Firlefanz
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SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
Started by Corvus on BH.
After a brief discussion with Reythia a few days ago, I got to thinking about the differences and similarities between the genres of science fiction and fantasy. It's a common topic, and one with many viewpoints. How similar do you think the genres are? What similarities do they have, and what differences?
--- - Firlefanz
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9/21/2007, 7:25 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
JessieLong:
I tend to believe that sci-fi is the gender which attempts to explain the mystical and mysteries, while fantasy simply enjoys playing with it.
Frankly, I think it's pretty hard to pull the line. And then, there are some works which blur it anyway, like Burroughs' John Carter series.
Sci-fi, though, aims more toward our intelectual, while fantasy to the inner child.
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9/21/2007, 7:26 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
My own reply:
I believe that both genres are similar in dealing with different worlds than ours (or maybe a different Earth, in the case of near-future SF or Contemporary Fantasy). And of course, they have to follow the basic rules for good writing (strong characters, interesting plot etc.).
On the other hand, there must be differences, or they wouldn't be different genres - even though they are subgrouped under "Speculative Fiction".
For me, the difference is partly in "flavor". By this, I mean that for me fantasy tends to have a more mystical feel about it, while Science Fiction profits from a scientific world-view which emphasizes clarity of thought and reason. Of course, another difference is that fantasy most often takes place among "more primitive" societies, following a kind of low-tech medieval setting, while SF primarily uses a futuristic and technologically advanced setting. One could also call Fantasy "rural", and SF "megacity" oriented. (And yes, there are plenty of exceptions to challenge that position.)
Anne McCaffrey often mixes fantasy and SF - most prominently in her Pern stories, but also in the "Powers that Be" trilogy, where she uses selkies, unicorns and a sentient planet - all fantasy elemets put into an SF setting.
So, while there are differences between both genres, the deviding lines are blurred and allow for plenty of variation.
--- - Firlefanz
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9/21/2007, 7:27 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
Loud G:
There are many similarities.
Fantasy and SciFi both tend to take humans outside of their normal sphere of experience in order to better show their humanity.
They both involve impossible/implausible things/powers. A warp drive and a witch's broom are not far removed, neither is a teleport ray and a magic mirror. They all seem to have parrallels in both genres.
Fantasy though seems to be more optimistic in its worldview, there is good and evil and good can win.
Horror is more pessimistic, there is evil and if we escape, it is only for a short time.
Sci Fi tends to take the middle ground, complete neutrality. Stuff Happens. The universe exists. It just does. It is a very sterile attitude, just like the vacuum of space.
That more than the technology, I think, is the main difference. Scifi seems to be ammoral. Not immoral. Just proffering the idea that morality doesn't exist. While Fantasy tends to have a very delineated morality.
--- - Firlefanz
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9/21/2007, 7:27 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
QS2:
I have my doubts about SF being amoral, more like it values things in its own set of values. Which is probably like Firlefanz implied that both are a particular style.
Fantasy is oftently about imaginary settings, usually on one world and usually somewhat medieval in style. In general there is a conflict between good and evil and a hero or several heroes needs to save everyone. And of course if evil wins all mankind will likely die or suffer horribly for all eternity, so the good guys winning is really important.
In comparison Science Fiction is more oriented towards progress via technological development, ever expanding frontiers. Overcoming limitations via improving your technological ability and rational thought. Good and evil don't really exist in this context because they have no meaning, if there was an evil it would be those things that would stop you from progressing. And when you think about it, some of the most dark and depressing of the Science Fiction genre is exactly in such a situation, where humanity is stuck in some corner and can not do anything at all anymore, can not develop/progress.
So in summary the difference between them is not so much in what kind of imaginary worlds they create, but in there world views, Fantasy comes in many ways from ideas we developed long ago think Tolkien and the Brothers Grimm. Science Fiction comes obviously as the name implies from the current scientific age and exemplifies the ideas and ideals of that system.
