These two genres share so many commonalities, but also represent important distinctions for their main audiences. What do you think? What are the differences between these two genres? What are the key factors that set them apart from each other? What are the crucial elements that allow us to distinguish one from the other?
Scifi and Fantasy: where do we draw the line?
- Thread starter Violanthe
- Start date
Princess Ivy
Damsel in this dress
they do overlap, and some authors write science fantasy, there's a thread banging about regarding that. but for me the things which separate them are:
Fantasy: a relience on magic, often a basis in myth and/or legend even written on other worlds. there also is often an 'evil overloard' type.
Science Fiction: futuristic tchnology, often set in space or in the future. usually against a regime, and often with parellels to our modern world.
Fantasy: a relience on magic, often a basis in myth and/or legend even written on other worlds. there also is often an 'evil overloard' type.
Science Fiction: futuristic tchnology, often set in space or in the future. usually against a regime, and often with parellels to our modern world.
Thadlerian
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Science Fiction:
Settings that may possibly evolve out of the present (of course the present at the time when the book is written) without violating the general sense of reality (too much).
Fantasy:
Settings that require completely different timelines or universes than our own to be able to wok.
To put it simple:
Science Fiction is about things that may happen.
Fantasy is about things that may not.
Settings that may possibly evolve out of the present (of course the present at the time when the book is written) without violating the general sense of reality (too much).
Fantasy:
Settings that require completely different timelines or universes than our own to be able to wok.
To put it simple:
Science Fiction is about things that may happen.
Fantasy is about things that may not.
Princess Ivy
Damsel in this dress
quite a lot of fantasy is set on earth, off the top of my head, Kartherine Kerr sets most of her stuff in earth's past, and Jan Siegels prospero's children sequence is set on modernday earth, with trips to the past.Thadlerian said:
polymorphikos
Scrofulous Fig-Merchant
Science fiction is about fictional science, nonetheless following our current understanding to a degree.
Fantasy (in the genre sense) is about things that defy said laws of science, for whatever fantastic reason the author can come-up with, or simply contain lots of things that are entirely made-up, and couldn't ever have actually happened (to distinguish a magic-less fantasy novel set in the Kingdom of Spungonia in the world of Moop from a spec-fic sf novel set in the kingdom of Spungonia in the region that is in our world Penrith) . Just to add my spin to Thadlerian's glib-but-mostly-accurate synopsis, although it wasn't really necessary.
I actually think the difference is quite marked between the two genres, but that the issue is confused by a great deal of cross-pollenisation. The Force in the original Star Wars, for example, being a fantasy element, but the Force in the prequels being a science-fictional element, what with all the mitichondrians and what-not. What it seems to indicate is that SF and Fantasy are less genres than elements.
Fantasy (in the genre sense) is about things that defy said laws of science, for whatever fantastic reason the author can come-up with, or simply contain lots of things that are entirely made-up, and couldn't ever have actually happened (to distinguish a magic-less fantasy novel set in the Kingdom of Spungonia in the world of Moop from a spec-fic sf novel set in the kingdom of Spungonia in the region that is in our world Penrith) . Just to add my spin to Thadlerian's glib-but-mostly-accurate synopsis, although it wasn't really necessary.
I actually think the difference is quite marked between the two genres, but that the issue is confused by a great deal of cross-pollenisation. The Force in the original Star Wars, for example, being a fantasy element, but the Force in the prequels being a science-fictional element, what with all the mitichondrians and what-not. What it seems to indicate is that SF and Fantasy are less genres than elements.
Thadlerian
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I have read neither, but I would suppose those include fantasy elements inconsistent with what is generally percieved as physically possible. Thus they may be set on Earth, but cannot be realistically connected to our reality.Princess Ivy said:
When I say "generally percieved", I mean what ordinary people (not open-minded, spiritual people like us
) see is possible. This is of course a lot of guesswork on my behalf, but I think I can roughly assume what is percieved as possible and what is not, at least when it comes to standard SF plot/setting elements.
Princess Ivy
Damsel in this dress
also picked up by people as a genetic link to paranormal talents, in the pern series, metasynth as a genetic alteration to promoto telepathic contact. and as our understanding of the human brain, dna etc... is increased, so these sorts of devices go out of fantasy and into the realm of science. (i wish i could spell)polymorphikos said:
Princess Ivy
Damsel in this dress
yes, and i must admit, i enjoy the science fantasy aspect. it cuts down on a lot of technical jargon which sometimes makes straight sci-fi unaccessible to me. on the other hand, some authors (remaining nameless) willgloss over shoddy research by calling science 'magic' in these works rather than find out. so its a delicaate genre and needs as much work as any other.+
Jay
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Related to that thought , I think the problem is desiring on a categorization based on differences instead of just picking up something and finding out if one likes it for what it is, not it's label. That's the publishers, and retailers problem.
