# One quick and easy way to differentiate between SF and Fantasy.



## Scifi fan (Dec 18, 2008)

Science fiction has electronic gadgets, but fantasy does not. Or, to put it another way, science fiction takes place after the industrial revolution, but not fantasy. 

What's your quick and easy way to differentiate between the two?


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## Culhwch (Dec 18, 2008)

Ah, but what about urban fantasy? Post-Industrial Revolution and electronics a-plenty...


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## Scifi fan (Dec 18, 2008)

I was thinking about that, but I don't really know much about it. I was thinking more of epic fantasy or the likes of Thieves World, as opposed to Star Trek and Star Wars. 

I suppose another dividing line is magic - SF doesn't seem to have magic, but fantasy does. Then, if so, how do you explain the Force in SW?


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## The Procrastinator (Dec 18, 2008)

Hmm, I don't know, I've read a few books that have an overall fantasy feel but also include a touch of SF, including gadgets. Being a shades of grey person myself I'd say why bother differentiating anyway?


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## Scifi fan (Dec 18, 2008)

The Procrastinator said:


> Being a shades of grey person myself I'd say why bother differentiating anyway?



No reason - just a trying to start a thought-provoking discussion, that's all. I am enjoying my time here, because I'm learning about literature and other things.


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## j d worthington (Dec 18, 2008)

A lot of attempts have been made to draw a hard-and-fast line between the two, but the history of the genre(s) doesn't really allow of that. There's also the hybrid genre science fantasy, exemplified by the likes (at least at times) of A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, Andre Norton, Rod Serling, Michael Moorcock, etc....


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## Scifi fan (Dec 18, 2008)

I used to read a lot of Andre Norton, and I think he does blend the two genres nicely. I agree there's no hard and fast definition, and there shouldn't be, because literature should be flexible, to allow writers to play with concepts. 

But, if there was to be a division, I'd say that SF uses electronics and Fantasy doesn't.


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## gully_foyle (Dec 18, 2008)

I'd say SF uses electronics, whereas fantasy uses dwarves.


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## Omphalos (Dec 18, 2008)

j. d. worthington said:


> A lot of attempts have been made to draw a hard-and-fast line between the two, but the history of the genre(s) doesn't really allow of that. There's also the hybrid genre science fantasy, exemplified by the likes (at least at times) of A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, Andre Norton, Rod Serling, Michael Moorcock, etc....



Oh, sure it does.  Everyone under the sun has their own little ways of categorizing books and movies.  One method wont work for everything, so all we have to do is invent new terms, like "steampunk" and things like that.  But the fact is that most of everything in either genre can be easily categorized, so I'd say on the whole that the genres do allow for that.  Its just a relative minority of odd balls we have to work with to nail down, and even when we can't easily do so, trying is fun.


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## J-Sun (Dec 18, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> I used to read a lot of Andre Norton, and I think he does blend the two genres nicely.



She.

567


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## Saeltari (Dec 18, 2008)

I find it fairly easy; if it stinks it's Sci Fi, if it's good it's fantasy... 

(yes, I am a fantasy fan, why do you ask?)

For those of you who have read this far and didn't just go off at the first sentence, I think fantasy tends to have 'magic' where sci-fi tends to have 'psychic' or scientifically based magic... although that doesn't always work as a point of difference either.


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## katiafish (Dec 18, 2008)

Why differentiate? If you wanna be a planet-hopping-rocket-booster-magic-fairy, why not? I like them both just as much as each other, its like choosing which child is a favorite.


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## Connavar (Dec 18, 2008)

Omphalos said:


> Oh, sure it does.  Everyone under the sun has their own little ways of categorizing books and movies.  One method wont work for everything, so all we have to do is invent new terms, like "steampunk" and things like that.  But the fact is that most of everything in either genre can be easily categorized, so I'd say on the whole that the genres do allow for that.  Its just a relative minority of odd balls we have to work with to nail down, and even when we can't easily do so, trying is fun.



Yeah you are right but im really sick of people in SFF having the need to give new name to everything.  New Wierd ?  Come on why not still just be Wierd.  Its not really new blending old stuff with few different things.

To me there is SF and Fantasy and some that blend both like Science Fantasy.  The rest of the so called names can go to ****.


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## Culhwch (Dec 18, 2008)

How about we just re-name the whole shebang 'Sciantasy'?


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## Who's Wee Dug (Dec 19, 2008)

Well if you look at it this way,SF is probable if not now some time in the future(look what has been achieved so far) Fantasy is inprobable ie a dream or a what if once upon a time. I read both but more Fantasy always have done, the first stories were tales told around the camp fire that can never be changed.


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## Saeltari (Dec 19, 2008)

I wouldn't rule out 'fantasy', it's never been 'scientifically' disproven...


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## j d worthington (Dec 19, 2008)

Omphalos said:


> Oh, sure it does. Everyone under the sun has their own little ways of categorizing books and movies. One method wont work for everything, so all we have to do is invent new terms, like "steampunk" and things like that. But the fact is that most of everything in either genre can be easily categorized, so I'd say on the whole that the genres do allow for that. Its just a relative minority of odd balls we have to work with to nail down, and even when we can't easily do so, trying is fun.


 
While there are individual pieces which can be so categorized, the genres themselves are not so easy to pin down. They bleed into each other, and almost always have (at least since the days of Poe, Mary Shelley, and Bulwer-Lytton). This is a healthy thing, by the way, as any branch of literature which becomes too rigid quickly becomes inspissated and cliché-ridden to the point of losing any value whatsoever except as fodder for parody (if one can keep a straight face in maintaining that it doesn't already parody itself....). A good case in point is *Dune*, which blurs the boundaries quite successfully; as does Heinlein's "Waldo" (not to mention "--All Your Zombies--" or Pratt and de Camp's *Carnelian Cube* or the Harold Shea stories).