--- - Firlefanz
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9/21/2007, 7:27 am
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
QS2 wrote:
I have my doubts about SF being amoral, more like it values things in its own set of values. Which is probably like Firlefanz implied that both are a particular style.
I agree. I don't necessarily see scifi as particularly amoral. I think that a lot of scifi stories still show the "good" people as "good" and the "bad" people as "bad". But scifi also doesn't pin a plot based on just the description of people as "good" or "bad", as much (classic) fantasy does. Instead, the plot is about something independent from the characters, often. But while the two-sentence description of the plot may be amoral, the book as a whole -- including both "good" and "bad" characters -- often isn't. It's just not as obvious, and -- like the real world -- shows that sometimes the "good" people end up losing out (at least partially) to the "bad" ones. And sometimes everyone ends up losing out to something bigger than all of them combined.
In the cliche fantasy novel, you have the Good Guys
versus the Bad Guys. That's all the novel is about: good versus evil. That's fine (and I enjoy reading it as much as anyone else), but it's not really very true to life. When was the last time you ran into a big, real-life problem that was strictly Good vs Evil? Most of my problems are more of the Give-and-Take variety (what do I want to give up to get something more important) or the Oh-Crud-I'm-Screwed variety (where something that wasn't my fault happens to me and I have to fix it or live with it). Rarely are my decisions based solely on a single moral decision. That's fantastic, in my opinion -- too unlikely to happen in reality. Not all fantasy is this way, of course, but a lot of it is.
Scifi, on the other hand, deals a lot with the Oh-Crud-I'm-Screwed problems (ie: our sun is going to explode -- what should we do?!) and sometimes with the Give-and-Take problems (ie: we need to form a galactic government that deals fairly with humans and aliens -- what sort of conflicts will arise?). Not all scifi is this way, of course, but these types of questions are more often the focus of scifi books than fantasy ones. Despite the sometimes fantastic technology described, I actually find the root conflicts in scifi a great deal more realistic than most of those in fantasy.
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9/21/2007, 6:12 pm
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Firlefanz
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
Reythia wrote:
In the cliche fantasy novel, you have the Good Guys
versus the Bad Guys. That's all the novel is about: good versus evil.
That's my problem with the novels I wrote and which my agent is trying in vain to sell. They are fantasy that doesn't fit into the Good Guys / Bad Guys concept. It also doesn't quite fit the YA agenda, and so publishers simple reject the story saying it doesn't fit their program.
It's as simple as that. Cliched fantasy gets published because publishers think it will sell best ...
Well, sorry to take the thread off topic somewhat. Personally, I would just prefer to see clever, realistic and well-done fantasy myself.
--- - Firlefanz
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9/21/2007, 8:04 pm
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
Firlefanz wrote:
Cliched fantasy gets published because publishers think it will sell best ...
Personally, I would just prefer to see clever, realistic and well-done fantasy myself.
I agree. I've actually slowed my reading of fantasy just because I've read so much of it that it all feels the same. And that's sad, since there's no reason it SHOULD all be the same! There are so many unexplored (or rarely explored) possibilities out there that go beyond "good vs evil".
Perhaps some day the publishers (and general readers!) will figure that out.
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9/21/2007, 8:10 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
Reythia wrote:
quote:
QS2 wrote:
I have my doubts about SF being amoral, more like it values things in its own set of values. Which is probably like Firlefanz implied that both are a particular style.
I agree. I don't necessarily see scifi as particularly amoral. I think that a lot of scifi stories still show the "good" people as "good" and the "bad" people as "bad".
I think the difference isn't in the people, it's in the world. A "typical" fantasy world has good and evil hard-coded into it by one specific assumption: its gods are real and they are defined in [modern] human terms as either good or evil. So almost by definition the world -- creation -- has moral characteristics. Within this, individual people may (but only "may") have a choice of being good or evil.
In a typical SF world, there are no gods. The world runs according to amoral [not evil; simply without the moral concept of good and evil] physical laws. Within this world, people still have the choice of being good or evil but the universe doesn't care either way.
---
"No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning."