That said, I understand (well maybe not understand), that some people stress preferences like this. The only preference I care about is it's well written regardless what branch of speculative fiction it pertains to.
I don't follow good Science Fiction, or Good Fantasy authors, I follow good authors.
Are sigs allowed again now or something?
Princess Ivy
Damsel in this dress
? don't get the reference.Jay said:
cyborg_cinema
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...some see a overlapping grey area between sci-fi and fantasy where others see the Great Wall of China—which can be seen by passing starships. But sci-fi and fantasy each continue to be scattered—rather than refined—with each novel. The imagination would not have it any other way.Violanthe said:
Complex subject – more because it is not just the readership that does not really understand the difference – but, the writers themselves often miss key differences between the two and pluck whatever sounds good between the two perspectives that suits the moment – I do not object to this at all, a precise difference requires a keen eye for difference and relevance of commonalities.
Anyway this may seem long..
The key distinctions both ‘situations’ on the spectrum share have to do then is with time control, human comprehension, symbols and authority. The main difference is orientation to accepted morality – what is ‘right’ and what is too far ahead for an established leadership to control.
Human Comprehension:
First you establish how much is a ‘known’ to the people in the story and the readers. If the area is an ‘unknown’ then the people explain the mechanism by means of some mysterious ‘force’, ie…magic. If the area is a ‘known’ or a known possibility (remember - most writers do not carry heavy technical or scientific backgrounds) then this is called ‘technology’. Many writers confuse the subject and muddle this up – the readership does not care – lacking the appropriate basic functional education to make a distinction. Sometimes magic gets treated like a science and science gets treated like magic.
Authority in Fantasy:
Good leader – Good magic ect… - Brave warriors. – Good vs. Evil
Benevolent dictator bent for the good of the people.
Evil leader – Evil/Bad magic ect… - Ugly cruel cowards. – Black and White.
An outsider who desires complete destruction of all the good people.
To those who accept the current power elite you live comfortable and desire little change and the only thing to fear is some scary warlord in the next province that is taken as all evil and bad while you live among the good guys. This is the world a fantasy person lives in. The bad guy always lives ‘over-there’ or if he happens to be king is really some kind of ‘outsider’ dark and mysterious and evil, usually resorting to bad magic of some sort. Eventually stasis cannot last forever – so they fight over resources or something and everyone wants in on the following inevitable genocide. Note the strong preference for non-human races who can be called ‘bad’, ‘not human’ and thus you can freely take part as a ‘good’ human in all the genocidal mayhem with little or none of the guilt you would have had you been allowed to see them as full representations of human beings.
Well we as peoples have always brutalized each other and even gladly embarked if put under enough pressure on genocide – all the leadership has to do is tap into a specific myth system and redefine the enemies as non-human – then the war is ‘all-out’, guiltless, even pleasurable and satisfying to some of our more animalistic brothers and sisters – you can even kill every man, woman and child in a Nazi-like genocidal fashion and when its all done deny it was us who did it – since the ‘bad guy’ always starts it. We still write up these myths. We consume these myths and under certain conditions die by these myths. This type of warfare is very hard to stop and once started all the terrified people will look to demand the pattern be completed. They have to get tired.
Hitler’s troops did what they did to Jews because they were told to.
The A-Bomb was used by our troops they were told to.
Rationalizations and excuses aside – we speak of the willing dealing of death to hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. No mercy – because they looked like some kind of ‘unstoppable’ evil bad guy – as defined by the leadership. All myth and fantasy thinking set forth by ‘good’ and ‘bad’ leaders.
Authority in Sci-Fi:
The authority who does not like new innovative thought or new science or ways of living is instead the threat or ‘bad-guy’ in most cases – and consists of an authority ‘structure’ rather than a single individual with which to target and take all the blame for our evils. Restricted thought is the opponent – not necessarily a ‘bad side’. The conflict is not as focused on primitive mammal territory disputes and the con of a ‘good’ side such as in fantasy – but, rather the restriction peoples beliefs put on our potential and possibilities and structure these ‘limited’ people reside in for feeling secure and happy and their use of the establishments power to maintain ‘stability’ at any cost – even if the cost is our greater potential being ‘snuffed’ out by such short-sightedness.
Symbols:
You have a set of symbols set in your cultural and educational background that makes everything you see ‘fit’ nicely – anything that does not fit gets ‘noticed’. Something that does not ‘fit’ can be very superficial or fundamentally earth shattering. Those who do not understand the actual function of the differences at work will not be able to make a distinction – technology or not they are ignorant and will deal with everything as if it were ‘magic’. If you know the symbol set well enough you can move to observation of function and see the advancements in change from merely superficial representations of ‘activity’.
