How do you differentiate Sci-Fi and Fantasy?

[rai]

Ah, but the Pernese got to Pern on spaceships. There are no mystical elements in the story, so the basis of the world building is rationalistic or naturalistic. The dragons were genetically engineered by the humans who first came to Pern. Then, as a result of the relentless Thread attacks, the technological human civilization fell, and its history was lost. The telepathic link between the Dragons and the riders is not a mystical one, as it is based on the natural psycho-mental abilities that was naturally inherent in the dragons, not the humans, and this ability was amplified by the genetic engineering performed by the first humans.

Dragonriders of Pern is not fantasy, as there are no fantastical elements. It is purely speculative fiction, about what might happen on a far-flung colony that loses touch with the main body of a human space-faring civilization. It does not have the mystical/fantastical elements like Dune and Star Wars do.

Just because there be dragons, does not mean there be fantasy.

you're correct, I had read these 20 years ago so am a little blurry about it. So Pern should be Sci-fi not fantasy.

 

[Connavar]

Pern sound like the typical Science fantasy. It has both elements of fantasy and SF.


Like Dying Earth type stories. Far future,fantasy elements.

 

[j d worthington]

For me, if it is about medievial, about dragons, knights, a world of magic and assasins and kings and princess, and peasant turned king, it is fantasy. If it has some sorts of scientific elements in it, it is science fiction. I prefer to read fantasy over science fiction.

Ah, but those are both very narrow limits to either sub-genre. Flowers for Algernon, for instance, is set in a more-or-less contemporary world, but the focus is entirely on Charlie Gordon and what happens to him, not technology or science. Yet it is a classic of science fiction. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", on the other hand, is set in the (relatively near) future, the focus of the story is a megalomaniac computer and the people it affects, and yet it is pure fantasy... and there are all the numerous shades of each in-between.

Certainly I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, can be seen as sf, fantasy, or horror -- or all three at once. (Ditto his The Shrinking Man and Hell House, as well as several other examples.) Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man deals with time travel, but the "machine" there is deliberately made into something insignificant, as the focus is on the idea of martyrs and the need for such figures... and it can be seen as either fantasy or sf, as well.

As indicated in the various threads here as well as the links Teresa has provided, the blending of the genres, and the profusion of sub-sub-genres within each, makes any hard-and-fast definition a lot more difficult than many imagine; while saying any one type of story -- even within those which nearly all can agree are one or the other -- is ignoring the bulk of what constitutes that particular field....

 

[J-Sun]

Flowers for Algernon, for instance, is set in a more-or-less contemporary world, but the focus is entirely on Charlie Gordon and what happens to him, not technology or science. Yet it is a classic of science fiction.

If you take out Charlie's intelligence amplification, there is no story at all. If you provide it via a magic wand, it's a fantasy story. It was provided via ostensibly scientific means, so the story is a science fiction story. Just because it isn't front and center doesn't mean that science doesn't condition the entire story and, indeed, since Algernon is a lab animal (as, indeed, is Charlie) the science basis is omnipresent even in a direct way.

Anyway - the problem these discussions always founder on is on the dichotomy of a logical definition and a historical definition. A logical definition will always exclude large swathes of things historically thought of as science fiction and will seem ridiculous, but no logical definition can be formulated from the historical body of work - there, indeed, "science fiction" is "stuff a science fiction editor will buy" (to paraphrase one of the innumerable definitions).

And bear in mind that historically SF is really a subset of Fantasy.

I think it was Campbell who said mainstream fiction was a subset of science fiction. I've always really liked that. But that's the logical POV, vs. the historical.

 

[paranoid marvin]

As far as I'm concerned the tough classification is fantasy. Sci-fi is pretty starightforward - anything describing technological or scientific advancement in my opinion is sci-fi , whether it be horror sci-fi extraterrestrial sci-fi etc. On the other hand , what exactly IS fantasy? Does it have to include fantastical creatures or beings - or fantastical scenarios? In my opinion , most fictional literature creates unnatural or abnormal storylines , so at what point does it cross the boundary into fantasy?

 

[Pyan]

Just because there be dragons, does not mean there be fantasy.

Apparently Anne McCaffrey gets quite annoyed if you refer to the Pern books as "fantasy" within her hearing...



My own personal view is it's a personal view:

-if you can tell me exactly where red finishes and green starts, then you can differentiate between the two genres, and I'll respect your definition...

 

[j d worthington]

If you take out Charlie's intelligence amplification, there is no story at all. If you provide it via a magic wand, it's a fantasy story. It was provided via ostensibly scientific means, so the story is a science fiction story. Just because it isn't front and center doesn't mean that science doesn't condition the entire story and, indeed, since Algernon is a lab animal (as, indeed, is Charlie) the science basis is omnipresent even in a direct way.

