No Koontz?

[j d worthington]

Essentially the difference lies in something being grounded in genuine science, rather than what currently exists in the various scientific/technological fields. Once something violates basic precepts of science, it becomes fantasy of one stripe or another.

Then there are those hybrids, which have strong elements based in both -- and oh, the debates that sort of thing engenders!

So, yes, any form of supernatural horror would belong more in the fantasy field; that which is based in the psychological or physical forms of horror may or may not belong in sf, depending on what sort of role (if any) science plays in them.

The Stand, for instance, while having a few scientific elements, is largely fantasy, while Thomas Tryon's The Other is not (neither is it science fiction)... yet it is one of the best "weird" books I've read, while some of A. Merritt's works land solidly in the middle....

 

[KESpires]

What J. D. said.

The Stand is a good benchmark for what I consider a dark fantasy.

As for things being fantasy because of the technology required for the plot to work... Dune is a prime candidate for that. You have mental telepathy, prescience, FTL travel, unheard of longevity of life, FTL communication, a man transforming into a worm, etc. etc.

Dune is fantasy to me.

Personally, and this may cause disagreement, a lot of the "Hard SF" that I've read or heard about seems like it aught not to be considered SF. It's fun stuff, don't get me wrong, but it is mostly classified as SF because it is set in the future. If you have people bumping around in FTL timeships and talking with their others selves because they've traveled back in time and then both of them working together to defeat the enemy... I think you might have strayed from SF.

Now if the technology, as J. D. said, is grounded in what we percieve of as being possible, not even 10 years, even 100 years, then I'd say it is SF.

Frankenstein is a good example. It is SF.

Jekyll and Hyde is another good example. It is a fantasy.

But ultimately I think we need to worry less about this so the writers will worry less. Do you think Cormac McCarthy worried about The Road being considered SF? No, he just wrote it. I seriously doubt he worried what part of the shelves it'd be put on. He knew it'd be put out front. He was free to write the story he wanted.

That's what I want. I want more guys like McCarthy and King and Koontz to just write whatever the hell comes to mind.

 

[j d worthington]

On that issue: I have a strong belief that, with the arts (including, of course, literature), too rigid a taxonomy mutates into taxidermy. The arts have to cross-pollinate to remain healthy and vital. If we get too caught up in rigid classifications, what we end up with is something very like the complaints I've heard about a lot of modern fantasy: that it's stereotypical, redundant, derivative, two-dimensional, etc. That's because it's being held to a particular template, rather than allowing each story to grow in its own unique way. In the end, you end up not only with stultification, but mummification (or at least embalming).

This happened, to a great degree, with the Gothic novels of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries. Eventually they became so incestuously interrelated that they lost all power to even interest, let alone enchant, move, or stimulate, an intelligent, literate reader. It took a rather drastic cross-pollination with the emerging tales of science and stories heavily influenced by the reawakened interest in folklore and fairy-tales (not to mention the emerging philosophical novel) to revitalize the Gothic and metamorphose it into certain branches of the supernatural tale we know today.

As for the breadth of fantasy... I'd suggest looking through some of the threads concerning, for instance, debates on Tolkien versus other fantasy writers, or the thread on fantasy writers pre-Tolkien, etc. While these are by no means the only places where this discussion flourished, they are among the main ones, and may prove of interest... not to mention bringing out a lot of wonderful books which you may not have heard of and which may become treasured reading experiences for you....

 

[KESpires]

The downside on the publishing trends is that small time authors wind up shelling out what works one time. Not a lot of authors get the leeway that Koontz and King get in what their stories are about.

If I wrote an epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien and then told the publisher who just had me placed in the fantasy section of every major bookstore that my next novel was a literary thriller like No Country for Old Men I'd likely be told not to bother them with it.

And that isn't good for us readers.

 

[j d worthington]

The downside on the publishing trends is that small time authors wind up shelling out what works one time. Not a lot of authors get the leeway that Koontz and King get in what their stories are about.

If I wrote an epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien and then told the publisher who just had me placed in the fantasy section of every major bookstore that my next novel was a literary thriller like No Country for Old Men I'd likely be told not to bother them with it.

And that isn't good for us readers.

Precisely. However, as has been pointed out, the readers themselves are in large part responsible for a lot of this, by demanding that their favorite writers continue producing the sorts of stories they like(d) from them, forgetting that anyone who continues in the same vein for too long will simply become stale... then they start griping about how bad the new books by that writer are, etc.

Frankly, the best solution I can see is for the readers to not demand a particular type of story, but rather a level of quality; this leaves the writer much more free to write in a variety of modes, and gives the reader a much broader spectrum of things to enjoy....