What is your Definition of Science Fiction Literature?

[iansales]

Actually, I'd say that science fiction is fantasy -- or, rather, fantastical -- in that it's still a function of our imaginations, whether the stories are drawn from the extrapolation of real concepts, or whether they're dreamed up wholesale.

Isn't that true of all fiction? Pride and Prejudice was a work of imagination, as was Brighton Rock, Bridget Jones' Diary, Lonesome Dove, Casino Royale and so on...

As for the "plausibility" of the inventions within a sf novel... Plausible to whom? This is just suspension of disbelief, and that comes easier to a long-time reader than it does to someone new to the genre. But perhaps you mean that inventions within a novel are treated with rigour and consistency. But so too are many magic systems in high fantasy novels...

j.d.: I'd disagree that science fiction "came out of the fantasy field originally, but took a sharp left turn around the 1920s". Yes, it began in 1926 with the publication of the first issue of Amazing Stories. But it actually came out of electronics magazines. Informed by the forerunners of sf, naturally -- Wells, Verne, Shelley...

Which is why I think the argument that science fiction treats the fantastic (i.e., invented, derived, non-plausible, plausibly extrapolated, etc.) in a realist mode, and it is that which distinguishes it from fantasy.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Isn't that true of all fiction? Pride and Prejudice was a work of imagination, as was Brighton Rock, Bridget Jones' Diary, Lonesome Dove, Casino Royale and so on...

I don't think it's the same. While all fictional stories are the work of someone's imagination, one of the things that distinguishes sf -- and marks it, in my mind, as a form of fantastic literature -- is that many of the elements making up the reality of the characters' universe have to be invented by the author (or drawn from previous authors' inventions).

In Pride and Prejudice, the characters live within a world that existed -- more or less -- at some point within human history. There's nothing in the book that wasn't drawn from real life (except, of course, the characters and plot and perhaps some of the names, etc.) In theory, there's nothing in them -- from a reality point of view -- that someone, somewhere on this planet, hasn't encountered.

(I hope I'm making sense here... it's six in the morning, I haven't slept, and my OWN particular reality is fast coming into question...)

Now, Casino Royale -- and other Bond/spy novels -- is kind of tricky, because they often take advantage of technology that doesn't exist in our universe. Does this make them sf? I have no idea. Does this make them fantasies? Some would argue that spy novels are very much male fantasies... But I'll leave that to others to discuss.

 

[j d worthington]

j.d.: I'd disagree that science fiction "came out of the fantasy field originally, but took a sharp left turn around the 1920s". Yes, it began in 1926 with the publication of the first issue of Amazing Stories. But it actually came out of electronics magazines. Informed by the forerunners of sf, naturally -- Wells, Verne, Shelley...

Which is why I think the argument that science fiction treats the fantastic (i.e., invented, derived, non-plausible, plausibly extrapolated, etc.) in a realist mode, and it is that which distinguishes it from fantasy.

We may be speaking at cross-purposes here. On the last, I'd tend to agree with you -- that is more or less the standard approach in sf since the 1920s (there were magazines that were publishing stories using that approach prior to Gernsback, they just weren't "the norm"), but the writers who evolved the form we know as science fiction today did indeed come out of what was still called "fantasy", and any tales they wrote until "science fiction" became an accepted term still (historically, at least) belong to the older term. The techniques were often very similar, and it was only over time that the insistence on realism came to predominate. Hence, for at least several decades, you had hybrid stories that are still considered science fiction classics by sf critics, scholars, historians, and enthusiasts, and are also considered classics of fantasy by fantasy critics, scholars, historians, and enthusiasts. Bradbury is a good example. For most of my life, I've seen Bradbury cast as an sf writer which (save for the rare instance) he was not. He's a fantasiste. The same is true with Ellison, Serling, Beaumont, Matheson, much of Kuttner and Moore, De Camp, Simak... even some of Ed Hamilton. And much of the realistic approach bled over into fantasy during this period, as well, as with the Harold Shea stories, or for that matter, most of what was published in Unknown (later Unknown Worlds) and many of the later pulps. Poul Anderson certainly straddles that line constantly, something noted by Damon Knight decades ago. Science fiction -- at least through most of the twentieth century -- was certainly not sui generis. There are simply too many ways in which the two now separate-yet-related fields bled over into each other and informed each other ... and that's a good thing. It prevents insularity and calcification.

