Splitting Genres, Splitting Atoms, Splitting Hairs.

[wingsmith]

How do you tell the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy?

Well it's obvious, isn't it? It's in the names. Science Fiction's based on science, Fantasy's based on magic, right?

Well, no. Not so much. First up, there ain't much science in a lot of sci-fi, and what there is, isn't generally convincing. Don't believe me?Watch Doctor Who. Do

Comments

[wingsmith]

Yeah, I agree. I think its useful up to a point. It would make me a massive bell-end of a hypocrite to say I like fantasy and then proclaim that genres were empty, meaningless categories.

Still, most stories won't fit easily into a single genre, stories are too complicated. They're manifold and intricate, which is why we love them.

It's enough for me to see 'elements of' on a dust jacket, and then keep an open mind.

Inasmuch as I care, which is not much

[sumitsays]

I tend to take Clarke's Third Law as the dividing line. If the technology your opus is describing is indistinguishable from magic - that is, if you can't so much as conceive how it would work - then it's fantasy, not SF.

In any case, I'm growing increasingly entrenched in my position that the real genre distinction is between "hard" and "soft" fiction. There are those who write to capture the world, and there are those who write to escape it.

You don't have to care to take an interest....

[wingsmith]

The main point in the post is the absurdity of trying to delineate lit-fic from sci-fi on the grounds of possibility, when the sheer fact of its fictionality rules out the possibility of any of it occuring. If it happened, it wouldn't be fiction.

But you raise a much more interesting point... to whit, next post.