Where do you draw the line between Fantasy and Science Fiction?

I've actually heard The Lord of the Rings described by some people as SciFi. I most certainly would never call it that, but even in here I see some people have it tagged as such. Certainly Robert Heinlein's works I would label strictly SciFi... wouldn't I? But what about Frank Herbert's Dune? That has a duality in my mind. Yes, there's space travel involved, and other worlds and weapons & technology beyond ours, but there is also what appears to be magic going on.

So, how do you differentiate between the two genres? And which of you favorite authors embody the best of both?

I will again bring up my favorite author, Gene Wolfe. His best books involve a future so distant that civilization has de-evolved into more of an old world fantasy setting. There are still some trappings of technology, but they are usually reserved for the privileged.

I am interested to hear what the consensus definition for fantasy is. I am still not sure if I am a fantasy fan or just like the occasional fantasy book.

So, which of Gene Wolfe's books would you call his best?

I think his most popular work is The Book of the New Sun series, which starts with The Shadow of the Torturer. It is written in a very antiquated style, using unique dialect and obscure words like fuligin. It was my first Wolfe book based on a strong recommendation by a co-worker. I was pulled in fast, but like many Wolfe books, one reading may be not enough to unweave all of the story. I am not sure I am capable of getting everything regardless how many times I read it, but it is definitely enjoyable at many levels.

My personal favorite is Nightside the Long Sun which begins the The Book of the Long Sun. It is written in a much more modern, easier to read style, but the innertwining of the story is just as complex. I have loaned this to a friend or two and they have not been very impressed, claiming it was too slow or boring. I really can't understand those comments, since my one word description of the book would be "precious". I may be in the minority but I keep trying to spread the gospel.

I have one Anne McCaffrey book (the White Dragon) which I've still yet to read... but I'm sure she could be considered an author who straddles the Scifi/Fantasy genres...

There's a famous quote by Arthur C Clarke (and recently used by Lex Luthor in Superman Returns) about an advanced technology being so advanced that it would appear to be magic to a normal person... that's where, for me, Scifi and Fantasy merge... that blurring of what is scientifically possible, and what is pure magic.

From clamairy: So, how do you differentiate between the two genres?

Clam, both are similar in that they are speculative fiction. And appeal (frequently) to largely overlapping audiences - so they are bunched together in bookstores.

To me, a key difference is simply this: fantasy involves a supernatural element as the causal root of capabilities - the creator of the magic. Science fiction typically does not. So Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land are science fiction to me. A Wrinkle in Time is a fantasy - even though it contains space travel. Star Trek holodecks are science fiction. The old TV Series Fantasy Island is a fantasy.

We could start with this key difference, and use counterexamples to refine it. :)

Just to help me clarify for myself - the definition of "supernatural" would include? Anything outside of known science? So would the "magic ball of light" that the mages produces be supernatural, but the glowing sphere of excited electrons that the scientist uses be natural?
Becky

Becky -

No 'outside of known science equals magic' is not my definition.

A better way for me to put it is science fiction assumes laws of cause and effect still apply. Star Trek may talk about faster than light travel, which is impossible in reality (as far as we know), but there is a general assumption in the story that somebody worked out how to do that. And what they figured out follows what their better understanding of the laws of physics to be.

Fantasy involves magic. Magic suspends cause and effect. In Harry Potter, Scabbers (a mouse) can turn into a man, and there's no attempt to explain where the mass comes from - what the source of energy is, etc. etc.

Trying to explain this gets a bit exhausting, but largely: fantasy involves magic. Science fiction generally doesn't - even if it tries to break laws of physics - it says it does it with "better science" learned over the years - not with a wand with a phoenix feather in it.

Does that help explain my viewpoint to you? :)

Yours is a good question! :)

some people translate SF as Speculative Fiction, dragging in Fantasy in with Science Fiction, the Encyclopedia of Fantasy actually points out that Science Fiction is a subset of Fantasy.

Anne McCaffrey defines her stuff as Science Fiction and gets quite heated when you use Fantasy as a label for her stuff.

I usually use the tag SF/Science Fiction to mean stuff that's based in the future and could be logically extrapolated from science progess of the time that the book was written.

Fantasy to me implies magic.

A straddle fiction is Shaddowrun.

Some people put psionics into fantasy, i see it as potentially both dependant on the surrounding story.

Yep - Thanks. I feel there is going to be a lot of stories that fall in between, but that's ok. Life's full of grey areas.
Becky

I agree, there are many books that fall in the middle. And I'm sure there are many that we might not all agree on. But it is very entertaining to think about and discuss. Isn't it?

:o)

So in what genre would you put someone like Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Surely, he's not strictly Fantasy, although every work of his that I have read had elements of the Fantasic in it...

GGM's work I think of as fanciful or spirited. It does not focus on the Fantasy... but lives in worlds where bits of it exist. :)

I see some LT members have GGM's works tagged as 'magical realism' and that tag works well, I my humble opinion. I would think books like The Milagro Beanfield War would fit nicely into that category, as well.

I see the difference as primarily a delineation between magic (Tolkien, Lewis, etc) and technology(Asimov, Heinlen etc). Some authours do include both but many times such as the earlier example of Dune magic is called something other such as psi-powers, or mind magic Mercedes Lackey Also you see a difference in the supernatural characters used Tolkien's elves become Douglas Adams aliens, and the land of Faerie becomes outer space, or other universes. In a way they tell the same universal stories of good vs. evil, the mighty warrior fighting the evil monsters. The final difference I see in fantasy versus science fiction is that you see the anti-hero depicted more frequently in science fiction than in fantasy. ex Asimov . Other than that the primary difference is in the language that is used to tell the story. Science fiction books tend to have more of realism than fantasy for the most part tends to.