-- Lynne Truss
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9/21/2007, 8:33 pm
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
David Meadows wrote:
In a typical SF world, there are no gods. The world runs according to amoral [not evil; simply without the moral concept of good and evil] physical laws. Within this world, people still have the choice of being good or evil but the universe doesn't care either way.
This describes many modern atheists very well, yet I wouldn't consider their lives "amoral", for the most part. Most atheists still believe in "good" versus "evil", even though they realize that the universe falls into neither of those categories.
Also, many fantasy gods/goddesses are less like "the universe" or "God" as we'd think of it, and more like humans with really impressive powers but basically-human wants. As such, it's a lot easier to talk about them as "good" or "evil" than it is to describe "the universe" as "good" or "evil".
But really, my point is that, beyond the gods and universes, I just can't define a book as "moral" or "immoral" based on anything BUT its characters. How can the world -- a physical, non-sentient set of things -- have a morality? A planet (or universe) cannot be moral/immoral. The only things in that world/universe that can have morality ascribed to them are the people (and the groups/governments people create). I don't see the people in scifi books being (in general) any less moral than those in fantasy books. Sure, the situation of Great Big Good vs Great Big Evil arises more frequently in fantasy, but that's just a matter of size. Little Good vs Little Evil happens in scifi. Does the size of the problem dictate how moral or amoral you are?
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9/21/2007, 8:50 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
It's not the size of the moral problem, it's that your moral choices are more important in a fantasy world because the universe (as personified in the gods) will act directly against you if you make the wrong choices. In SF, your morals might affect your relationship to other people but they're not going to cause a supernatural being to zap you with a lightning bolt.
Launcelot stops off on his way to the Grail for a dalliance with Guinevere (thus betraying his moral code). Result: the world -- not a person but the setting itself -- makes it impossible for him to complete the Quest. This could never happen in SF. There is simply no equivalent concept.
---
"No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning."
-- Lynne Truss
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9/21/2007, 9:08 pm
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
I see your point, Meadows. You're right -- there's a broad category of fantasy that is set up that way, and very few examples of it in scifi. I guess it's just that I have a very low tolerance for such worlds, so I pushed them out of my thoughts. 
For the record, a lot of modern fantasy is not written that way. Even in the classic Tolkien -- which is definitely a "good vs evil" story! -- your choices are not punished by the setting, but rather by other characters (both on your side and on the enemy's). (The exception in Tolkien is, of course, Gandalf.)
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9/21/2007, 9:28 pm
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QS2
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
That is an interesting point Reythia, does this mean that in fantasy our view of existence has been changing in the last few generations?
Now that I think about it, I guess science has been making existence less of a living thing entity for quite awhile now. So I suppose that for each successive generation their world view has been changing towards this and that this might be represented in fantasy. I guess you could consider it one of SFs influence on fantasy. 
Well despite such borrowing from each others frames of reference, I still do think that fantasy concentrates more on the morals of the time and that SF is perhaps a bit more results oriented. At least I can't really remember much SF where winning was based on making the moral choice, usually it seems to be about making the right choices to actually win. 
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9/21/2007, 10:19 pm
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Loud G
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
Thanks Meadows for explaining it better than I did.
I didn't realize there would be so much confusion over my use of the word "amoral" relating to the universe.
Amoral is not Immoral. I think that is where the confusion lies. I was not implying that Scifi was "Immoral" (as in crude/bad/etc) but that morality did not come into it. Scifi is more about ethics than morality. (And yes, ethics and morality are different) Ethics is all about decision making in a society, based on the laws and social interaction of that society. Morals requires more than society, it requires a belief in something more that human. It requires a god.
This is why Scifi is amoral (without moral bearing/compass/whatever) not immoral (bad). Morality is not the focus of events.
I would disagree on the Tolkien point. Morality of the universe was important. Saruman suffered becaus of his choices. Gandalf was exalted because of his choices. Boromir could not finish the quest because of his choices. The Silmarillion is chock full of other examples. One reason that on the surface it might seem that way, Reythia, is because of the deep message of Redemption that runs through Tolkien's work. The characters make mistakes but are redeemed. Boromir fell to the temptation of the ring and he did die for that, but he was also redeemed in the end, he payed the price of his mistake but did so heroically.
