What Would You Call This?

**Riothamus** · August 12th, 2012, 07:05 PM

Let's say you write a novel or story set in a world that that neither contains a large amount of futuristic technology or apparent magic and it's not a parallel universe and it's on another planet in another universe what would you call it? Science fiction? Fantasy? How would you describe it?

**kshRox** · August 12th, 2012, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Riothamus

Let's say you write a novel or story set in a world that that neither contains a large amount of futuristic technology or apparent magic and it's not a parallel universe and it's on another planet in another universe what would you call it? Science fiction? Fantasy? How would you describe it?

Science Fiction.
That's what I 'd call it, dont' know about anybody else.

My reasoning is you are speculating on the possibility of life on another planet and extrapolating from this premise what their physiology, culture, society, technology etc. would be.

C.J. Cherryh does this a lot although mostly from a human perspective.
Her latest series examines the idea of a human colony stranded on an alien planet where human technology initially far exceeds the indeigenous people. Their brains however are hard-wired for math so once they catch up with humans the stage is set for them to outstrip human technology fairly quickly.

**Riothamus** · August 12th, 2012, 11:06 PM

I probably should have stated I was actually thinking specifically about humans, but I'm still not entirely sure. I suppose one could call it a variant of science fiction, but I'm not entirely certain.

**JimF** · August 13th, 2012, 04:55 PM

Depending on the plot you might call it a techno thriller, but from what you described I thought of the great movie Charly, based on the play Flowers for Algernon. Basically a mentally challenged person undergoes a radical operation and becomes a supergenius.

Not much is changed from the everyday world, but the existence of the operation is pivital, and I think that makes it Science fiction.

Jim

**HeclaBull** · August 18th, 2012, 06:05 PM

I've seen some people use the term "speculative fiction" for concepts like the one described, but I think most people would describe it as science fiction.

**steve12553** · August 26th, 2012, 08:28 AM

Based on our current inability to travel to or observe that planet closely, it would be Science Fiction. Any Fantasy element would override that but otherwise it's SF. We don't have direct evidence of planets in other galaxies (universes) so even though it's a fair bet, it is still scientific speculation.