But... over time it did come to be more distinct, and to emphasize the approach you note. But this was something that was also an outgrowth of older schools dating back at least to the Gothic, where it was the characters' imaginations that often provided the eeriness of the atmosphere, but it was a non-fantastic explanation behind the seemingly supernatural events (something that was made heavy use of in such pulps as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Avenger, for instance). And this relied on a psychological approach which was refined into a genuine psychological realism by Poe and other writers of his generation... save that they didn't always provide a naturalistic explanation, but they did often attempt a realistic portrayal of fantastic events. The Victorians wanted something that fit with their evolving scientific positivist views of the universe, and the writers of the time reflect that -- even those with an overt occult approach were doing so scientifically (which is what makes Bulwer and his congeners so difficult to read today: that attempt to handle in a scientific, realistic and rationalistic mode that which was plain and simply supernatural in origin, resulting in a rather clumsy, angular writing style). While William Morris was not the first to reject that approach for the purely fantastic, he was the first to genuinely popularize and systematize that rejection. But until that point, such a realistic approach was the predominating note of Victorian fantastic fiction; and it lasted well into the twentieth century and influenced the evolution of sf; many of sf's writers grew up on this stuff, and absorbed that approach and refined it; but it did not originate with them by any means. And at the same time sf moved more and more toward the rationalist/realist approach, fantasy moved further and further away. But they continue to remain closely related, as the approach of such writers as Zelazny, Ballard, Farmer, etc., would indicate.

Hence, I continue to maintain that sf did emerge from the fantasy field; and the views we tend to hold of sf these days are very much post facto and very much influenced by a desire to claim an early separation that really isn't supported when you go back and read the literature of the time. It's part of a diverging river that has diverged, not an original spring of its own.

 

[iansales]

I don't think it's the same. While all fictional stories are the work of someone's imagination, one of the things that distinguishes sf -- and marks it, in my mind, as a form of fantastic literature -- is that many of the elements making up the reality of the characters' universe have to be invented by the author (or drawn from previous authors' inventions).

I have two words for you: "alternate history" While some might be set years, or even centuries, after the point of change -- and resulting in a very different world to the one we know -- some alternate history fictions are set at the point of change...

In theory, there's nothing in them -- from a reality point of view -- that someone, somewhere on this planet, hasn't encountered.

Not unless they're 200 years old But I take your point.

 

[iansales]

... there were magazines that were publishing stories using that approach prior to Gernsback, they just weren't "the norm"...

AFAIK, these were electronics magazines. But I may be wrong.

but the writers who evolved the form we know as science fiction today did indeed come out of what was still called "fantasy", and any tales they wrote until "science fiction" became an accepted term still (historically, at least) belong to the older term.

See, now, I wouldn't call them science fiction writers. There were no sf writers prior to 1926. There were writers of fictions which shared common elements with sf, but they weren't sf.

The techniques were often very similar, and it was only over time that the insistence on realism came to predominate.

I think you may be mis-interpreting what I mean by "realist mode". It's not obeying the known laws of physics, etc., (which, as you point out, some early sf clearly does not do), or even applying rigour and consistency to the inventions within a story. It's the presentation of ideas as if they were real, as if the story were an accurate reflection of real life.

Hence, I continue to maintain that sf did emerge from the fantasy field; and the views we tend to hold of sf these days are very much post facto and very much influenced by a desire to claim an early separation that really isn't supported when you go back and read the literature of the time. It's part of a diverging river that has diverged, not an original spring of its own.

And I shall continue to disagree To me, science fiction and fantasy are too fundamentally different to have common roots. The fact that much sf these days seems to consist of world-building, as high fantasy does, only serves to disguise that difference.

Btw, "a diverging river that has diverged"? Can I quote you on that?

