I read a lot of both SF and fantasy. Most communities I’ve dealt with have commingled the genres, in part because the line between them can be blurry. Is this community supposed to be strictly SF, or are discussions of fantasy also okay?
I was going to post my mini review of Days of Shattered Faith, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but it’s clearly fantasy (though Tchaikovsky writes quite a lot of SF), so I thought I should ask.
Edit: it seems like I’ve had pretty good response to the question, and the vast majority would prefer to be more inclusive rather than draw a line. I’ll go ahead and continue posting both, though note that so far a moderator hasn’t weighed I in, and that could change things.
SF&F is a spectrum, and it’s pretty hard to draw a defining clear cut line. For example I’d rate star wars as space fantasy, but there’s plenty of people who consider it sci fi. Given the sheer lack of content on the fediverse, I think you should post whatever you can :)
Thank you, I’m with you.
I think the line between fantasy and SF is blurry enough that there’s no value in trying to find it.
I tend to agree - anytime you draw a crisp line, there’s going to be an example just on one side or the other that prime will argue about. On the other hand, there are things that no one will disagree about. No one of going to because whether The Lord of the Rings is SF or fantasy. The book I was considering posting a review of has magic and gods in it, though there’s a major faction in the series that’s trying to end all that and replace it with technology.
I don’t think so… I mean it’s really hard to draw to line. Like is Book of the New Sun sci-fi, or fantasy? One might think fantasy by looking at the cover or just reading the synopsis, but it really isn’t a fantasy book.
Right, there are lots of examples that have the trappings of one genre but are the other at heart. I feel that way about the Shadow of the Leviathan series. It seems like people are taking magic potions to make genetic changes, but they’ve found these sea creatures that have properties that can be distilled to make genetic changes, and it’s handled in a way that feels more like chemistry than magic.
Cool! You know, if you get down to it; any fantasy book is sci-fi if you try to explain how the magic works. Mostly I think it would be attempting to satisfy the First Law of Thermodynamics, like it does in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Sorting by new, the first page in this community goes back 2 months. I don’t think we need to worry about narrowing the topic anytime soon.
I’d want to revisit the question around the time the first page of posts in the community only takes you back to yesterday.
Agreed
In my opinion, sci fi and science fantasy are fair game, but personality I would abstain from posting fantasy alone, without sci fi elements.
I’m not a moderator, nor worried about what other people might post. If someone decides to post all their GoT/LotR/whatever content here I’ll downvote accordingly, but if the consensus is that it’s fair game, I’ll just block it.
Okay thank you. You’re one of the only ones so far who would prefer we really do keep it to SF, but I totally understand that position.
My preferences are just that though, mine. Doesn’t make it the right answer. I appreciate you asking the community how they’ll feel about it, but don’t put too much stock in what that one crotchety old guy (me) thinks. It’s a community for everyone!
Oh, I get it. My thought was basically to see what the majority though, though if most people were ambivalent and a few people were strongly in one direction, I might have gone that way.
It’s speculative fiction 😆
What about Homeopathic medicine? It is fictional medical science which might qualify.
Probably intended to be funny, but in my usual style I’ll answer seriously. If you were to write a story about, say, an herb that’s found that cures cancer, that would be legitimate SF to me. It might not be hard SF if there’s no explanation of how it cures cancer, but it’s enough to say there’s a compound in the plant that does it, because that’s how medicine works.
The thing about homeopathic medicine that makes it non-science is that, for much of it, there’s zero scientific evidence that it works. But in the confines of a story, if the author says it works, them it works.
I’m amazed at how reasonable this whole discussion has been; bravo everyone. To stretch things a little, I’ll point out that Days of Shattered Faith has some political-science fiction!
(mostly /s; I enjoyed that whole series and I’ll be interested in your review :)
I’m really enjoying it. Tchaikovsky has become my favorite living/writing author.
I’m three books in to the Children of Time series, my first exposure to his work, and I’m absolutely loving it. Planning to devour his entire body of work next lol.
That series is one of my very favorites of all time, and I’ve read a crap ton of SF including the early classics. And the whole series is good. Lots of very inventive stuff. One of them is a little more confusing than the others, but well worth pushing through. I read the last one recently (released this year, I believe).
I suspect that’s the one I’m reading now, I’m about halfway through and still not sure what’s going on lol. Still an interesting read though.
It’s one of those you just have to go with and trust that it will eventually make sense.
Are the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian Tales books science fiction, or fantasy?
Its written as a classic sword & sorcery fantasy story. But it takes place on Mars, and features aliens and flying machines. If Lord of the Rings had aliens and airplanes, but everything else more or less stayed the same, is it still high fantasy, or is it now science fiction?
Personally, I call them Science Fantasy, as they blend Fantasy and Science Fiction, but also don’t belong in only one or the other. Fantasy Fiction wouldn’t make sense since fantasy is always fiction already. Science Fiction often doesn’t focus on science, but it usually features elements that are scientifically plausible, or have a science-back explanation as opposed to something purely fantasy like magic. So combining the two makes sense to me. I don’t see why it cant be here.
I still maintain that it’s a spectrum, with some things certainly belonging at one end or the other, but with many things in between.
I will say, though, when I’m reading something categorized as SF, but I find some element of outright magic, it bugs me. As soon as there’s magic, or an element that doesn’t seem to have any sort of scientific basis at all, it moves out of SF into that middle ground for me. And it might be just personal preference, but the reverse isn’t the same for me. I feel like a story can be fantasy and still have elements with a scientific basis. Again, I’m very willing to admit that that’s a personal bias.
Well, it should for clarification purposes. But then is Dune sci-fi or 300% fantasy? So, there are a few difficult to classify books, and for those i believe high tolerance is fair.