However, this isn't to say that such categorization doesn't have its uses; but they are quite limited and almost always open to debate. As I've said before, when it comes to literature, a too-rigid taxonomy quickly mutates into taxidermy, and should be avoided like the plague. As long as fantastic fiction remains so, it remains a healthy kid booting over the traces and being quite properly obstreperous....


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## Omphalos (Dec 19, 2008)

I agree that its healthy, and that it certianly has its uses.  Marketing reasons alone make these distinctions valueable.  I like to see what I am buying before I plunk down for a new book.  But I think that the more sub-genres that we have, the more inventive authors will become within them.  And if you have only one or two (for example, SF and fantasy) things will become too boring.  People naturally want to branch out and try new things.  Experimentation leads to new masterpieces.  But still, most books, IMHO, that come out can be easily categorized into some established subgenre.  

As for the genres themselves?  I think they can be defined, and I dont really worry too much if there are some fuzzy edges to them.  A genre is what you make it.  If a book that comes along does not fit into it, then its easy enough to say that it either straddles genres, or sits in a new one.  I get what you are saying:  SF, for example, is hard to define on paper.  But for me, SF is like pornography:  I know it when I see it.  Dune for example, is not in my opinion SF.  Its Science Fantasy (another kind of "SF" I guess  ).


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## ratsy (Dec 19, 2008)

gully_foyle said:


> I'd say SF uses electronics, whereas fantasy uses dwarves.


 
I am going to write a book about Dwarves using Electronics and then where will we be in this conversation?


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## Scifi fan (Dec 20, 2008)

ratsy said:


> I am going to write a book about Dwarves using Electronics and then where will we be in this conversation?



We all agree that it's a fuzzy definition, and many stories do cross the boundaries, and for good reason. I would welcome your story on Dwarves using electronics - explain, for example, how magic and science interact with each other during the medieval ages.


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## The Procrastinator (Dec 20, 2008)

How about this one: Sci Fi is about things that do not yet exist - fantasy is about things that never existed...


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## j d worthington (Dec 20, 2008)

The Procrastinator said:


> How about this one: Sci Fi is about things that do not yet exist - fantasy is about things that never existed...


 
Well, there's always Heinlein's *The Number of the Beast* to knock that one on the head....

Omphalos: I'm not so much talking about individuals coming up with their own distinctions; that's something that has always existed and works fine for that individual. But when it comes to having a general definition people can agree upon, I'd say my earlier statement stands, given the interminable wrangling on this very topic which has been going on since at least the 1930s....


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## Scifi fan (Dec 20, 2008)

The Procrastinator said:


> How about this one: Sci Fi is about things that do not yet exist - fantasy is about things that never existed...



That's a good definition - I never thought of it that way.


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## Pyan (Dec 20, 2008)

The Procrastinator said:
			
		

> How about this one: Sci Fi is about things that do not yet exist - fantasy is about things that never existed...



How would you classify Steampunk then, Pro?


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## Contrary Mary (Dec 20, 2008)

Fortunately, I just read whatever I like and do not care too much if it is labeled Sf or Fantasy.  I have read good books in both genres; and terrible books in both genres.

As jd pointed out, the debate between sf and fantasy has being going on since the 1930's so we are unlikely to settle this anytime soon.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 20, 2008)

pyan said:


> How would you classify Steampunk then, Pro?



Good point - alternate history also wouldn't fit into that dichotomy.


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## Ursa major (Dec 20, 2008)

ratsy said:


> I am going to write a book about Dwarves using Electronics and then where will we be in this conversation?


 

Wouldn't there be an increased danger of the electronics shorting out?


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## Omphalos (Dec 20, 2008)

j. d. worthington said:


> Well, there's always Heinlein's *The Number of the Beast* to knock that one on the head....
> 
> Omphalos: I'm not so much talking about individuals coming up with their own distinctions; that's something that has always existed and works fine for that individual. But when it comes to having a general definition people can agree upon, I'd say my earlier statement stands, given the interminable wrangling on this very topic which has been going on since at least the 1930s....



Yes.  Thanks.  I get it.  I'm saying that the only way to do it consistently is to use subjective standards.


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## Lapuspuer (Dec 21, 2008)

The border between the two genres inevitably blurs, but trying to pinpoint the main differences between the bulk of SF literature and the bulk of fantasy is too challenging and funny a task not to try.



> Science fiction has electronic gadgets, but fantasy does not. Or, to put it another way, science fiction takes place after the industrial revolution, but not fantasy.


Sure fantasy doesn't use electronics (probably we could find fantasy tales with electronics in them if we searched, but I believe there'd be few instances), but there are also many SF stories that make no use of modern technology: stories about psychic powers, for instance, or alternate dimensions (I'm thinking of _Little Girl Lost_ by Matheson here), or mutants. These stories may be set in the present world where electronics exists, but it has no role in the plot: they could as well be set in the past.

Why not try and turn the definition upside down? "Fantasy uses magic (I use the word 'magic' in a broad way to include dragons and such), but SF doesn't. That is to say, for 'fantastic' events in SF a scientific explanation is always given, or ar least supposed to exist".
This definition would include most of the SF tales the previous one left out. It has its own drawbacks, anyway: is it reasonable to say that a dragon is less scientifically plausible than, say, an alien that emits energy beams? After all the only difference is that the first one's supposed to live on Earth, where it's never been found, while the second one should live on another planet, where it's never been searched.


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## chrispenycate (Dec 21, 2008)

Being totally egocentric and using something of my own as an example where does http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/44740-the-summoning.html fit? As far as I was concerned, I was writing fantasy, but…


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## ratsy (Dec 22, 2008)

Ursa major said:


> Wouldn't there be an increased danger of the electronics shorting out?


 
Too funny!  Things could get really _hairy_ if that happened


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## Jimmy Magnusson (Dec 26, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> I was thinking about that, but I don't really know much about it. I was thinking more of epic fantasy or the likes of Thieves World, as opposed to Star Trek and Star Wars.
> 
> I suppose another dividing line is magic - SF doesn't seem to have magic, but fantasy does. Then, if so, how do you explain the Force in SW?


 
Star Wars is space fantasy, I'd argue.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 30, 2008)

So how would you distinguish the two sub genres, then?


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## Fried Egg (Dec 30, 2008)

For some reason this is a subject that has always intrigued me. I'm also curious as to why SF and Fantasy seem to be assocated with each other more than with other genres. Although this is starting to happen with horror too; I know a few bookstores that now lumps in Horror with SF and Fantasy (or if they don't, it is usually next to it).

In an anthology I am reading, the editory (Mike Ashley) has this to say about the distinction between SF and Fantasy:


> However, whereas the content of a science fiction story is limited by the rules of science (no matter how much the author may try and bend them), in fantasy there are no limits other than those which the write himself may impose. So while science fiction is the literature of the possible, no matter how extreme, fantasy is the literature of the impossible, which means it's pretty extreme to start with.


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## Pyan (Dec 30, 2008)

That sounds a lot like _The Twilight Zone's_ Rod Serling:


> Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible


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## Precision Grace (Dec 30, 2008)

> I'm also curious as to why SF and Fantasy seem to be assocated with each other more than with other genres.



Isn't it obvious? Everything else is realistic. SciFi, Fantasy and now Horror are Un-realistic. They are not holding true today. There are elements of unreal, fantastical, chimeric in them. Of course, one could argue that a lot of old Sci fi is no longer fi, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.


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## AE35Unit (Dec 30, 2008)

How i differentiate is what happens in fantasy is possible only in a dream. What happens in SF is feasible!


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## Connavar (Dec 30, 2008)

AE35Unit said:


> How i differentiate is what happens in fantasy is possible only in a dream. What happens in SF is feasible!



Becoming almost immortal as i have read in SF stories where humans has advanced so much they can live for centuries isnt feasible.

In Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and its world where humans mind have been digitelized and can change bodies as a way of traveling long distences isnt feasible.

Alot of SF stories,ideas will never be feasible.   Not all SF are hard sf and realistic science oriented.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 30, 2008)

Poached Egg,

That's a good quote from Rod Serling. Thanks. 

But I think horror is not close to SF & F because it is possible - consider the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Silence of the Lambs. There have been serial murderers, and there have been people who use tools to cut people up. That said, Dracula is not possible, so far as we know, so, in that sense, it's close to Fantasy.

I guess all genres and sub genres deal with degrees of difference.


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## j d worthington (Dec 30, 2008)

Precision Grace said:


> Isn't it obvious? Everything else is realistic. SciFi, Fantasy and now Horror are Un-realistic. They are not holding true today. There are elements of unreal, fantastical, chimeric in them. Of course, one could argue that a lot of old Sci fi is no longer fi, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.


 
Well... not quite. To be pedantic, science fiction emerged from the same tradition that fantasy did -- imaginative literature in general, which was (until the early twentieth century, at any rate) simply a part of mainstream literature; look at how much fantastic literature the "great writers" wrote. And the differences only began to really matter much as marketing (including professional writers, magazines, and publishers) found that there were fans who responded to one type of fantastic literature over another. Before that point, what we would today call science fiction (or proto-science fiction) quite often bled into fantasy, and vice versa.

On the idea that sf avoided the "unreal, fantastical, and chimeric[al]"... a good look at even the Golden Age (let alone what came before, or during the New Wave) sf shows this isn't the case.

Frankly, the two are most closely related in that both are (along with horror, which also emerged from the same stream via the Gothics, which influenced either directly or indirectly those who helped create sff -- Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H. G. Wells, etc.) today the major outlet for _mythologizing_, which is a very important aspect of literature, with its symbolic, metaphorical exploration of our deepest fears, anxieties, hopes, and aspirations....


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## Pyan (Dec 30, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> Poached Egg, That's a good quote from Rod Serling. Thanks.



Do I _look_ like a poached egg, SFf?


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## Fried Egg (Dec 30, 2008)

Connavar said:


> Alot of SF stories,ideas will never be feasible.


Because their ideas have become dated you mean? Well, one could say that the ideas _were_ considered feasible in the time they were written, or at least they speculated that they would one day be.

For me, it is not really how _realistic_ or _feasible_ the ideas are that distinguish SF from Fantasy, but rather that the author attempts to _rationalise_ it in some way. 


> Not all SF are hard sf and realistic science oriented.


But soft SF is usually concerned with the _social_ sciences and it is those that must be rational.


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## Precision Grace (Dec 30, 2008)

j. d. worthington said:


> On the idea that sf avoided the "unreal, fantastical, and chimeric[al]"... a good look at even the Golden Age (let alone what came before, or during the New Wave) sf shows this isn't the case.
> 
> .



I didn't say avoided, did I? I didn't mean to say that, if I did, indeed say it, which I hope I didn't.

anyway, you are right about not quite but from the other way around. there is so much 'plain' fiction that is really fantasy or sci fi hiding it's light under a bushel. Anything by Haruki Murakami for example is way out there but is still sold as straight fiction.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 30, 2008)

pyan said:


> Do I _look_ like a poached egg, SFf?



Oops. Sorry.


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## Connavar (Dec 30, 2008)

Fried Egg said:


> Because their ideas have become dated you mean? Well, one could say that the ideas _were_ considered feasible in the time they were written, or at least they speculated that they would one day be.
> 
> For me, it is not really how _realistic_ or _feasible_ the ideas are that distinguish SF from Fantasy, but rather that the author attempts to _rationalise_ it in some way.
> 
> But soft SF is usually concerned with the _social_ sciences and it is those that must be rational.



I was thinking about sf ideas,worlds thats so far future and not ever gonna be feasible kind of thing.

Some authors just write things that never was meant to be feasible.  near immortal humans that live 500 years for example,humans changing bodies like they were nothing and etc   

I doubt the authors who wrote that,similar things in their stories think its okay i can write this and in 500 years it will be science fact.

Its going too far to think all  sf has science that is feasible.  
Usually that you means you have read alot of Clark,RAH or social science authors and except more of that then there really is.


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## j d worthington (Dec 30, 2008)

Precision Grace said:


> I didn't say avoided, did I? I didn't mean to say that, if I did, indeed say it, which I hope I didn't.


 
My apologies. It seemed implied, shall we say? (Much more soothing to an old man's ego than saying he can't read a post correctly....)




> anyway, you are right about not quite but from the other way around. there is so much 'plain' fiction that is really fantasy or sci fi hiding it's light under a bushel. Anything by Haruki Murakami for example is way out there but is still sold as straight fiction.


 
I'd agree with you on this; and this is something which has been going on for a while... at least since the '60s or '70s, when you had people like Thomas Pyncheon and Saul Bellow dipping their toes into sff....

But, as I said, once upon a time (not really all that long ago, actually), all these were a part of "straight" or mainstream fiction; and to a fair degree, in Europe the connections have remained more or less intact, I'd say....


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## Fried Egg (Jan 1, 2009)

Connavar said:


> I was thinking about sf ideas,worlds thats so far future and not ever gonna be feasible kind of thing.
> 
> Some authors just write things that never was meant to be feasible.  near immortal humans that live 500 years for example,humans changing bodies like they were nothing and etc
> 
> ...


Well, that's why think more along the lines of _rational_ rather than _feasible_. Even distant future SF is rationalised in some way. Ideas in SF are always supposed to be operating within the physical laws of nature. Fantasy goes beyond this by introducing concepts that are meta-physical in nature; they are not described by the laws of nature.


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## Scifi fan (Jan 1, 2009)

Happy New Year, Scrambled Eggs.

I think your line is very close to mine - I say SF has electronics, while Fantasy doesn't. You say that SF operates within reasonable physical laws, while Fantasy is not supposed to be, because it uses magic. That said, Fantasy is often in the medieval ages, which uses iron or bronze age technology, and those, of course, are bound by physics.


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## Connavar (Jan 1, 2009)

Fried Egg said:


> Well, that's why think more along the lines of _rational_ rather than _feasible_. Even distant future SF is rationalised in some way. Ideas in SF are always supposed to be operating within the physical laws of nature. Fantasy goes beyond this by introducing concepts that are meta-physical in nature; they are not described by the laws of nature.




Pseudo SF that are outside rationality,physical laws are common.   Usually a far future author makes a up a tech he can never explain except needing your lack of disbelief that this might somehow happen.  Humans somehow learns every potential thing about science in 3000 years.


Its like Superhero comics.  You know that spider that somehow gave Spiderman his powers just cause of radiation but you have to bend the rules to that world.   If it was _rational_ it would have turned him into a big Spider just like that Fly movie with Jeff Goldblum. 


I see what you mean but many authors i have read dont explain their future science in any way.   You just have to understand the humans mastered alot of things.

Thats just like fantasy where you have to understand a world has wizards,dragons or talking animals that can shapeshift.


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## Fried Egg (Jan 2, 2009)

Connavar said:


> Pseudo SF that are outside rationality,physical laws are common.


Outside of the laws of science as we know them, yes. But still speculatively within the laws of nature as we might one day describe them. Fantasy has concepts that lie fully outside of the laws of nature, not only as we now understand them, but as they will ever be understood. Purely metaphysical concepts.


> Usually a far future author makes a up a tech he can never explain except needing your lack of disbelief that this might somehow happen.  Humans somehow learns every potential thing about science in 3000 years.
> 
> 
> Its like Superhero comics.  You know that spider that somehow gave Spiderman his powers just cause of radiation but you have to bend the rules to that world.   If it was _rational_ it would have turned him into a big Spider just like that Fly movie with Jeff Goldblum.
> ...


What makes you call one thing SF and one thing Fantasy then? Or do you not make any distinction? I realise that many stories have an element of both, but if you have any notion of them being distinct concepts, you must have idea as to their demarkation.


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## Connavar (Jan 2, 2009)

Im talking a small precent of SF stories i have read that are like fantasy in a way they dont try explain the science or things that might be as magical to us. Some real far future ones.  Not saying all SF is like that.

To me be its about the setting.   Science or not is not important.  You see when you read a story if its fantasy or SF. 

When you read a PKD you know its a SF and not a fantasy.  Not because of science knowledge in it but because of the world.


For example Scifi Fan says there is no electronics in fantasy.  Im pretty sure the wizard Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files who lives in modern day Chicago would disagree about the lack of electronics in fantasy


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## Jbshare (Jan 3, 2009)

What 'bout steam-punk?  That's more fiction than sci-fi.


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## Scifi fan (Jan 3, 2009)

Connavar said:


> For example Scifi Fan says there is no electronics in fantasy.  Im pretty sure the wizard Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files who lives in modern day Chicago would disagree about the lack of electronics in fantasy



I'm just reading that, actually.


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## Ursa major (Jan 3, 2009)

I'm currently reading _Dreamsongs II_ by G.R.R.Martin. Inside is an essay dealing with just this question; in amongst all the other arguments, Martin has a two word answer to the question:



> Furniture Rules.


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## chrispenycate (Jan 4, 2009)

Actually, a lot of it's in the writing style. I've read science fiction stories about vampires, werewolves, even elves, and fantasy involving time travel, dimensional warps and a saturn five rocket. The writing defined which genre the story belonged for any regular reader.

So, "target audience" as an answer?


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## AE35Unit (Jan 5, 2009)

chrispenycate said:


> I've read science fiction stories about vampires, werewolves, even elves, and fantasy involving time travel, dimensional warps and a saturn five rocket.


 
That sounds like science fantasy Chris.


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## AE35Unit (Jan 5, 2009)

Connavar said:


> Not all SF are hard sf and realistic science oriented.


 
Pity that!


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## Fried Egg (Jan 5, 2009)

Connavar said:


> To me be its about the setting.   Science or not is not important.  You see when you read a story if its fantasy or SF.
> 
> When you read a PKD you know its a SF and not a fantasy.  Not because of science knowledge in it but because of the world.


What is it exactly about the world or setting that makes it SF or Fantasy?


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## iansales (Jan 5, 2009)

Science fiction is a modernist mode of fiction. It takes as axiomatic that the universe can be explained, or that it can be created, shaped or improved.

Fantasy is not modernist. It does not explain to the universe, nor does it require a universe that is open to, or capable of, explanation.

The furniture is just that: furniture. Some is more common to one genre than the other, but none is specific to one or the other.


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## AE35Unit (Jan 5, 2009)

Exactly Ian. Fantasy is more subjective than SF. Less bound by laws and conventions. In SF you travel by faster than light or impulse beams. In fantasy you just invent a world.


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## Connavar (Jan 10, 2009)

Fried Egg said:


> What is it exactly about the world or setting that makes it SF or Fantasy?



Simple put its like this i read a great classic vamp story ei I am Legend.  If i didnt know anything about the book i would know it was SF and not fantasy/horror like most vampire books.

Robert Neville tries to solve the vampire problem of his sciencetificly.  He experimates,he tries to save the people infected.  While in a fantasy like most i have read with vamps.  They are magical beings that are larger than life,uber strong,romantic views on it etc 

In Legend, they were simple dangerous brutes that could be killed when you found out their weakness.   They were more realistic like you could believe like they could exist.

In a fantasy one like in Urban fantasy story, despite real world you know those vamps are too big,too much of everything.  Which is fitting for the kind of story they are in.

Thats a huge difference beteween SF take and fantasy take.   In one you take down to it to earth with science or logic and other you enlarge things magicly,supernaturally.

Of course it doesnt work neatly like that about everything but somethings you could see perfectly well the difference like in the Vampire example.   

When a character uses logic to think about a Vampire and read medical books you know it sure isnt a fantasy book


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## Dave (Jan 11, 2009)

ratsy said:


> I am going to write a book about Dwarves using Electronics and then where will we be in this conversation?


Okay, but they are only allowed to use valves and high voltages with big heavy electrical switchgear. And they have to make live repairs to circuits with giant screwdrivers made of Mithril.


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## WJoseph (Jan 11, 2009)

It would be great if it was as simple as sci-fi is for something that doesn't exist YET, and fantasy is something that never existed. My book was classified as sci-fi simply because it takes place in the future (2032). If my story was set in the past, it would then be considered fantasy? Does a basis grounded in science differentiate between sci-fi and fantasy?


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## Pyan (Jan 11, 2009)

Dave said:


> And they have to make live repairs to circuits with giant screwdrivers made of Mithril.



Must be the most expensive tool-kits ever....

There's a short essay by Robert Heinlein that addresses this question, published in Expanded Universe. It's called Ray Guns and Rocket Ships, and offers this as a definition of Science Fiction:



> ..science fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws...it is...speculation about the possibilities of the real world.


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## reiver33 (Feb 4, 2009)

I suppose any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, from the perspective of losing side (with apologies to Clarke). 

It should be difficult to tell whether something is decadent high technology rather than the practical application of magic, from the perspective of the society accustomed to using it. By that I mean people use equipment on a day-to-day basis without more than a vague and general idea of how it actually works – the essence of consumerism is a manageable interface between customer and equipment which leads to a technological de-skilling amongst the population in general. 

Trying to explain, say, a mobile phone to someone from the sixteen hundreds would be well-nigh impossible for most users; electricity, satellite communications, plastics – all concepts we ‘know and understand’, but only in the context of a modern world.


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## Leo (Feb 15, 2009)

How about asking those who _hate_ such and such genre - it might give new insights about differentiations.
Those who hate _all_ of imagination litterature won't tell much, but those who hate some part of it?
I'm very fuzzy about genres, more attracted by an author or a point of view.


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## Leo (Feb 17, 2009)

Sorry about the double T in "literature". Me not native. :\
It was too late to edit the post.


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## ManTimeForgot (Mar 23, 2009)

Fantasy (with a capital F) is a sub-set of Fiction (fiction being all written works of a non-factual nature).  Fantasy contains all works of fiction that rely upon a non-real condition of some kind (taking place in a different time, technology that doesn't exist, knowledge that doesn't exist: aka magic, creatures that don't exist, an event that did not actually happen, etc).

Sub-sets of Fantasy:

Sci-Fi.
Steampunk/Gaslamp.
High fantasy (knights and shining armor/wizards).
Alternate History/Speculative Fiction.
Horror (not slasher films, but Monster movies, ghost stories, etc).
Super Hero fantasy.

The reason why it is hard to differentiate all of the above from one and other: is that they usually include tropes from the other branches.  Take The Watchmen for instance.  Its a Super Hero fantasy that has elements of Alternate history to it (as it takes place in a prolonged/accentuated Cold War situation that did not actually exist in 1985).  Or look at just about every High fantasy story you can think of: how many of them mention "the undead."  Horrific monsters are almost part of the trade for High fantasy epics.


What separates all of the above is merely where the emphasis is placed.  In High fantasy the emphasis is on the heroes or "the quest."  In Horror its on the spooky environment or the monster.  In sci-fi its on the "out of place" time, planet, and/or technology.  In gaslamp its on the improbable technology or advanced versions of antiquated technology.  And so on.


In fact I would be willing to bet that everyone here likes at least 4 (maybe even 5) out of the above 6 sub-genres.  I personally enjoy all 6 (with less emphasis on super heroes; I don't often find the writers to be very good).


MTF


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## Marlon (Mar 29, 2009)

Fried Egg said:


> What is it exactly about the world or setting that makes it SF or Fantasy?


 
I'd call it point of reference.  With science fiction, the point of reference is the here and now, and the science of today.

The closer an author stays to the point of ref. the more likely it is to be seen as science fiction.  These stories can be about adventure and exploration (Clarke, ST, McCaffrey's Decision at Doona, Heinlein's juvie works), social implications/interactions (Huxley, Orwell plus less political themes), alternative histories (can't think of an example here), even meetings with aliens/alien technology (Wilson's Spin, other Clarke) but the human world is generally recognizable and makes sense based on existing science.  

The farther one gets from that point of reference the more likely for the work to be seen as fantasy -- SW, McCaffrey's Pern series, or as Connavar has noted stories set so far in the future it begins to be too made up, or stories such as Narnia which have the link to present (or pretty close to it) but then are transported to another world with plot line as described below.

And then there's just straight fantasy.  Hero qrs in the land of abc rescues fair maiden/kingdom/magical icon from the clutches of evildoer/s xyz with the help of elf/dwarf/other kind.  Settings, histories and cultures made up as needed.


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## chrispenycate (Mar 30, 2009)

Good try, but I can deliver Misty Lackey's SERRAted edge series, or her Bedlam's bard books, which are solidly present day (well, recent past now, but only because she wrote them some time ago), with fast cars and crooked politicians, and elves and a dragon and… which are definitely fantasy, while Arthur C Clarke's "the city and the stars" is far enough into the future that the technology is indistinguishable from magic, but there is never any question of its science fiction qualifications.

Then you get Niven's 'Warlock' stories; set in prehistory, with functioning magic, they must be fantasy, right? But making _mana_, the raw material of magic, a natural resource which mankind uses up quite quickly after its use is discovered, and analysing ways of using and abusing this fact is far more SF, while his time machine that brings back a werewolf is mo…– no, it's hybrid.  

Similarly the 'all fantasy looks to the past, to a golden age when things were better, while SF hasn't yet achieved its paradise' or 'Fantasy tends to be politically conservative, with royal (or at least noble) bloodlines essential for success; if you get a peasant leading armies to victory against overwhelming odds, you can be sure he's a lost branch of the old rulers' line, while SF tends more to a meritocracy, inherent ability being independent of ancestry' style definitions you can find exceptions to, and stories that could have been one or the other, depending on how they were written.


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## ManTimeForgot (Mar 31, 2009)

That's why the point of reference is irrelevant (the sub-genres all share the same set of reference points; there is an astounding degree of overlap in the tropes and figures used in all the sub-genres; like how undead can be found in monster movies, High Fanasy; both eastern and western, Sci-fi; Twilight Zone anyone?, Steampunk, Super Heros regularly combat the undead, and there is almost certainly an alternate history where some author speculated on what the world would be like if the undead were real).  But what does matter is what aspects of the stories are emphasized.  If the practical application and discovery process of "mana" is the emphasis of the story, then it probably waxes more sci-fi (despite having a "magic" sounding energy source) because the use is technological not theological or arcane.

Monsters (both human and inhuman), heroes, those needing saving, and a world in crisis are all features of Fantasy.  The fact that each sub-genre has an instance of these in one shape or form is what makes them all part of the same genre.  What differentiates them is how they change those inherent features.  The ultimate goal of the quest is to save or conquer the world.  Those who need saving die or are rescued.  The heroes flash brilliantly for a moment before either succeeding or dying in the process of trying.  And monsters (be they human or not) are the major obstacles to the quest's completion.  Now there are some small variations in scope (sometimes it isn't the whole world, but rather a whole nation), but it is easy to see how they are all related.

MTF


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## Marlon (Apr 1, 2009)

chrispenycate said:


> Good try, but I can deliver Misty Lackey's SERRAted edge series, or her Bedlam's bard books, which are solidly present day (well, recent past now, but only because she wrote them some time ago), with fast cars and crooked politicians, and elves and a dragon and… which are definitely fantasy, while Arthur C Clarke's "the city and the stars" is far enough into the future that the technology is indistinguishable from magic, but there is never any question of its science fiction qualifications.
> ...



If Lackey has elves and a dragon then they aren't 'solidly' present day (at least at time of the story's writing) as I've described since we don't have any such beings around.  Or maybe I'm just singularly unobservant.

I'm not saying there is no overlap or warping of the spectrum (or more likely spectra), and I think why this subject get's discussed so often is that we all seem to be drawing our lines in different places along those lines, curliques etc.  Stories too far in the future for me are the like of the Vernor Vinge that I tried to read.  I found it to be fantastical gibberish but since it won a hugo my opinion would probably be seen as pretty off base.  I'll try to get a copy of ACC's tc&ts to see if that seems the same to me, but I suspect based on the ACC I've read that it won't as he has tended to build logical worlds.  I also don't really get your Niven example (haven't read it that I can recall) but it sounds to me that you have very different criteria than I do, although maybe he was using a story that interacted with a society that was very like ours.  I'll also add I think the author's intent influences my decision when it is near the line (my line). 