 

[williamjm]

Of course not (I was just using FTL as an example... but it could be time travel, humanoid robots, advanced artificial intelligence, aliens, moon colonies, or any number of other sf faves). Regardless, you're still sort of proving my point: "Ben Bova's Mars, for example, seemed fairly plausible scientifically."

It's still the product of his imagination, since we've not put people on mars (unless I've missed something -- entirely possible, given how much work I've had recently). And besides, he has his characters find the remains of an alien civilization. As of right now, that's a complete fantasy.

When I said 'plausible' I meant that nothing in the book that I can remember (even the Martians, although they're certainly the wildest bit of speculation in the book) violates any fundamental law of physics or current scientific understanding in the same way that most uses of FTL travel or time travel do.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

When I said 'plausible' I meant that nothing in the book that I can remember (even the Martians, although they're certainly the wildest bit of speculation in the book) violates any fundamental law of physics or current scientific understanding in the same way that most uses of FTL travel or time travel do.

All I'm saying is that there is a very large casm between "plausible" and real, and as long as you're still on the one side, you're sitting in the realm of fantastic literature.

 

[j d worthington]

AFAIK, these were electronics magazines. But I may be wrong.

No, I'm speaking of general fiction magazines, such as the Munsey magazines, or even those before them, here in the U.S.; which published things by people like Garrett P. Serviss, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, George Allan England, etc. All of these are considered classics early writers of sf. Which rather answers the quote below.

Garrett P Serviss

ERBzin-e 220: Pulp Bibliography

Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame -- Science Fiction HOF -- Abraham Merritt

George Allan England

These are only a handful of many.

See, now, I wouldn't call them science fiction writers. There were no sf writers prior to 1926. There were writers of fictions which shared common elements with sf, but they weren't sf.

I think you may be mis-interpreting what I mean by "realist mode". It's not obeying the known laws of physics, etc., (which, as you point out, some early sf clearly does not do), or even applying rigour and consistency to the inventions within a story. It's the presentation of ideas as if they were real, as if the story were an accurate reflection of real life.

That one, I must admit, confuses me. If you mean "within the context of the story", then my claims still stand, from at least Poe's "M. Valdemar" on, if not earlier. These were not treated within the story as flights of fancy, but as actual events, and treated accordingly. But in that case, the claim can be made for any fantasiste who treats the events of his tale as genuinely happening. If you mean, extending beyond the story into objective(?) reality... how many sf writers have done this? If you mean something aside from either of these, please explain, as I'm not sure I follow you. (Of course, lack of sleep may have something to do with that, as well... see below.)

And I shall continue to disagree To me, science fiction and fantasy are too fundamentally different to have common roots. The fact that much sf these days seems to consist of world-building, as high fantasy does, only serves to disguise that difference.

Well, that is one of the points I've been making... we've become far too insular in our ideas of what fantasy or science fiction are in the last 2-3 decades. Fantasy was a much, much broader field until Tolkien's work took off in the mainstream, and "world-building" was no more a part of it than it was of sf. (Have you seen Poul Anderson's criteria for what a science fiction writer must be able to do to write a story? Talk about world-building!!! )

It honestly seems to me that the period 1926 has been chosen because that was when the first magazine devoted exclusively to avowed sf (in thise case, "scientifiction", a rather ugly word, I must admit) was published, not because there were no writers working in that field, nor because there were no stories that are still considered sf having been published prior to that point. In other words, to say "this is the birth of sf" is a rather arbitrary and unsupportable view. And even by that criterion -- take a look at the table of contents of Amazing Stories through those years (I've provided a link below).

Magazine:Amazing Stories - ISFDB

Now, a huge amount of that material is precisely of the type I've been talking about -- even to the inclusion of stories by Poe! And earlier than Gernsback's magazine, stories of "scientifiction" were being published in Weird Tales since 1923, beginning with Anthony M. Rud's "Ooze" in the first issue, which was certainly every bit as much science fiction as the majority of stories published throughout the Gernsback era (even to early Campbell period). Once again ... the facts of the case simply don't support sf being a sudden new branch of literature that emerged in 1926; it was a slow, gradual thing that had been going on for well over a century, and the separation between these branches of fantastic fiction would not fully take their current form until about the 1950s -- and even then, it was a dance in which they would separate and merge over and over again. Given the actual stories published, and the statements of darned near all the writers and editors at least through the early years of the Golden Age... yes, sf did come from the broader classification of fantasy fiction; it was a specialization within that field, and even there, a specialization that took a long time to take the form we see today. (Incidentally, even within the field, in several non-fiction studies of as well as anthologies, I continued to see it seen as a subset of "fantasy fiction" well into the 1970s -- and this by people who lived, breathed, and ate sf! Nowadays, I'm seeing fantasy classified as a subset of science fiction!)