I would call most of Anne McCaffrey's books SF even in Pern if you read all the books you learn about the space travel, you can regard in her books telekintic powers as just an evolution in human history.

For SF I would say it has to have a significant amount of technology- not sure what amount but some. Mercedes Lackey on the other hand I would call mostly fantasy. The having an explanation for the ball of light would make it SF I guess.

Found this interesting Wikipedia article on science fantasy. Star Wars is a popular example, and I'd put Dune in this category as well.

What a fascinating article, dhalgren. It seems there are quite a few works that belong in this category!

You're right... I just spent some time reading it.

I love Wikipedia....

Rin_tonic, Anne herself is quite militant about the fact that her Pern Novels are SF.

I know it's a little after the fact, but I wanted to put in my 2 cents ;)

On Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I would definitely call his works magical realism (or realismo mágico) as that is a genre that arose from art and Latin culture.

hmmm - magic vs technology? Maybe; I'm thinking that while most fantasy involves a supernatural element (magic or it's like,) many "lost race" fantasies do not (but I would still classify them as fantasy.) I'm wondering if the "suspension of disbelief" with which one approaches reading fantasy or sf might be key. If required to abandon physical laws, in favor of magic or the existence of "places" not real (whatever that is,) that looks like fantasy to me. If I just need to extend "possibility." I'm thinking sf. maybe?

A few months ago, I read a little bit about the New Wave speculative fiction movement in the late 60s, early 70s. It tied together stuff I'd known of -- Bradbury, Dick, Le Guin -- but hadn't realized was a pretty revolutionary, self-conscious movement for a while.

Anyway, they tried to break down F/SF walls and (I love this one) to argue that all "realistic fiction" is just a subgenre of speculative fiction in which a set of unwritten rules require the author to recreate the real world in some, but not all, ways. (Take that, bitches.)

Closer to the initial question, Orson Scott Card once tried to write a science fiction book that everybody thought was fantasy. He said he finally realized that it was missing "rivets." So maybe that's a one-word answer.

Heh, "rivets" is just about right.

I'd say the difference to me usually boils down to whether the book involves spaceships or swords. There's some that fall outside this rule of thumb, obviously, but I mostly classify this stuff on a case-by-case basis, anyways.

Another generally-true pattern I've noticed is that sci-fi tends to be set either in some distant future, or in some slightly-altered present/near future, but always in some world that could be our universe extrapolated. Fantasy tends to be set in some other universe/cosmology altogether. (I'm pointedly ignoring cases like The Wheel of Time, where people have argued that their universe is our universe in another turning of the wheel... which I happen to agree with, but that's a whole 'nother post.)

Also, if it's got a map in the front, it's 95% likely to be fantasy. :)

I think of fantasy as the realm of the impossible such as magic, dragons, unicorns and such as that. I think of science fiction as a possibility based on what we know of the world or on what we know of science bringing us to a potential future. Piers Anthony's Xanth series was definately fantasy but his Adept series strattled the line because he dealt with two worlds, one where science ruled with robots and futuristic technology, and the other which was fantasy with shapeshifters and unicorns.

To me supernatural means something which could be but has not yet been explained. Ghosts, aliens and characters like that.

What about Ursula K. LeGuin? She is one of my all time favorites, and she's constantly verging on both realms.
Not a lot of unicorns, heavy with references to our own world and our way of living (to much so for some people), sometimes a good deal of tech and space travel; sometimes almost no tech, no fantastic elements, nothing - just set in another world that COULD be some forgotten corner of Earth...
I consequently mark it as "fantasy", but it could be just about anything.

The hard SF/techie SF of Asimov and Clarke (even if he in those times was called "the humanistic one") I feel is of a bygone time. Of modern authors, I even wonder where to place Asher... SF, yes, gory, yes, fast paced, yes, but the worlds he depicts seems more "fantasy" than SF to me.

I'd argue that fantasy generally contains a larger mystical element than sci fi does. That's not to say that SF can't contain mysticism and magic, because some of it does, (ie, Dune), but I'd say that if a work focuses on the mystical over the technological, it lies more in the realm of fantasy than SF, and vice versa.

Well, then - when the focus is on the characters or happenings of a society; there are a portion of space travel, other planets, and some unexplained tech IN THE BACKGROUND; most times no-one has a special gift or other... What is this, then? I'm thinking about LeGuins Hainish books and novellas.

What I try to say is that on the whole, sf and fantasy (the fantasy I read, at least - I'm not big on unicorns and princes-fantasy) is about ideas, as opposed to ordinary fiction that mostly is about relationships, or about some persons life, or how wierd my cat is or... Looking at it that way, the whole intra sf/fantasy genre-debate is void, kind of.

I argue that while there are a difference between techie SF and fantasy the difference is bigger between any work of sf/fantasy and your typical 7eleven-paperback...

(But as always - I have a few books that are borderline SF/ordinary fiction... Here I'm thinking of some of Neal Stephensons work like Interface. The argument above would obliterate any try at sorting books in genres, and sometimes it's nice to be able to do that... Sorting and cataloguing, I mean.)

I rarely have doubts, for example though I freely reccomend it to fantasy readers A Brother's Price is clearly sf, The Paladin neither it is straight forward adventure. generally I think of science fantasy as fantasy dressed up to look like SF and not doing a good job. The exception is The Morgaine Saga which I suspect of being SF disguised as fantasy.

Simon