Distinction between s.f. and fantasy?

[Loredoctor]

does sci-fi have a different set of rules than fantasy?
if so what are they? (i'm really asking because i read so
much of both that i'm not sure i can distinguish them anymore)

A few years back I read a great essay on how some of H.P. Lovecraft's stories are really sci-fi and not horror. For instance, At the Mountains of Madness is considered to be a horror classic, yet it is most likely sci-fi. Simply because of the context the ideas are presented. An ancient alien race is not presented as 'an ancient menace from beyond time' and 'possessing incredible powers that threaten us', but instead is explicable within a biological and archeological framework. Ignoring that the story uses techniques of horror - in terms of pacing and structure - it is more about an exploration of something 'other'.

Now, in terms of fantasy and sci-fi, perhaps it is the context how the 'other' is presented. What contextual methods surround magic or wierd science, fantastical beasts and alien species? If the author is explicit, then he or she is presenting an identifiable sci-fi or fantasy story.

[aliantha]

Now, in terms of fantasy and sci-fi, perhaps it is the context how the 'other' is presented. What contextual methods surround magic or wierd science, fantastical beasts and alien species? If the author is explicit, then he or she is presenting an identifiable sci-fi or fantasy story.

So, then, we're back to rayguns-&-robots v. swords-&-sorcery as our test of genre?

Malik, I'm not sure I agree with you that SRD is twisting the definition of the fantasy genre to fit what he writes. The fantasy writers I've read -- and enjoyed -- most recently are doing exactly what he talks about. Graham Joyce skirts the grey areas along the edge of fantasy and psychological horror. (In particular, The Tooth Fairy scared the pants off me -- great stuff!) Patricia McKillip deals a lot with those fairy-tale archetypes that are supposed to be part of our collective unconscious. (Plus she has a fabulous narrative voice. How the heck she sustains it over a whole book, I'll never know. I wanna be Patricia McKillip when I grow up....) Steven Erikson plays out his characters' psychological struggles on an epic scale.

Can you guys think of any fantasy authors who *don't* try to answer the Big Questions?

This is fun! Great posts, everybody!

[taraswizard]

I've really enjoyed this conversation, in spite of my minmalist involvement. A few observations and a question or two to the group mind. From some of the most recent messages it seems that the consensus and general sense of the discussion that the use of certain fictional tropes are how one distinguishes fantasy from SF, and did I get it correct?

Since the intersections of horror and SF has already been brought up, I'll do some expansion. Consider Mars is Heaven, When the Rains Came or Die Veldt all by Ray Bradbury. Are they horror stories or SFnal stories. One point I'd make to consider MiH as horror, the story exists in two versions, an original where the deaths of the explorers is the end of the story, and an edited version that describes the funerals given to the dead explorers; IMO, that pushes it into a different realm than SF.

[Tjol]

I think the difference between science fiction and fantasy is really in the ornamentation of the story...the props involved...can't quite come up with the right word.

I don't think sci fi is always necessarily set in the future, nor fantasy in the past, nor is it simply magic vs. technology. There are someways in which authors might create too many boundaries to work within when working in either, but I would call that style rather than genre. I really think of the two styles as being part of one genre. C.S. Lewis' attempt at science fiction has a manner of fantasy to it for example. Someone already mentioned Pern. The New Sun stories are really both and neither styles at the same time because of the unique way by which the story is related.

[Loredoctor]

Now, in terms of fantasy and sci-fi, perhaps it is the context how the 'other' is presented. What contextual methods surround magic or wierd science, fantastical beasts and alien species? If the author is explicit, then he or she is presenting an identifiable sci-fi or fantasy story.

So, then, we're back to rayguns-&-robots v. swords-&-sorcery as our test of genre?

That's a literal interpretation that I disagree with.

[aliantha]

Sorry, Lore. I *was* being flippant. It just seems like the harder we try to get our brains around a way to differentiate sci-fi and fantasy, it always seems to come back to the props.

Not that that's bad, mind you.

I have to say, tho, that when a writer tries to cross the two genres, I get a little crabby. I think somebody mentioned Pern awhile back; when McCaffrey went back to the beginning of the settlement and it turned out it was due to space exploration, it kinda seemed to me like she was, I dunno, trying too hard to get another series out of the dragons. Just my opinion, of course. But I did kinda lose interest after the first book or two about the landing (or whatever she called it).

Speaking of trying too hard to get another series out of an old idea: I saw a description of Terry Brooks' (stop throwing things at me for bringing up his name!) new book over the weekend. I'm not sure, but it looks like he's trying to make his Knight of the Word books a pre-pre-prequel to the Shannara books. Whatever...

[Menolly]

This topic has actually kind of come up in the Stephen King forum regarding his Dark Tower cycle. Those who are classifying it are calling it "epic fantasy." Yet, it does not have the sword and sorcery (much), nor elves nor dragons...

[Avatar]

Has sorcery...travel between worlds/time/dimensions through mystic portals...lines of magical force/energy/power supporting reality...

--A

[Menolly]

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

[taraswizard]

A few points to a few previous posts, they'll most likely be non-contributory to the general discussion, and my message will most likely be trite and tedious.

Damelon a few messages ago said, that most fantasy being written today was derivative of Tolkien (if I missed the point of your message, please correct my error). According to what I've been told Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and many books written by Shannon Hale do not fit the Tolkien derivative definition. Does anyone think that John Crowley or Michael Moorcock is derivative of Tolkien?

However, speaking of Tolkien derivative works, I have a great story to tell courtesy of Peter Beagle

Many years ago I was asked by a publisher to review and comment on a manuscript they were considering. After reading it, my comment told them that not only was it a ripoff of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, BUT it was a BADLY done ripoff. The text under consideration turned out to be Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Peter adds that hes been told the final product differed alot from that initial text. Peter later apologizes for telling this story, because since that time he's met Terry and likes him abit.


To returrn to my initial point, consider this Tolkien as a literary figure looms so large on the landscape and his shadow is long, that maybe it's nearly impossible to do any fantasy that does not appear in some way derivative.

PS. Tjol, the word you're looking for is 'trope' having an energy beam weapon in a story is a trope, having a wizard or other magical creature using magic is a trope.

[wayfriend]

To returrn to my initial point, consider this Tolkien as a literary figure looms so large on the landscape and his shadow is long, that maybe it's nearly impossible to do any fantasy that does not appear in some way derivative.

I totally agree, except more so.

At this point, the act of writing a fantasy novel in and of itself is considered as being derivative of Tolkien.

[Menolly]

To returrn to my initial point, consider this Tolkien as a literary figure looms so large on the landscape and his shadow is long, that maybe it's nearly impossible to do any fantasy that does not appear in some way derivative.

I totally agree, except more so.

At this point, the act of writing a fantasy novel in and of itself is considered as being derivative of Tolkien.

But...but...but...

What about classic fantasy? Spencer's The Fairy Queen, written in the 1500's right? Chaucer. The Arthurian Legends and legends of the Quest for the Grail. Beowulf and similar. Tolkien got his format from those. He didn't originate the genre, right?

[wayfriend]

Nope. All derivative of Tolkien. The only thing Tolkien is derivative of is Star Wars, and even then only Ep 4.

[lucimay]

Nope. All derivative of Tolkien. The only thing Tolkien is derivative of is Star Wars, and even then only Ep 4.

[lucimay]

But...but...but...

What about classic fantasy? Spencer's The Fairy Queen, written in the 1500's right? Chaucer. The Arthurian Legends and legends of the Quest for the Grail. Beowulf and similar. Tolkien got his format from those. He didn't originate the genre, right?

Romance, 1000-1500 CE
Main article: Romance (genre)
The word romance seems to have become the label of romantic fictions because of the "Romance" language in which early (11th and twelfth century) works of this genre were composed. The most fashionable genres developed in southern France in the late twelfth century and spread east- and northwards with translations and individual national performances. Subject matter such as Arthurian knighthood had already at that time traveled in the opposite direction, reaching southern France from Britain and French Brittany. As a consequence, it is particularly difficult to determine how much the early "romance" owed to ancient Greek models and how much to northern folkloric verse epics such as Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied.

The standard plot of the early romance was a series of adventures. Following a plot framework as old as Heliodorus, and so durable as to be still alive in Hollywood movies, a hero would undergo a first set of adventures before he met his lady. A separation would follow, with a second set of adventures leading to a final reunion. Variations kept the genre alive. Unexpected and peculiar adventures surprised the audience in romances like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Classics of the romance developed such as the Roman de la Rose, written first in French, and famous today in English thanks to the translation by Geoffrey Chaucer.

