You earthlings and your third dimension. It's cute.

[momebie]

Over on twitter getyourguns was musing about how X-Men: First Class had been labeled as Fantasy at the Scream Awards, because she considered it to be more Science-Fiction instead. matthewbowers responded to her and said that Science-Fiction and Fantasy are rarely crossed together. He contends that each has a set of tropes and themes that you never (or hardly ever) find

Comments

[scintillulae]

Oh man, we totally talked about stuff like this in my science fiction class freshman year, and I completely forget all of it. I do vaguely remember that we discussed how "real" science fiction requires the science-y tech part of it to tell the story. Like, you could take all the space and laser and stuff out of Star Wars and set it in Medieval England and still have the same basic story of Star Wars. Which makes some sense, I think, because say, if you took the Doctor's TARDIS away and gave him magical powers that let him travel through space and time, I'd lean towards calling Doctor Who science-fantasy more than straight-on science fiction (assuming all the alien-y space stuff was still there). Or you can't take the AI tech out of Neuromancer and still have a story because the tech is the story.

But idk, I tend to lump sci-fi and fantasy into one category and then divide it by magic/no magic, so I don't think too deeply about these things. xD AND HALF THE TIME THE "SCIENCE" IN SCI-FI IS LIKE MAGIC TO ME ANYWAY.

[kel_reiley]

What's that saying? "All science looks like magic until we understand it." Or something along those lines.

[scintillulae]

Aha yeah, pretty much. Especially when you get into the super advanced stuff and the author is like "oh yeah we're going to be really vague about how this works. and by vague I meant not tell you at all."

[kel_reiley]

That's generally my motto. It's why I like to write from the POV of the character who doesn't know jack shit.

Other characters: *explainy-splainy SKIENCE!*

POV character: Bzuh? I DON'T CARE HOW IT WORKS JUST GIMME! (...or something like that)

[scintillulae]

I never even explain anything when I write. It's just "and then Character A used this device and it worked! yay!" Voila, nice and easy. xD

[kel_reiley]

LOL! That works, too. I always trip myself up overthinking the details.

[scintillulae]

Details are for weenies. Or people who write real books.

[kel_reiley]

And then my brain is like: Dude, nobody cares about that besides you.

[scintillulae]

Though to be fair, authors often map out all sorts of shit that other people don't care about. If we don't care, who else will!?

[kel_reiley]

Precisely! If I made a book out of all the details that didn't make it into the stories... it'd be a really fucking long book.

[scintillulae]

Oh god, is it bad that the first thing that popped into my head was Tolkien's Silmarillion. That doesn't even make sense. And yet.

[kel_reiley]

LOL! And sometimes... all those details are best left unshared.

[scintillulae]

Why did I ever try to read that book.
Unless you're JK Rowling in which case everyone wants all the extra details.

[kel_reiley]

...except me. *hides*

[scintillulae]

ngl, I totally signed up for the Pottermore beta because I want to know ALL THE THINGS.