My point is that the science isn't the focus of the tale; not that it doesn't play an important role. Said focus is Charlie's plight, though the scientific basis for his condition gives the tale more "realism". But I was using it as an example to show how "sf" or (though I despise the term) "sci-fi" is by no means necessarily technologically oriented even in talking about classics of the field. This is even more the case with something like, say, Lester del Rey's "Day is Done", the bulk of Moorcock's, Bradbury's, or Ellison's work (not to mention Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, China Mieville, H. P. Lovecraft, etc., etc., etc.)

The closest differentiation which I think can be given is that sf on the whole tends toward more of a rationalistic worldview, while fantasy (again, on the whole) tends to present one with worlds in which the mystical, numinous, and nonrationalistic are possible as genuine events. Either, however, can have all the "furniture" (from technologies to creatures) of the other and, on occasion, have....

 

[AE35Unit]

I think it was Campbell who said mainstream fiction was a subset of science fiction. I've always really liked that. But that's the logical POV, vs. the historical.

Hmmm i don't like that view. It kind of devalues SF for me,makes it somewhat ordinary

 

[J-Sun]

My point is that the science isn't the focus of the tale; not that it doesn't play an important role. Said focus is Charlie's plight, though the scientific basis for his condition gives the tale more "realism". But I was using it as an example to show how "sf" or (though I despise the term) "sci-fi" is by no means necessarily technologically oriented even in talking about classics of the field.

But you initially made that point in response to s.gal83 saying "If it has some sorts of scientific elements in it, it is science fiction." And I was saying that I thought s.gal83 was right enough as far as that went. It doesn't have to be the focus of the tale in an overt sense and s.gal83 didn't say that - but it has to be there. "Flowers" couldn't exist without the amplification, so it's not "mainstream realism" and the amplification is depicted as occurring through scientific means. So it has scientific elements in it and is SF, like s.gal83 was saying.

Or at least that's what I think was going on. It's possible I'm not understanding and we're talking at cross-puposes. I just didn't see it as a limiting definition (incomplete, perhaps, but not limiting) and see "Flowers" as having multiple focuses, one of which is a scientific "what if".

Hmmm i don't like that view. It kind of devalues SF for me,makes it somewhat ordinary

I think I see where you're coming from and that may have been my split-second gut reaction, too, but I see it as (a) sort of devaluing mainstream fiction and (b) see it as underlining the rational and scientific bases of both SF and reality. It's basically aligning SF and reality - we have the here and now and there and then - fantasy is distinct from both and is the nowhere and never was nor ever will be.

Again, this is in a literal sense. Fantasy can be a great symbolic depiction of reality. But taking this idea to reality and SF kind of undercuts the need many lit'ry folks have to make rockets and robots be "symbols" of things and refusing to take them for the real metal actualities they are (since we have them both now).[1]

So I don't see it as a diminishing of SF or a reduction of the sensawunda - just an interesting angle to look at it from.

--
[1] I haven't read the story in many years but I think I agree with j.d.'s assessment of "I Have No Mouth" where the "computer" very much is symbolic and has no literal value or meaning at all - it's a technofantasy - a fantasy that uses modern imagery (a computer) rather than archaic (a haunted castle, say) but has zero interest in computers as such. (Whereas, to go back to the other thing, "Flowers" is very interested in the nature of intelligence, the effects of enhancing or diminishing it, and assumes that it would be theoretically possible to manipulate and considers what it would really be like. - All the while making points about what it is like, too.)

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, we are probably talking at cross-purposes, and I may have well misapprehended the gist of what she was saying in that post; or, rather, it rang a familiar bell to which I responded. (Pavlov, anyone?) These days, I'm in a chronic state of exhaustion, it seems, and I'm afraid that's having a serious effect on the coherence of my comments....

And yes, AM is very much symbolic of several things (one of which is our proliferating technology without moral growth to go with it), and essentially acts like the more nasty aspects of the Yahweh of the Old Testament in a snit.... (Damn good story, though....)

 

[rai]

Orson Scott Card's take on the difference between SF and Fantasy

Describe the difference between the genre of fantasy and the genre of science fiction.? - Yahoo! Answers

Orson Scott Card stated it very succinctly: "Science fiction is about what *could* be but isn't. Fantasy is about what *couldn't* be."

Science fiction depicts things that are not yet possible in our world, but which we believe may one day be possible. Usually it involves futuristic technology and/or scientific phenomenon. Super-intelligent robots, deep space exploration, and extraterrestrial life are among the themes that commonly show up in science fiction. Science fiction stories typically take place in the future, but not always: there are ones set in the present or the past (or, in the case of Star Wars, in some undefined setting with no direct relationship to our world).

