[cap97]

Fantasy and Sci-fi are always lumped together. Maybe it's because they have to be. But just for fun...

If you owned a book store and wanted to set up a section entitled "Fantasy" (note the lack of Sci-Fi in that title), what type of books would make the cut, and (more importantly) what type of books wouldn't?

Mike....

[Nani-Re]

IMO:

Science Fiction:
Future setting
Alternate reality (ie. Hitler won)
Aliens involved
Space travel
Scientific explanations

Fantasy:
Use of magic
Alternate races not found in space travel, especially dragons or fairies
Story sounds like fairy tale

Basically, Fantasy is a genre that has supernatural or fantastical elements that do not have Sci Fi elements, i.e. Star Trek is Sci Fi because it is futuristic, and involves space travel. LOTR is fantasy becaue it is another world that is not in Earth's future, doesn't include space travel, and has elements of magic.

[Habeed]

But what about Star Wars? Most would argue fantasy, but I've seen a few out there who are dead set on defining it as science fiction.

[Xayn]

fantasy: folklore, myths, legends, fairy tales.
sf: either about science, or actually just a story without any genre, just that people (for no good reasons) wear aluminum-foil suits, funny pyjamas, a fishbowl over their head and traded their cars for spaceships.....

[Arty]

A friend actually asked me about this the other day.

SciFi
advanced technology
travel to other worlds
alternate history

fantasy
a world where "magic" is integral not to the story but to the very existance of the created universe
society that has replaced "scientific"technology with "magical"technology

cross-over fantasy
where these 2 worlds collide
i.e. Star Wars and Pern

[Cygnus]

I've seen series that are set in a science fiction setting (namely, space) but are predominantly fantasy in nature called Galactic Fantasy or Science Fantasy (I saw the last one on this forum somewhere).

There was a series written by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin that was considered galactic fantasy. There was very little focus (from what I remember) on the technical details, and more on the characters. I doubt that's much of a way to divide the two, but that's how I do it.

[cap97]

Fantasy, according to a very old Webster's New College Dictionary (1977) is, as pertains to our discussion:

3d. Imaginative fiction featuring esp. strange settings and grotesque characters - called also fantasy fiction.

That's pretty damn general, but I like the key words there of "strange settings." Possibly that could be taken to mean worlds that are not our own. Most sci-fi is "our" future in that it takes place on Earth or at least involves Earth traveling spaceketeers. Whereas fantasy usually involves a world you can't even visit.

That would be my difference. I don't think you could say fantasy must contain swords or dragons or even magic. There's gotta be plenty of fantasy books involving laser guns and othewordly monsters you couldn't classify as dragons. But they're still fantasy.

It's all still pretty vague, but I like the Star Wars example above. Certainly not science fiction to me. It isn't our future. It isn't even us. Different galaxy before we were even created.

Found this yesterday. Kinda neat.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C003239/data/history/whatisfantasy.html

Thanks for the discussion guys. Interesting!

Mike....

[Barbarossa]

Strange settings definatly doesn't have to mean other worlds, there are whole subgenres like Urban fantasy or dark fantasy which use our world, with a twist.

[Drewids]

I've always thought this was a very black and white arena. When I look at a book, I can tell almost immediately if it was Sci-Fi or Fantasy. You could easily categorize them as:
Sci-Fi - Advanced technology in any form. In sci-fi series such as Star Wars you'll find some simplistic twists like you would in fantasy, but if they made it there by space ship/worm hole/time machine etc... you have sci-fi

Fantasy - basically, not of the sci-fi arena, anything else left. But, generally, you have simplistic/medieval/less-technologically-advanced-than-we-are-now, and if anything is done otherworldly, it's done with magic, it's fantasy.

I've heard some say that Star Wars is somehow fantasy, if you ask me, that's as sci-fi as you can get. Space ships? warp drive? Men-created-into-robots(Vader)? Laser weaponry? multiple planets? Yeah, the force is a sort of magic, but with the overwhelming sci-fi attributes, there no chance this can be categorized as fantasy.

Someone else said that fantasy stories could have laser guns in them. Huh?!? How would it then be fantasy? As soon as a laser is introduced, it's sci-fi and never was fantasy.

[Giarc]

And what if Talobash the ogremage uses the spell of 'bagog's mighty fart' to disarm the laser gun wielding invader, while the elven weaponsmaster dispels his invisibility spell to confront the invader in open combat? http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif
To repeat my opinion from another old thread on this topic, fiction is a multidimensional continuum where individual books can exist anywhere on an imaginary scale between multiple 'genres'. These in turn are nothing more than places along the continuum that have been awarded some arbitrary name http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif Trying to pigeonhole parts of a contiuum is a typically human trait (like defining a species) but it will always breakdown under close examination http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif
There, that ought to press some buttons! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif