How many read both SF and Fantasy?

[elvet]

Just curious. I was wondering how much overlap there is, just within these 2 genres. I read only Fantasy at this point.

 

[Nikitta]

I mostly read SF, but I can enjoy a good fantasy book too.

 

[Lenny]

I read Mostly Fantasy, but I'll read the odd Sci-Fi book, if only just for a change of scenery.

 

[Kettricken]

At the moment I read mostly fantasy. However, there are some sf books on my bookshelves I'm really looking forward to read: Bujold's Vorkosigan series, Simmon's Hyperion and Card's Ender-series.

 

[Bikewer]

I read both, but I'm pickier about fantasy. There's so much dreck....

 

[Talysia]

I read mostly fantasy at the moment, although I like a bit of sci-fi from time to time.

 

[ace]

im a devoted fantasy reader who indulgdes in a good sci-fi from time to time

 

[mosaix]

Just Sci Fi for me.

 

[Urien]

Both. I prefer fantasy, but as a poster said further up, I find it harder to find good fantasy. Too much fantasy (IMO), these day is basically a dressed up romance novel complete with the mind numbing minutiae of court intrigue.

 

[Lirineth]

Its kind of funny now that I come to think about it, I was a SF fan all the way, but slowly and without even realising I became a fantasy reader.

Now my average is 3 fantasies to 1 SF

 

[vurtomatic]

It used to be an equal mix but I'm reading more sci-fi these days because there aren't a lot of new fantasy books I can get into. Certainly not by choice, I prefer a balanced mix. Many times after 2 sci-fi books, I decide I need my fantasy fix but always come up short. There simply aren't a lot of good prose in fantasy these days.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Almost entirely science fiction, but sometimes I'll read something by Ellison or Bradbury or Lovecraft, or etc. that qualifies as fantasy/weird tales. I haven't read any sword and sorcery-style fantasy in about 20 years... it all started to feel the same.

 

[Pyan]

Half-and-half - depends entirely on my mood at the time.

 

[Sibeling]

I read both, but I prefer sci-fi.

 

[nixie]

Have to say Fantasy,

 

[j d worthington]

Overall, I'd have to go with about equal amounts of each, though of late years, my reading has been predominantly fantasy and even more narrowly dark fantasy/horror, due to the long-term writing project I'm involved in. However, my overall reading and taste for a very long time (if we leave out horror, which has always been a love of mine) was more sf than fantasy -- into my teens, as a matter of fact, so it rather balances out.

I have to agree, though -- I'm beating this one to death, I know, but it's the truth. What I see happening in fantasy (and, to a somewhat lesser degree with sf) is a stultification and insularity uncannily similar to what happened with the original Gothic novels, with an attendant tendency toward more and more bloated multi-volume novels (we'd call them series now, though the structure is often damn' near the same), leading to tremendous amounts of flab and repetition and lack of originality. And I expect it to have pretty much the same outcome: the field becomes so insular and so incestuous that it basically withers in its own waste. And, frankly, there's no need for that.

Fantasy has riches galore that make the vast majority of the current crop look very much like what andrew said earlier (only I'd add an epithet to the description): badly written romance novels. There are notable exceptions, but not nearly enough. For those who'd like to see what good fantasy is about, go back to the older classics, and you'll see freshness in handling ideas that have become stale, and darned sure better writing than most of the current crop of fantasy writers. It's why they continue to resurface over the decades....

 

[Carolyn Hill]

I read both in equal amounts, although I tend to prefer science ficition.

 

[Werthead]

I read SF almost exclusively for about four or five years after discovering Asimov and Clarke until I picked up first Terry Pratchett and then Tolkien when I was about 14-15, after finding good SF was running thin. Then I went on a big fantasy binge for 2-3 years, then got back into SF with Peter F. Hamilton and David Brin in the late 1990s. At that point it stabilised into equal amounts of both, with some historical fiction thrown in. For example, the last few books I read were:

Perdido Street Station - China Mieville(fantasy)
Flashman and the Tiger - George Macdonald Fraser(historical)
Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan(SF)
Fat - Rob Grant(mainstream with a hint of SF)
The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie(fantasy)
The Confusion - Neal Stephenson(historical)
The Prefect - Alastair Reynolds(SF)
Black Man - Richard Morgan(SF)

The next books I'll read will (probably) be:

Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie(fantasy)
Keeping It Real - Justina Robson(SF)
Selling Out - Justina Robson(SF)
The Last Wish - Andrzej Sarpowski(fantasy)
Dreamsongs - George RR Martin(SF, fantasy and horror!)
Black Sun Rising - Celia Friedman (SF/fantasy)
Reaper's Gale - Steven Erikson (fantasy)

If anything, fantasy has gone a bit on the back burner for me over the last year or so, mainly due to the boom in excellent British SF authors.

Interestingly my favourite author, George RR Martin, is active in fantasy, SF and horror, and makes a good point that it's all the same thing ('Weird Stuff' as he calls it, or 'speculative fiction' as everyone else does) with just the 'furniture' swapped round. I certainly don't understand people who just read SF and not fantasy or vice versa. They're just denying themselves a lot of excellent authors.

 

[sanityassassin]

I would say mostly fantasy but there are a few Sci-Fi that slip in now and again and there is also some that seem to mix both genres and even installing a bit of Horror as well

 

[The Ace]

Thanks, JD, you summed up very well why I don't read a lot of fantasy these days, although the few good examples around are well worth the search. I sometimes find that much modern SF tends towards horror, which I dislike, or is so introverted that you can find no sympathy for the characters and little respect for the authors.