I’m currently working on an article that requires that I both define science fiction and fantasy, and that I talk a little about its subgenres and where it is going for people (in this case, Christians) who may or may not be familiar with the genres. I put the question out on twitter a couple of times, but didn’t get a lot of responses, so I’d like to put it to the readers here.
1. How do you define science fiction, or do you have a favorite luminary (Asimov, Heinlein) whose definition your prefer?
2. How do you you define fantasy, or is there a luminary (Eddings, Martin) who defined it best?
3. If you had to tell someone unfamiliar with the genre what it is, what would you say?
Answer one or all of the questions in the comments below. Thanks for your help!
Related posts:
Hi John.
Defining SF versus Fantasy is tricky for veterans of reading the genre, much less aiming it at Newbies. To give you my answers though:
1. How do you define science fiction, or do you have a favorite luminary (Asimov, Heinlein) whose definition your prefer?
Science fiction is the literature of the fantastic possible, either in the future, or from a point in the past.
2. How do you you define fantasy, or is there a luminary (Eddings, Martin) who defined it best?
Fantasy is the literature of the fantastically impossible.
3. If you had to tell someone unfamiliar with the genre what it is, what would you say?
See above.
Of course there are plenty of novels and stories which straddle my definitions.
Defining Fantasy versus SF is like dealing with a formal system where not every true statement can be proved. Not every F/SF story can be defined definitively as one or the other by any set of definitions.
I’d keep it simple. Fantasy is stories of myths, legends and fairy tales. Science fiction is stories that imagine the future.
Sorry. I know that won’t fill an article …
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Ottinger, Dan James. Dan James said: How do You define Science Fiction and Fantasy to a Newbie … http://bit.ly/gfduvX [...]
1. How do you define science fiction, or do you have a favorite luminary (Asimov, Heinlein) whose definition your prefer?
Exploring the implications of the possible but not yetable. (new word)
2. How do you you define fantasy, or is there a luminary (Eddings, Martin) who defined it best?
Exploring the made-up world in your mind, or someone else’s mind.
3. If you had to tell someone unfamiliar with the genre what it is, what would you say?
Both speculate on how life would be if x, y, and/or z were true. Science speculates on what might potentially be true someday, fantasy on what is highly unlikely to ever be true.
Damn, that’s a tough one. For science fiction, I know next to nothing besides Douglas Adams and H.G. Wells. I usually define fantasy as a world (even our own) in which there are elements that are beyond human comprehension and that defy conventional logic. Included in this, then, are myths and legends, the supernatural and traditional fantasy such as magic and monsters. Whereas science fiction provides an element of logic and explanation to things, even if they are beyond the realms of possibility, fantasy has an inhuman element about it.
A simplified way I define the genres to people is by asking them to think of something that isn’t possible e.g. teleportation. If they’re able to explain how such a thing could practically work, it’s science fiction. If they can’t, it’s fantasy.
If you have a copy of his book on writing SF and fantasy, Orson Scott Card opens it with a good discussion of how to define the two genres.
I do not have a copy, does he say anything pithy useful for an article of 300 words?
Typically I’d agree with Jamie’s assertion that if you can explain something away (like teleportation) with science & logic then you’ve got sci-fi, but I feel like Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn books explain the magic system very well and reasoned, which seems to blend science and fantasy.
Generally, for fantasy I only need one thing: magic, be it highly logical or completely unexplainable. (Defining magic is more tricky, I suppose…) Science fiction I typically stereotype as pertaining to space, laser machines, robotics, AI, time travel, and those types.
Anymore, the lines between the genres is often blurred, I think. Is STAR WARS a sci-fi classic or a space-fantasy? The Force is obviously magical, but hyperdrive is a hard science.
I tend to just classify these genres as speculative fiction now and leave it at that.
science fiction = spaceships and laser guns
fantasy = horses and swords
: )
scifi = what if?
fantasy = once upon a time
oversimplified I know.
I’ve heard (and I wish I could remember where) the difference between the genres described along these lines: Sci-fi faces our fears of how the world might become, our hopes of what we might achieve, and the relationship between them. Fantasy gives us a way to look at the things that scared us before we knew better (individually and as a society), and to celebrate our shining mythology of a time when we didn’t know the limits of the impossible.
If anyone recognizes the source, I’d love to properly attribute it (though, like the Gollux, I won’t rule out that I made it up myself).
I was told SF has a dark, ominous, unclear, or unhappy ending. Fantasy has a happy ending. Authority: my husband. Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series incorporates dragons, space travel, and the future. IMHO, SF and Fantasy allow the author to focus on current social/political/economic issues (women’s liberation, racisim, social stratification). Stanislaw Lem, Aldous Huxley (A Brave New World), and Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward) are my go-to’s.