Kevin's Watch

Lucimay wrote: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)

Loremaster wrote: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 wrote:

Loremaster wrote: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?

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.

taraswizard wrote: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.

Wayfriend wrote:

taraswizard wrote: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.

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

Menolly wrote:
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?

wiki wrote: 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.

Lucimay wrote:

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