The creation of real life saving medicine can be earth shattering, yet occasionally dismissed by the public as irrelevant – take Africans who don’t believe flue vaccines work because of local beliefs – they get them forced on them by the red-cross or whatever to receive their food allotment and harvest the benefits anyway and yet desire a shaman bless the event to make it ‘work’ better.
A superficial representation of ‘activity’ is someone who make bottles of quack medicine and sells it off swindling consumers, making huge claims, false technical jargon, and encourages mysterious novelty – using the peoples desire for ‘magic’ and ignorance of function to take advantage.
Each side in fantasies almost always use a ‘magic’ or religious forces that the undereducated population cannot conceive of the workings but knows it ‘just does’ – it works for one side or another. In a word magic really translates = ignorance of the workings of power. Only the people in ‘power’ (ie…authority) can know how it all works or even really why (they own the patents and corporations and accounting firms) – the leadership just tells you their version of why they do things and how because obviously you are so smart you can be trusted with the details, heh…
So..........
In fantasy everything fits and is nice and often bucolic and the powerful use the direction of men of the sword and use magic – evil does not ‘fit’ (often dark, mysterious and forboding - scary) and must be removed for everything to be ‘alright’ again. The hero most often is filled with fear desires ‘revenge’ for a wrong and works to defend the ‘old ways’. A reactionary view that struggles to maintain status-quo, limit or slow change, and functions purely on the basis of power over others – or control of anothers weakness. Ignorent. Comforting. Repetitive. The winner gets to write the myths we all must call and accept as our 'history'.
Good sci-fi follows a different tac…the entire established system of authority is just ignorant and plain slow when you get down to it – just reactionary and this tendency must be contended with for a new utopia to emerge – violence comes with change. The hero often has a strong desire for truth. A progressive viewpoint that pushes for accelerated change of consciousness and comprehension. It functions on a principle of applied understanding for the betterment of humanity – or the observation of once hidden dangers we accepted at one time as safe. Smart. Utopian. New. The dreamer who gets his name attached to a change becomes a
celebrity regardless his/her actual function.
Starwars was functionaly a fantasy adventure fluff party - and not because of the swords.
I imagine a good sci-fi could appear to superficial observation much like a fantasy but have a framework and subject matter pointed directly to our future in the evolutionary scheme of things - a doris lessing novel comes to mind for that - (the marriage between zones three and four)
This does not apply just to writting styles - some people 'live' a genre.
Anyway this may seem long..
The key distinctions both ‘situations’ on the spectrum share have to do then is with time control, human comprehension, symbols and authority. The main difference is orientation to accepted morality – what is ‘right’ and what is too far ahead for an established leadership to control.
Human Comprehension:
First you establish how much is a ‘known’ to the people in the story and the readers. If the area is an ‘unknown’ then the people explain the mechanism by means of some mysterious ‘force’, ie…magic. If the area is a ‘known’ or a known possibility (remember - most writers do not carry heavy technical or scientific backgrounds) then this is called ‘technology’. Many writers confuse the subject and muddle this up – the readership does not care – lacking the appropriate basic functional education to make a distinction. Sometimes magic gets treated like a science and science gets treated like magic.
Authority in Fantasy:
Good leader – Good magic ect… - Brave warriors. – Good vs. Evil
Benevolent dictator bent for the good of the people.
Evil leader – Evil/Bad magic ect… - Ugly cruel cowards. – Black and White.
An outsider who desires complete destruction of all the good people.
To those who accept the current power elite you live comfortable and desire little change and the only thing to fear is some scary warlord in the next province that is taken as all evil and bad while you live among the good guys. This is the world a fantasy person lives in. The bad guy always lives ‘over-there’ or if he happens to be king is really some kind of ‘outsider’ dark and mysterious and evil, usually resorting to bad magic of some sort. Eventually stasis cannot last forever – so they fight over resources or something and everyone wants in on the following inevitable genocide. Note the strong preference for non-human races who can be called ‘bad’, ‘not human’ and thus you can freely take part as a ‘good’ human in all the genocidal mayhem with little or none of the guilt you would have had you been allowed to see them as full representations of human beings.
Well we as peoples have always brutalized each other and even gladly embarked if put under enough pressure on genocide – all the leadership has to do is tap into a specific myth system and redefine the enemies as non-human – then the war is ‘all-out’, guiltless, even pleasurable and satisfying to some of our more animalistic brothers and sisters – you can even kill every man, woman and child in a Nazi-like genocidal fashion and when its all done deny it was us who did it – since the ‘bad guy’ always starts it. We still write up these myths. We consume these myths and under certain conditions die by these myths. This type of warfare is very hard to stop and once started all the terrified people will look to demand the pattern be completed. They have to get tired.
Hitler’s troops did what they did to Jews because they were told to.
The A-Bomb was used by our troops they were told to.
