olive

Oh thanks.


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## M. Robert Gibson

I've only just discovered this poll. 
I went with Fantasy - judging by my Goodreads list I couldn't have voted the other way. (Although SF is a close second)
My fantasy history goes something like - Tolkien -> Howard -> Moorcock -> pretty much anything with swords and sorcery


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## Victoria Silverwolf

I've been watching this poll for a while.  I think it's interesting that the split is always about fifty-fifty.


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## Triceratops

From a nostalgia standpoint, I would say I began with all hopes of being a SF writer. I did start out that way and did well. Only I abruptly stopped and went into the fantastical realm for many genres. I seem cemented to YA fantasy for now, even using a pen name, and I don't think I'll be leaving soon. But I have to say that I miss writing and enjoying me some great space opera. I think that distopia will be the closest I ever come back to it.


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## Astro Pen

SF for certain. Although my SF is very humanist, complex people and sexuality are important elements in rounding out a genre that the hard modernists kind of flattened to the point of dehumanising . Early Ballard showed me what could be done with inner space rather than outer.
To be honest despite their constant bundling I think SF and Fantasy are polar opposites.


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## logan_run

I prefer s.f. but conan is fairly good.


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