(Incidentally, if you're interested, I'd suggest you track down a copy of "Under the Moons of Mars": A History and Anthology of "The Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920, edited and with a History by Sam Moskowitz, as well as Before the Golden Age: A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930s, edited by Isaac Asimov, for a comparison of type of stories being published. I think you'll find a heck of a lot more similarities than differences.)

Before the Golden Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Btw, "a diverging river that has diverged"? Can I quote you on that?

LOL Please do. This one will be my "chocolate box" (for the Poirot fans out there). However, I must plead lack of sleep as a mitigating circumstance. I've had something on the order of 12 hours' sleep in the last 7 days, so you can chalk my incoherence up to that....

One last note: As far as the definition of science fiction currently -- I'd say we're in near-total agreement. My disagreement with you is on when and whence the field came.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Well... I guess I'm a lone voice crying out in the dark, supporting a stance that's none to popular. No beat down, though... I guess my views are tolerated, like a miscreant that might still find redemption if he'd just give up his wicked ways. But if he keeps dragging those bodies into the room and stinking up the place, well... that's why people still manufacture steel-toed boots and brass knuckles.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

(Sorry. Don't mind me. No sleep, way too much work, and an overdose of caffeine have made me a bit loopy.)

 

[j d worthington]

Well... I guess I'm a lone voice crying out in the dark, supporting a stance that's none to popular. No beat down, though... I guess my views are tolerated, like a miscreant that might still find redemption if he'd just give up his wicked ways. But if he keeps dragging those bodies into the room and stinking up the place, well... that's why people still manufacture steel-toed boots and brass knuckles.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

(Sorry. Don't mind me. No sleep, way too much work, and an overdose of caffeine have made me a bit loopy.)

That may be both of us, then.... Let me put it this way: To me, there's a difference between "fantastic" and "fantasy" in defining literature. "Fantastic" encompasses the improbable as well as the impossible, or things that are fantastic by current standards. "Fantasy" in its current form is something more restricted in meaning, to indicate a tale based on a violation of the natural order (what Joshi tends to call "the weird tale", which is not the same as "horror", though it encompasses horror as well). This was not always the case, and earlier "fantasy" and "fantastic" would have been synonymous.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I think your claim that sf is a part of fantastic literature is more correct than not; but iansales is correct in saying that the keynote of sf (at least for some time now) is a realistic approach, whereas fantasy is more flexible and may (within the context of the story) treat the incidents as real, or with a "glamour" (to use an older phrase), a mystical haze or dream-like or distancing approach. Which, incidentally, is why I prefer the term "rationalist" rather than "realist" here, as a fair number of fantasy writers (De Camp, Anderson, Kuttner & Moore, Del Rey, etc.) use a realistic approach within the context of the story. (Again, Ian, if you're meaning something else, please explain and give a couple of examples of what you have in mind, so I can more clearly grasp your concept; especially as I don't see much sf being handled as if it were "an accurate reflection of real life" outside the work itself -- do you mean an extrapolation from existing knowledge? Because that seems to contradict what you said just prior to that phrase. )

However, to clarify my position even more (and probably get myself into even deeper trouble ): I've no problem with the boundaries being flexible here at all. I like the broad range from hard hard sf to outright fantasy. (I mean, how would you classify Ballard, for instance? His approach is often realist to the point of being clinical, but his concepts and images are absurdist and surrealistic. Or the boundary-blurring work of Borges? Phil Farmer, much of whose work blends that clinical/realist approach with outright Jungian symbolism? And how would you class "Waldo" or "Magic, Inc.", by Heinlein? Del Rey's "Carillon of Skulls" or "Evensong"? Kuttner and Moore's "The Children's Hour"? Bradbury's "Pillar of Fire"? William Tenn's "Bernie the Faust"?) Being too rigid in definition may be fine for short-term marketing specifications, but it's stultification (and ultimate death) to any literature.