Science fiction that was written in the past has often become outdated, as what it describes as "the future" is now the past. That doesn't mean it becomes irrelevant: George Orwell's "1984" is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1948.

Some past science fiction books become outdated when our scientific knowledge increases. For example, books about intelligent, humanoid aliens on Mars are outdated now, because we now know such life doesn't exist on Mars. That doesn't mean the books are bad reads: Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" and Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" are both fine novels.

Also, some science fiction books become irrelevant when the technology described actually gets invented. This happened to many of Jules Verne's 19th-century novels (written before the term "science fiction" had been coined). His books depict things that were later invented for real, including skyscrapers, fax machines, and the Internet.

Fantasy books deal with magic and the supernatural--things which most of us don't believe are ever possible. Typically they take place in the past or in some quasi-historical setting with knights and castles and princesses, and they feature stuff from mythology and folklore, such as wizards, elves, fairies, and dragons.

But any story with supernatural elements can be called fantasy. That includes much of the horror genre: stories about vampires, werewolves, demons, and ghosts are all fantasy.

Many fantasy books actually take place in the present but feature traditional magical elements. The Harry Potter series is the most famous example, but many adult books, such as those by Charles de Lint, dabble in this too.

A fantasy book may even take place in the future. Terry Brooks' Shannara series takes place in the far future, after the earth experienced some kind of global disaster such as a nuclear holocaust and was returned to a primitive state, where magic instead of science came to rule.

Sometimes the line between science fiction and fantasy isn't easy to draw. As other answerers have noted, Star Wars features seemingly supernatural elements such as the Force and ghosts. But since the setting is overwhelmingly futuristic, it is usually classed as science fiction.

Actually, any story featuring psychic-type powers could be either fantasy or sci-fi depending on how it's presented. Orson Scott Card relates an experience when he submitted to a science fiction magazine a story about psychics on a distant planet. The editor rejected the story on the grounds that it was fantasy, not science fiction. Card was outraged at first, but then he realized he hadn't actually included in the story any information to alert the reader that it was set on a distant planet. The society he depicted was relatively primitive, so the editor assumed it was Earth in medieval times and interpreted the psychic powers of the characters simply as sorcery.

Thus, the line between science fiction and fantasy is usually based more on broad superficial themes (e.g. the presence of spaceships as opposed to fire-breathing dragons) than on actual plausibility.
Source(s):

Orson Scott Card, _How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy_ (1990).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne…

 

[rai]

Orson Scott Card

Sometimes the line between science fiction and fantasy isn't easy to draw. As other answerers have noted, Star Wars features seemingly supernatural elements such as the Force and ghosts. But since the setting is overwhelmingly futuristic, it is usually classed as science fiction.

in this regard, a book like "The Stand", I believe would be SF. it takes place in the near future (when it was written) and describes a man-made 'superflu' but it turn into a supernatural good/evil plot. But overall l I would put it as SF.

 

[ghostofcorwin]

I kind of like the Card approach.... sci fi has always seemed to me to be defined by an attempt to make a speculation rational/scientifically based. By that argument, Dan Simmons' vampire novel (Children of the Night, if I remember correctly) would be more science fiction than fantasy, as it attempts to create a genetic/physiologically possible explanation for vampirism, even though it describes something that doesn't exist. Most vampire fiction is fantasy because the writer engages nonsensical superstition as if it were fact (vampires changing into bats, lacking an image in mirrors, coming back from the dead, vulnerable to wooden stakes but not bullets, hating garlic, etc.). Now don't get me wrong, I like vampire fairytale lit, as it sometimes gets at some interesting themes (cost of immortality, the margins between sex and aggression/death, the great fear of humanity that we will no longer be the king of the evolutionary pecking order and become prey, the concept of what is evil vs. what is natural, etc.), but it is still a fairytale. To me, fantasy, fairytales, and fables all occupy the same general category in fiction...

 

[paranoid marvin]

Orson Scott Card
in this regard, a book like "The Stand", I believe would be SF. it takes place in the near future (when it was written) and describes a man-made 'superflu' but it turn into a supernatural good/evil plot. But overall l I would put it as SF.

Personally , I wou;dn't class it as either. Horror or thriller maybe - or just general ficition. It ain't really fantasy or sci-fi though

 

[Connavar]

Future setting, post apocalypse is always SF no matter what the papers say when its an author known for horror/thrillers or a non-genre author.

 

[rai]

Personally , I wou;dn't class it as either. Horror or thriller maybe - or just general ficition. It ain't really fantasy or sci-fi though

'The Stand'

was written in 1978 but set in 1985 that's 'future setting'.

'the end of the world' by superflu that's SF

the part about good/evil this is not strictly SF, it would be 'supernatural' but not standard fantasy or horror.