These original "romances" were verse works, adopting a "high language" thought suitable for heroic deeds and to inspire the emulation of virtues; prose was considered "low", more suitable for satire). Verse allowed the culture of oral traditions to live on, yet it became the language of authors who carefully composed their texts — texts to be spread in writing, thus to preserve the careful artistic composition. The subjects were aristocratic. The textual tradition of ornamented and illustrated handwritten books afforded patronage by the aristocracy or by the monied urban class developing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, for whom knight errantry most clearly was a world of fiction and fantasy.

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the emergence of the first prose romances along with a new book market. This market had developed even before the first printing facilities were introduced: prose authors could speak a new language, a language avoiding the repetition inherent in rhymes. Prose could risk a new rhythm and longer thoughts. Yet it needed the written book to preserve the coincidental formulations the author had chosen. While the printing press was yet to arrive, the commercial book production trade had already begun. Legends, lives of saints and mystical visions in prose were the main object of the new market of prose productions. The urban elite and female readers in upper class households and monasteries read religious prose. Prose romances appeared as a new and expensive fashion in this market. They could only truly flourish with the invention of the printing press and with paper becoming a cheaper medium. Both of these achievements arrived in the late fifteenth century, when the old romance was already facing fierce competition from a number of shorter genres; most salient among these genres was the novel, a form that arose in the course of the fourteenth century.

no virginia, he didn't originate the genre BUT...keep in mind that what he (Tolkien) DID do was reinvigorate a dead market and set the bar for all fantasy fiction that followed.

[Menolly]

Yes...but still but...but...but...!

I can't say it any better than that.

argh!!!

[aliantha]

Nope. All derivative of Tolkien. The only thing Tolkien is derivative of is Star Wars, and even then only Ep 4.

Seconded.

[taraswizard]

To support Lucimay's Wiki quote. Let me offer an [url=www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/genre2.htp]essay by Debra Doyle (writer and instructor for Viable Paradise workshop) on SF/F as a classification[url]. Ms Doyle's premise is that comparing genre (SF and F) to other fiction (Hemingway, fiction of Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe) is unfair and unrealistic, since the models and precedens for genre lit are the romances of medieval and early modern period.

INterestingly, when I first read the Doyle essay, I instantly saw her arguments and discussions extended past the world of SF and F, and easily extended to most crime fiction, many adventure stories (Talbot Mundy, H. Rider Haggard, Michener), horror fiction, some Twain, and alot of Dickensian works. AS another corollary, does anyone here know that H.G. Wells self identified his fictional works as 'scientific romances'.

A few years ago, before I read the Doyle essay. I read an essay online written by UK LeGuin that restates many of these same ideas.

[Zarathustra]

Hey, I didn't notice people are still posting here. Cool!

While Tolkien did borrow styles, technique, names, language construction, themes, and story elements from previous works of "fantasy," he did so in an entirely new context for entirely new reasons. He was writing fantasy in a modern age, as a reactionary stance toward modernity. In fact, this stance is chiefly responsible for the entire theme of all his books: the passing away of magical, "higher" realms as the mundane, technological, less magical world of men took their place. And then this stance was wrapped up neatly in a great big metaphor for aging and death. That's something entirely new, and something that could only have happened in the 20th century. In effect, he really did create a new mythology. I'm not talking about a new taxonomy of creatures and gods. He created an entire world that was itself a model or metaphor for our deepest, hardest journey: sentient beings traveling forward through time, leaving behind our past, and moving toward the end. That's what myths do, they help us understand our own existence in this life in terms of a story.

So he was doing much more than simply copying and borrowing. He was actively participating in a form of storytelling which--up to that point--had been carried by entire cultures and civilizations. What had previously taken thousands of people centuries to cobble together, Tolkien did all by himself in his study.

He did much more than simply reinvigorate a historical genre.

[stonemaybe]

Has anyone brought up Julian May in this thread yet? Her Saga of the Exiles is a wonderful example of how both genres can be incorporated into a thrilling tale.

There's time travel, aliens, galactic empires, and space travel as integral parts of the plot. But two of the main alien races turn out to be a basis for much of Earth's folklore, and so the storyline involves lots of 'magic' (which is actually mind-power/telepathy). It certainly reads more as fantasy, but the underlying explanations are science fiction.