So when I define sf the way I do, I have in mind the current trends, which really aren't of that long a standing, and have never been that set in stone (with either sf or fantasy), else both would have withered and died long since; and, in fact, this may be part of the reason why sf is suffering so at the moment: because it is becoming too rigidified, and needs to expand its boundaries yet again; whereas current fantasy is only beginning to suffer from its increasingly narrow range, having come to such much more recently. Except for advising new writers who are interested in marketing their work to be aware of whether what they're writing (and attempting to sell) is science fiction or fantasy by current standards, I'm still very much inclined to think that the too-rigid classification is more akin to taxidermy than taxonomy.

 

[iansales]

So when I define sf the way I do, I have in mind the current trends, which really aren't of that long a standing, and have never been that set in stone (with either sf or fantasy), else both would have withered and died long since; and, in fact, this may be part of the reason why sf is suffering so at the moment: because it is becoming too rigidified, and needs to expand its boundaries yet again; whereas current fantasy is only beginning to suffer from its increasingly narrow range, having come to such much more recently. Except for advising new writers who are interested in marketing their work to be aware of whether what they're writing (and attempting to sell) is science fiction or fantasy by current standards, I'm still very much inclined to think that the too-rigid classification is more akin to taxidermy than taxonomy.

Moving the discussion on (since, as typical sf fans, we'll never be able to agree on a definition ), I wouldn't say sf is suffering because it's becoming "too rigidified". At least, that's not the case here in the UK. In the US, the sf market may well be dominated by the likes of David Weber and his endless hoo-rah might-is-right/right-is-might militaristic sf clones... but the British sf scene is much more varied and, it often seems, is categorised more by author than by sub-genre. I don't think it's an accident that New Space Opera came out of the UK - despite Hartwell & Cramer's claims it wasn't British at all in The New Space Opera Renaissance.

 

[Lith]

Rigid definitions are what make hybridization so desirable and fun.

What follows is a bit of a mess.

I think it's science fiction if it has one of the following elements: 1. Science (in a prominent role), space, or aliens. 2. Man's relationship to technology and/or science (to put it another way: it deals with man's relationship with what he has created or will create). Any story may have both, and the definitions are separate, but it is generally considered SF.

Whereas fantasy tends to deal with man's relationship to his own past, his mythology and culture. Mostly, science fiction deals with what's coming, and fantasy deals, obliquely, with what's been. While that's hardly the exact definition, the growth of fantasy as a defined genre parallels the growth of a feeling of nostalgia for the past (I would put the start of fantasy somewhere with Morris and the Art-and-Crafts movement, or the German Romantics).

Fantasy these days tends to fall into two general categories: High fantasy (Tolkienesque, world-building, etc.) and Other fantasy. In a literary (or snobby) sense, High fantasy deals with man's relationship with his own past and with the movements of cultures, whereas other fantasy may deal with just about anything, but it almost always relates somehow with magic/mystery, and the unknown, the things science has not or cannot answer. There is in most fantasy some sort of searching for a connection with the past, with old beliefs and traditions.

It's funny how we almost always know sf from fantasy, and yet defining the difference is so difficult. Science Fiction somehow deals with the process of science, and as soon as it sets aside those explanations, for say adventure (a la Star Wars), then it starts to become something else (Space Opera). Really it seems like there are two completely different things going by the name of Science Fiction, which may or may not be found together. There's the superficial and the literary (so to speak), and if it's got either one, then it's allowed to be called SF.

Contrast Star Wars with the Matrix. You'd be hard-pressed to convince most people Star Wars isn't SF, and yet it only has the superficial elements. And while the Matrix lacks the superficial elements (space, aliens), it has the deeper meaning, the human/science element.