It should never be general fiction since it's got so much SF in it. If a regular story nothing partarcularly SF-ish happens takes place in the future it still will be SF, now it's true the 'future' time has past already but still the book should be looked at as a near-future post-apocalypic book

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Post-Apocalyptic-Books/lm/2BH1R91R2OECF

 

[thesoothsayer]

Interesting. To me Dune is 100% science fiction, and one of the cornerstones of the canon.

Star Wars I regard as fun, almost comic-book in its intentions and delivery, but still SF. I've never classified science fiction by its narrowist 'hard SF is the only real SF' definition.

For me, I think that Dune started off as a SF, but evolved into a fantasy later on in the series.

Future setting, post apocalypse is always SF no matter what the papers say when its an author known for horror/thrillers or a non-genre author.

I would lean towards fantasy, myself. The background story itself is plausible, and scientific in nature, but it seemed that the driving force that creates the stand is purely supernatural and fantastical in nature.

Apparently Anne McCaffrey gets quite annoyed if you refer to the Pern books as "fantasy" within her hearing...



My own personal view is it's a personal view:

-if you can tell me exactly where red finishes and green starts, then you can differentiate between the two genres, and I'll respect your definition...

Looking at all the interesting and disparate views so far, can't help but agree with this.

 

[thepaladin]

Hi folks, haven't been around in a while.....

I know this isn't what the poster wants to hear, but generaly I don't worry about it "overly much". Why ruin the experince of a good read by trying too hard to quantify it? In the past I've read and enjoyed books generally thought to be in on camp or the other without it being that important in the end. Other times I skipped over a book because I was "in the mood" to read a fantasy (or vice-versa) and a given book was considered scifi. Later I'd find I loved the book that I'd skipped over in the past.

Is Isaac Asimov scifi while Ray Bradbury is fantasy....every time? How about Heinlien? Harlan Ellison, Ken Scholes, Weber, Cook...and on and on. You get the idea.

As for me I'll just read and enjoy and not worry too much about the divide in our favorite genre (or is it genres??????)

 

[hectic]

More vexing though are cross over authors who write sci-fi and then turn their noses up at the notion that they have done so, as if they are sullied by the genre - I'm talking to you Margaret Atwood.

 

[j d worthington]

Hi folks, haven't been around in a while.....

I know this isn't what the poster wants to hear, but generaly I don't worry about it "overly much". Why ruin the experince of a good read by trying too hard to quantify it? In the past I've read and enjoyed books generally thought to be in on camp or the other without it being that important in the end. Other times I skipped over a book because I was "in the mood" to read a fantasy (or vice-versa) and a given book was considered scifi. Later I'd find I loved the book that I'd skipped over in the past.

Is Isaac Asimov scifi while Ray Bradbury is fantasy....every time? How about Heinlien? Harlan Ellison, Ken Scholes, Weber, Cook...and on and on. You get the idea.

As for me I'll just read and enjoy and not worry too much about the divide in our favorite genre (or is it genres??????)

This is something I've been arguing about for a long, long time; and the older I get, the more annoyed I become by the division between "sff" and "other types of literature" (especially "mainstream" and "classic" literature). While such classifications have their place and can be helpful within certain contexts, a too-rigid distinction tends to lead to stultification, repetitiveness, and in general a generic inbreeding which produces half-wit offspring -- something which takes true genius and damned hard work to avoid.

Don't misunderstand me: I love fantastic literature. But the more experience of literature in general that I have, the more apparent it becomes that such divisions are only useful within those contexts mentioned above. Throughout the history of literature, the majority of writers have "indulged" in fantastic tales now and again, no matter how "realistic" they may be -- re-reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary recently drove the point home, with the fact that it can be read as a realistic novel, a satirical comment on the cheaply romantic imagination (as opposed to genuine imagination, with its often romantic aspects), or even a peculiar sort of ghost story where, living, her spirit influences all those around her, distorting their lives; and finally, following her death, may be said to "possess" them, and -- for all intents and purposes -- destroy them.

Is it a "fantastic novel"? By no means. Does it make use of the fantastic? Most certainly. Does it often dwell in that borderland between the "real" and the "unreal" -- indubitably. Nor should this be terribly surprising, given Flaubert's fascination with fantastic themes in such works as The Temptation of Saint Anthony or Salammbô. The same can easily be said for most writers. As Lovecraft put it in his Supernatural Horror in Literature: "sometimes a curious streak of fancy invades an obscure corner of the very hardest head", resulting in "the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales" -- going on to provide a list of notable examples. This is as true of the division between sf and fantasy as it is of any other branch of literature from another; and, if anything, the more I read, the more firmly convinced I become that it is that very cross-pollination between the various branches which alone ensures a health and vitality to any given aspect of literature....