Scifi is a fight for survival of organic species over (imminent) death.
Fantasy is a fight for survival of Light over darkness. Or a fight for the survival of the souls of mankind over the destruction of the souls or the destruction of all that is good.
The root "survival over death" is the common thread. But the survival is much less superficial in fantasy where there are things such as souls to be fought form where life does not end at the grave.
People are different in both genres. In Scifi there is no life after death (generally) but in fantasy the souls of people are immortal. So the battle for survival takes on different meaning in both instances.
That's is what I meant earlier about Scifi being more sterile. It is the great land of "meh, stuff exists, so there" 
The science is generally second to the human struggle, at least from what I've read.
I think I'm starting to babble and have probably lost all of the meaning that I originally wanted to get across, so I shall just end this post before I start contradicting myself or become completely incoherent. 
--- Reading: Mistborn
Writing: Eriadhin
"Life is like a book, except it takes longer to get to the climax."
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9/23/2007, 6:40 pm
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
QS2 wrote:
I still do think that fantasy concentrates more on the morals of the time and that SF is perhaps a bit more results oriented. At least I can't really remember much SF where winning was based on making the moral choice, usually it seems to be about making the right choices to actually win.
I can agree with that, yes.
quote:
Loud G wrote:
{in most scifi} Morality is not the focus of events.
I can agree with this, too. But I would still argue that just because the plot isn't blatantly moral-driven, that doesn't mean scifi authors are any less aware of morality when writing in their characters. I would just argue that they're more subtle. (Then again, how do you get MORE not-subtle than Tolkien and his followers, on the issue of morality!?) You don't need to have a character save the world from the Big Evil to show that a moral person is better off than an immoral one. Not all scifi DOES show that a good person is happier in some way than a bad one, but a good bit of it does.
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9/23/2007, 10:52 pm
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hadaad
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
Some themes I have noticed in Sci Fi and fantasy are these:
In fantasy, it seems like doom is always just about to fall over mankind.
In science fiction, it seems like that doom is already there and people are living in it.
In fantasy, the big chore is fighting the big bad guy.
In science fiction, the big chore is discovering that the wool has been pulled over your eyes.
I'm sure there are more but these are what I have found in my vast reading of fantasy and my limited reading of sci fi.
---
Reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
Writing: Resurrection edits
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10/3/2007, 3:30 pm
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thepinksuicidallemming
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
hadaad wrote:
In fantasy, it seems like doom is always just about to fall over mankind.
In science fiction, it seems like that doom is already there and people are living in it.
In fantasy, the big chore is fighting the big bad guy.
In science fiction, the big chore is discovering that the wool has been pulled over your eyes.
Well then lets write some thing that turns this on its head.
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Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.
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10/3/2007, 11:31 pm
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Reythia
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
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thepinksuicidallemming wrote:
Well then lets write some thing that turns this on its head.
When you do that in scifi, you end up with Star Wars. That's why a lot of people call that sort of story "fantasy in space" and declare it "not REAL scifi".
Last edited by Reythia, 10/4/2007, 4:32 pm
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10/4/2007, 4:31 pm
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thepinksuicidallemming
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
quote:
Reythia wrote:
When you do that in scifi, you end up with Star Wars. That's why a lot of people call that sort of story "fantasy in space" and declare it "not REAL scifi".
True, but I still love Star Wars.
Even so, I'm more inclined to do it in fantasy.
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Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.
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10/4/2007, 11:26 pm
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QS2
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Re: SF and Fantasy: Differences and Similarities
Sorry to interject this now, but as fascinating as this discussion is, I think we've thoroughly killed this threads topic now and are moving into new territory rapidly. So if you folk still want to keep talking about these new topics, it would be best to start a new appropriate thread for it. Else anyone coming in will get all confused about the current discussion, please think of the poor newcomers. 
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10/5/2007, 2:04 am
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