Science Fiction vs. Fantasy

[Aqua Buddha]

Science fiction and fantasy are too often lumped together. They are often thrown into the same section of the bookstore, and are even grouped together on most writing sites.

Maybe I'm alone, but I find these genres to be worlds apart. I can't get enough fantasy, but I find most hard science fiction to be dull and hollow.

When it comes to writing, science fiction and fantasy have even less in common. Fantasy is about imagination, and reflects a worldview shaped by magic, ghosts and spirits. Science fiction is more often athiestic (which I admire), and is dominated by machines and technology.

So why are they always grouped together?

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Well, I think a good chunk of it is that *most* people who read one, also read the other. Not everyone, mind you - but the crossover is larger than in just about any other two genres. I have to admit though, in the last year or two I've heard a number of die-hard SF fans grumble about the quantity of urban fantasy invading 'their' shelves, so maybe the sparkly vampires are crossing a line somewhere.

Orson Scott Card writes something about this in the opening of his (a little dated, but still excellent) book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy". My hardcover of that book is over twenty years old, but I still read it over from time to time.

Card suggests that science fiction and fantasy have something in common: they are the literature of the strange. They both depict events which have not happened, and in many cases could not happen give what we know of the world. Both genres are ways to explore the imagination in ways that most other genres cannot. True, fantasy tends to approach this with magic, and science fiction tends to approach this with, well, science - but although the tools are different, they're both telling the same sort of story.

 

[Digital_Fey]

they are the literature of the strange.

Couldn't have put it better^^

I guess there's a general preconception - whether stereotyped or not, I don't know - that the nerds who read fantasy usually read sci-fi as well. I know most of my friends do Both are fairly eclectic genres, relatively speaking. Also, I think the lines are blurred in many places; there's a lot of hazy, science-fantasy type stuff in between Lord of the Rings and I Am Robot. The genres are constantly evolving as people experiment with new ways of blending ideas and bending reality.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

I don't like most Sci-Fi... Some I can tolerate but most is just.... too much for me LOL. I agree the two genres shouldn't be lumped together since I agree that they are completely different genres but I suppose it's to "save" space or some other lame thing. Really though if you walk around any bookstore.. or even a library, you'll find other genres bunched together too like Thriller and Horror, Murder mystery with detective books, etc. I think it's just inevitable since people are either too lazy or just don't care to put things where they go and try to convince everyone else that where they are is where they belong when we know it isn't

 

[Ravana]

It's too difficult to separate them, in many cases… and, yes, there's a huge overlap in readership. (I'm actually more SF than fantasy myself.)

 

[Ophiucha]

They are very difficult to separate, really. If you think of fantasy as flighty fairy tales and science fiction as rigid scientific, albeit hypothetical, texts, then sure, the difference is obvious. But few books are so polarized. Many fantasy novels make magic a science, with rules as rigid as any branch of physics or chemistry. Many science fiction novels eschew science altogether and are merely fantasies set in space ships. Star Wars is the classic example. No science, just a bunch of knights flying around the galaxy having magic Force battles and laser sword fights. Steampunk is a subgenre of utter crossover. How are half these machines functioning? Crystals are pretty popular. Crystals is the most fantastic explanation possible, short of straight up magic. What about Dragonriders of Pern? Very scientific novel, with time travel and plagues at the center of the story, yet it features dragons heavily and doesn't shy away from the mythology.

There are stories with as many dragons in them as robots. There are perhaps more stories of that nature than there are entirely magical or entirely scientific stories. The only way you could separate them is to create a fantasy section, SF section, and a SFF section and, really, that last section will be the largest.

 

[myrddin173]

Science Fiction and Fantasy (and Horror for some reason) are all covered by the umbrella of Speculative Fiction so they are "brothers" (or "sisters) in a sense which is why they are often grouped together and why they sometimes blur together. I divide them into what could be (Sci-Fi) and what couldn't (Fantasy). I also view books as having what I call "flavors" which basically means what genre it feels like. For example to me Star Wars is Fantasy (The Force doesn't mesh with our laws of physics) but it has the flavor of Science Fiction (their in spaceships).

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

They're just skins. They mean nothing. A novel is a novel. The best SF and Fantasy novels aren't about funny languages and pointy ears, they're about us as human beings; our aspirations, our fears, our longings. Robots or elves, either is irrelevant. It's window dressing. A decent author will engage the soul, regardless of the setting.

 

[Sammy]

They are MUCH, MUCH more alike than you assume. Especially when it comes to writing. They're both manifestations of the same function. In fantasy, when you want someone to appear it's in a puff of smoke; in sci-fi it's via a transporter.