MTF, I guess I could see zombies populating sf, fan and hrr stories.  Depending on the world, science, intent and explanations.  I have no problems there.  In other words, zombies aren't a reference point.


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## the smiling weirwood (Apr 1, 2009)

I think conventions of plot are even worse than stale conventions of setting. 

I'd rather read a thousand unique novels about the same village in France than the same novel set in a thousand different places and times. 

George R.R. Martin and William Faulkner both have important things to say about this kind of thing, and I firmly believe in both of them. 

I don't think distinctions about dragons or time or socio-political context is really important, its all about the characters and the story they tell. To be honest, the major reason I prefer fantasy over scifi is that fantasy generally has a greater focus on those things than does scifi, which tends to focus on the setting and the implications of the central "what-if" theorem the author is writing about.


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 1, 2009)

Here, I'll fix this whole argument:

Science fiction: Whatever occurs can be logically explained. 
Fantasy: Whatever occurs can be magically explained.

I win!


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 1, 2009)

What if the technology is indistinguishable from magic?  Most "super science" is predicated on "ideas/equations" that almost certainly are wrong or could never even exist.  My quantum implosion warp drive uses quad-lithium crystals and bombards it with unobtainium 578 inside a neutronium shell, thereby causing spacetime to collapse in on itself and then explode out a predetermined vector by the quantum probability manipulator.  Basically operates on magical principles (faerie power and quad-lithium crystals)...



Marlon:  There are plenty of fantasy stories/settings that use today as a reference point for making plot determinations.  There are plenty of fantasy stories/settings that use modern technology right alongside their magic.

The reason why you are want to admit to a spectrum is because High Fantasy (flavored eastern, western, or greek or whatever) & Sci-Fi are part of the same overarching group I call Fantasy.  Fantasy is very simple.  I've already stated what it is.  But what it does is speak to the human condition: we take our lives, our world, our actions, etc and idealize them in Fantasy.  That's why there are heroes, villains, monsters, quests, tragedies, super abilities, famous items, etc etc.

_There is no such thing as pure fantasy, sci-fi, alternate history, monster movie, steampunk, super hero fantasy, etc._  They all contain elements that are more "germane" to one of the other sub-genres.  Zombies are more "appropriately" a monster movie feature, but you see them every where.  Super technology is more "appropriately" a sci-fi feature, but it ends up in all manner of Fantasy stories.  Time traveling faerie rocketships that go back in time to stop the Evil Victorian Overlord Tick Tockus from mutating early super heroes into monstrous killing machines: Where does this story premise belong?


What will determine where the above story premise would ultimately be placed is what features the story emphasizes.  If the story emphasizes advanced technology, then it is most likely going to be labled Sci-Fi.  If it emphasizes highly improbable versions of antiquated technology, then it will proabably be labled steampunk.  If it emphasizes the plight of the early super heroes, then it will probably be labled a super hero fantasy.  If it emaphsizes the faeries, then it will probably be labled "fantasy" (most akin to high fantasy though the setting isn't quite dungeons & dragons).  If the emphasis is the timeline alteration and the consequences of time travel, then it will probably be labled alternate history.  And if the monsters are the emphasis, then it will probably be labled monster flick.

MTF


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## Dave (Apr 1, 2009)

the smiling weirwood said:


> I'd rather read a thousand unique novels about the same village in France than the same novel set in a thousand different places and times.


That is very profound and a great concept. True as well, 'bar room' telling stories and 'detective' stories use that format.

MTF - I do agree with you except for the fact that by your definition of 'Fantasy' I think that every work of Fiction could be classified into some small subset of an over-arching 'Fantasy', even Dickens and Hardy, even 'Mills and Boon'. Maybe they are, every book does have some fantastical idea at it's core, otherwise it would be humdrum people with a humdrum existence.

Most people who read Fantasy know what they mean by it, even if they can't put it into words, and it would be a much more limited field. Maybe the problem we have here is that everyone has a different idea of Fantasy, and yet everyone thinks that their idea of Fantasy is the real one. So, this thread is forever going to go around in circles until we can agree what we mean by it.


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 1, 2009)

Fantasy is counterpoint to Realism.  Tom Clancy novels are not fantasy even if they aren't factual (fiction definitionally is predicated on a non-real premise).  They seek to imitate life in such a way as we forget about real life for a moment and see life through the eyes of this other "real" (but still fictional) individual.

Features of "Realism" that you _generally_ won't see in Fantasy (since everything tends towards idealization): Permanent death or meaningless death (dying without a cause, any effect on the world, no saving grace, etc); Non-important characters/things (people or objects that have little or no effect on the world around them); people can lack goals and their motivations are often dirty, short-sighted, and are sometimes confusing (just like real life); and there doesn't have to be a true villain or obstacle ("people are people" there doesn't have to be a "truth.").



Subjective truth is what separates Realism from Fantasy.  There isn't some hard and fast rule clearly dilineating one from the other.  When something is more epic in scope and tends towards idealized notions and characterizations, then its probably Fantasy.  When something is limited in scope and the depictions all tend to mirror reality (or what was reality for historical pieces) with all their faults and confusions, then its probably Realism.  There is a spectrum (subjective truth will never have anything more than a probabiliy curve as none of the premises are incremental or definitive) and if more things appear like real life than not, then we say that this is realistic.  If more things differ, then we say it is fantasy.  I admit that there are some who are want to call all fiction: fantasy and that anything realistic is what it is and that whatever isn't realistic is "escapist," but these are usually the same people who think that playing D&D leads to summoning demons in your living room.