Rationalizations and excuses aside – we speak of the willing dealing of death to hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. No mercy – because they looked like some kind of ‘unstoppable’ evil bad guy – as defined by the leadership. All myth and fantasy thinking set forth by ‘good’ and ‘bad’ leaders.
Authority in Sci-Fi:
The authority who does not like new innovative thought or new science or ways of living is instead the threat or ‘bad-guy’ in most cases – and consists of an authority ‘structure’ rather than a single individual with which to target and take all the blame for our evils. Restricted thought is the opponent – not necessarily a ‘bad side’. The conflict is not as focused on primitive mammal territory disputes and the con of a ‘good’ side such as in fantasy – but, rather the restriction peoples beliefs put on our potential and possibilities and structure these ‘limited’ people reside in for feeling secure and happy and their use of the establishments power to maintain ‘stability’ at any cost – even if the cost is our greater potential being ‘snuffed’ out by such short-sightedness.
Symbols:
You have a set of symbols set in your cultural and educational background that makes everything you see ‘fit’ nicely – anything that does not fit gets ‘noticed’. Something that does not ‘fit’ can be very superficial or fundamentally earth shattering. Those who do not understand the actual function of the differences at work will not be able to make a distinction – technology or not they are ignorant and will deal with everything as if it were ‘magic’. If you know the symbol set well enough you can move to observation of function and see the advancements in change from merely superficial representations of ‘activity’.
The creation of real life saving medicine can be earth shattering, yet occasionally dismissed by the public as irrelevant – take Africans who don’t believe flue vaccines work because of local beliefs – they get them forced on them by the red-cross or whatever to receive their food allotment and harvest the benefits anyway and yet desire a shaman bless the event to make it ‘work’ better.
A superficial representation of ‘activity’ is someone who make bottles of quack medicine and sells it off swindling consumers, making huge claims, false technical jargon, and encourages mysterious novelty – using the peoples desire for ‘magic’ and ignorance of function to take advantage.
Each side in fantasies almost always use a ‘magic’ or religious forces that the undereducated population cannot conceive of the workings but knows it ‘just does’ – it works for one side or another. In a word magic really translates = ignorance of the workings of power. Only the people in ‘power’ (ie…authority) can know how it all works or even really why (they own the patents and corporations and accounting firms) – the leadership just tells you their version of why they do things and how because obviously you are so smart you can be trusted with the details, heh…
So..........
In fantasy everything fits and is nice and often bucolic and the powerful use the direction of men of the sword and use magic – evil does not ‘fit’ (often dark, mysterious and forboding - scary) and must be removed for everything to be ‘alright’ again. The hero most often is filled with fear desires ‘revenge’ for a wrong and works to defend the ‘old ways’. A reactionary view that struggles to maintain status-quo, limit or slow change, and functions purely on the basis of power over others – or control of anothers weakness. Ignorent. Comforting. Repetitive. The winner gets to write the myths we all must call and accept as our 'history'.
Good sci-fi follows a different tac…the entire established system of authority is just ignorant and plain slow when you get down to it – just reactionary and this tendency must be contended with for a new utopia to emerge – violence comes with change. The hero often has a strong desire for truth. A progressive viewpoint that pushes for accelerated change of consciousness and comprehension. It functions on a principle of applied understanding for the betterment of humanity – or the observation of once hidden dangers we accepted at one time as safe. Smart. Utopian. New. The dreamer who gets his name attached to a change becomes a
celebrity regardless his/her actual function.
Starwars was functionaly a fantasy adventure fluff party - and not because of the swords.
I imagine a good sci-fi could appear to superficial observation much like a fantasy but have a framework and subject matter pointed directly to our future in the evolutionary scheme of things - a doris lessing novel comes to mind for that - (the marriage between zones three and four)
This does not apply just to writting styles - some people 'live' a genre.
Last edited:
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A quote from Arthur C seems in order...
"..science fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to.
Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could."
"..science fiction is something that could happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to.
Fantasy is something that couldn't happen - though often you only wish that it could."
I like my lines blurred
I think it's almost impossible to come up with a satisfying answer to the original question . Star Trek would be classified by most people as Science Fiction . But a typical story , the Enterprise would cross space faster than the seed of light , land on a planet that is inhabited by humanoids that speak English . Captain Kirk has a fight with someone and all the planets problems are solved . Is that not fantasy
Narkalui
Nerf Herder
George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is set on a world where the seasons last years. Why? They just do. Fantasy.
Brian Aldiss' Helliconia Cycle is set on a world where the seasons last years. Why? Because the planet has an elliptical orbit around a binary star system consisting of a red dwarf and a white giant. Science Fiction.
Brian Aldiss' Helliconia Cycle is set on a world where the seasons last years. Why? Because the planet has an elliptical orbit around a binary star system consisting of a red dwarf and a white giant. Science Fiction.
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