See, now, I wouldn't call them science fiction writers. There were no sf writers prior to 1926. There were writers of fictions which shared common elements with sf, but they weren't sf.

I would have to agree (but not necessarily with the exact date; I don't think it needs to be a certain point); any of the older SF writers, like Verne or even Mary Shelley, were more like proto-science fiction than actual science fiction.

Have you seen Poul Anderson's criteria for what a science fiction writer must be able to do to write a story? Talk about world-building!!!

No. Where would I find such a thing?

I don't know if it's proper to call the older writers either science fiction or fantasy. The genres are in a constant state of flux, and we know at some point they became distinct, but it is really a disservice to try and retrofit definitions on them. It reminds me of plant propagation. Ivy spreads out, constantly putting down new roots, and if you forcibly separate the plant between the roots, you end up with separate plants, where before there was one. But if you don't separate them, you have masses of potential ivy plants that are all functioning as one great organism.

There's no reason the field can't hold multiple definitions at a time, and there's no reason a single story cannot adhere to more than one at a time. It may never be possible to find a single definition for them all.

 

[Pyan]

There's no reason the field can't hold multiple definitions at a time, and there's no reason a single story cannot adhere to more than one at a time. It may never be possible to find a single definition for them all.

Exactly!

Many have tried to define science fiction, but the only definition that appears to have stood the test of time is Damon Knight's "science fiction is what we mean when we point to it". Which is pretty useless.(my emphasis)

I don't see that. In fact, after carefully reading this thread, post by post, it strikes me as exactly what most people are, in fact, saying; that they find it very difficult to pin down the difference between the two genres ( and they are definitely different) but they know which is which when they read it.
Precisely the same statement can be made for fantasy; as, of course, can be made for art, music, and anything else that depends on a whole range of acquired reactions to the subject. I think that the whole matter can be summed up in the phrase; "we must agree to differ in this, but I know I'm right". - De Chelonian Mobile!

 

[iansales]

I don't see that. In fact, after carefully reading this thread, post by post, it strikes me as exactly what most people are, in fact, saying; that they find it very difficult to pin down the difference between the two genres ( and they are definitely different) but they know which is which when they read it.

A definition which does not define is not useful. For a reader of the genre, it matters little -- in fact, if anything, the marketing label is probably more important. But critics and commentators can hardly study something if they can't actually define it.

 

[BAYLOR]

A book that projects a future based on a the society and timeframe that it's written in. It's one definition and it is imperfect an incomplete for a number of obvious reasons.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

What if isn't an answer but it does make me wonder except it does muddy the waters. Reading the posts it looks to me like stories using real things are more likely to be fantasy than science fiction? I look at The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle, as an example of realistic science fiction. That would be the present time with real things from the past, no longer around, that are still in existence, or brought back as in the case of Jurassic Park stuff. Are those examples of fantasy and I am making my own personal preferences define my classifications? Another one is stories set in the past that use futuristic technology. I think of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain as science fiction. It has time travel and advanced technology for the time period of the story. I don't think of it or The Lost World as fantastic fiction.

What if it's the point of view that separates science fiction from fantasy. Each person would be the judge of what was what, unless they followed some one else's views. Anything relying on faster than light travel could be pure fantasy. In a world with no hard core materialistic technology Lord Of The Rings could be very realistic because the stories are realistic. What if hard core materialistic technology was only a point of view, one of many different points of view, using that as the only yardstick will always give a limited view of what the future could be like. If people had been kinder to animals perhaps there would be all kinds of prehistoric animals from the last 50,000 years still roaming around.

What if breaking the speed barrier in space was a vehicle free environment. Space travel by mechanical means might be limited to speed of light, which means it would be for local traffic and only the mind could travel long distances via some quirk in space time using something like entanglement. There is a theory floating around that entanglement is a component of space time, perhaps a major component, which means Einstein pulled the rug out from under his own feet when he rejected it. Puts new meaning into the old saying you can't take it with you, because you can still take you with you.

 

[hitmouse]

Therr is a well-known quote from someone (I forget who) who said, when asked what distinguishes erotica from pornography: "I can't explain it, but I know it when I see it."

Sort of how I feel about defining sf.