The reason why we "all know it when we see it" is because deep down we all use a variation on that powerful inductive reasoning Dustinzgirl layed out for us earlier.  If the rationale for something is magical, then its High Fantasy.  If the rationale for something is scientific, then its Sci-Fi.  Most people drop the "high" when talking about fantasy because High Fantasy also connotes a setting of sorts (dark age to medieval European or Oriental society with knights or samurai depending on what flavor your world has).

I am actually considering a remodeling of what I proposed earlier due to my current reanalysis.  Perhaps magic and science are exhaustive options and mutually exclusive when it comes to sub-genre (I don't think so I played RIFTS and magic and science happily co-existed there and the Gargoyles TV show pulled off a co-existence quite nicely: "Energy is energy; whether created by science or sorcery" Puck as Owen), but a monster movie can be set in either a science fiction, magic fantasy, or a contemporary setting.  A super hero fantasy can be contemporary, futuristic, or a hero's epic set in mythic history (gilgamesh anyone?).  An alternative history gets similar treatment (though changes for the worse end up yielding "post apocalyptic" sub-genre; something that I didn't mention earlier, but perhaps bears mentioning now).  And what about steampunk?  Is it magic or science?  Seriously?  Does anyone think that a giant steampowered robot could actually work by scientific principles alone?


And what about post apoc?  Is that Sci-Fi?  Does it have to be?  Why couldn't post apoc occur in a purely "fantasy" setting?  I think the answer to this is because it would have less meaning for us (an apocalypse that happens to someone else's world doesn't quite have as much meaning for us since we aren't as heavily invested into it emotionally).



When assigning labels to what we watch we use those powerful inductive reasoning tools that we have developed over the course of our lives.  We look at the spatial/architectural/environmental features of the setting; the "relative" time of the setting; we look at what aspects of the plot are most emphasized; we look at what obstacles are most weighted (is it a villain, the environment, political intrigue, what?); and we look to see how the whole thing differs from our world.  It is almost entirely certain that we all have slightly different internal definitions of what features make something fantasy versus whatever else (we all have different tastes in literature and media).  But there is almost certainly a grain of shared truth, or we wouldn't be able to even have this conversation at all (we all know it when we see it right?).


I think the more interesting question is what do "genre benders" do for you?  If you had a world populated entirely by elves and faeries that then went about living normal, banal lives (like going to work at a corporation, divorce proceedings, a mugging every now and again, shopping for groceries, etc) with only slight differences to account for different body abilities and slight cultural differences, how would we classify it?  Would it even be something we would want to read?

MTF


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## chrispenycate (Apr 1, 2009)

How about James Blish's "Black Easter" (the Devils day) pair? Genuine apocolypse, magic and demonology with rules as rigid as quantum physics?

And in my dragon stories I've taken 80,000 words to get to the point I can get a mixed dragon/human supermarket (and even then I've not managed to get the freezers on one aisle stocked with fillet of insurance adjustor, while the other side has dragon thighs, suitable for roasting if your oven is big enough (and your family hungry enough).

Though a troll might not conveniently fit into traditional corporate structure there have been a number of books investigating integrating supernatural entities into a modern society; try Freisner "Elf Defense" or Turtledove "The case of the toxic spell dump". And aren't a number of recent vampire stories doing the same?


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## Ursa major (Apr 2, 2009)

For what it's worth, MTF, I think it's pointless trying to divide fiction into Fantasy and Realism, when many people (probably most who've given it any thought) define Fantasy in a much narrower way by omitting SF** and Horror. If you want a name that encompasses all three, why not use the term, Speculative Fiction?




* Wonders whether a zombie supermarket ought to be called Sanesburies. *



** - Scifi: now that's a different matter entirely....


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## the smiling weirwood (Apr 2, 2009)

I think "genre" barriers are pretty superficial and pointless to begin with, but I've noticed a growing trend towards completely demolishing them. 

For example, George R.R. Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series on the surface looks like a traditional "High Fantasy" epic, but read it and you'll discover something, that place names and dragons aside, could be found in a history book. It possesses all of the features MTF describes for "Realism" _and_ features of "Fantasy." The same goes for much of China Mieville's work, although his is much darker. In a similar vein are Michael Swanwick's latest two books, _Iron Dragon's Daughter _and _The Dragons of Babel_.


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## Mostlyharmless (Aug 27, 2009)

I don't think that it is a quick and easy way to differentiate but science fiction authors tend to explain in some detail how things work. Thus Charles Stross is a science fiction writer and when he writes something like "The Atrocity Archives", he explains the magic! George R.R. Martin is a fantasy writer and when he writes something like "Hunter's Run" it seems to use the rules described in "The Incomplete Enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (unfortunately, I stopped halfway through Hunter's Run because it became hard to suspend disbelief).


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## TheEndIsNigh (Aug 27, 2009)

Dave said:


> ...
> 
> MTF - I do agree with you except for the fact that by your definition of 'Fantasy' I think that every work of Fiction could be classified into some small subset of an over-arching 'Fantasy', even Dickens and Hardy, even 'Mills and Boon'. Maybe they are, every book does have some fantastical idea at it's core, otherwise it would be humdrum people with a humdrum existence.
> 
> ...


 
Oh I don't know Dave...

Seems to work for The Archers 

(For our friends across the pond who are not fully familiar with The Archers, this is a radio soap that has been transmitted for over fifty years. The most exiting part of which is they occasionally change the signature tune - Though it has been suggested by some - Billy Conneolly- that this should become the new national anthem. A widely approved idea in my experience.)


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