[stone monkey]

I'm a sf guy all the way. I read fantasy (obviously, or I wouldn't be here) but sf is the literature of the fantastic where my heart resides...

I'm with Alt here in that I think we're making overly picky distictions. I can think of any number of fantasy stories that base themselves in the real world; John Crowley's Aegypt Sequence, for instance, is very much set in the modern world (or more accurately, the world of the late 70's) And I can think of a number of putative sf works which are set somewhere that has no relation to the real world (Stephen Baxter's Raft comes to mind or any alternate history/universe story)

At base, they're all just choices made when one wishes to tell a story, it's the story itself that matters...

[caladanbrood]

While most of my favourite books and authors (Erikson, Mieville, Gaiman, Abercrombie, Lynch, Wooding) are fantasy, I actually read a lot more sci-fi and I'm a much bigger fan of that genre in general. British sci-fi at the moment is at a really high peak, and while I wouldn't try and claim that it has never been stronger, the reliability of a wide group of authors to consistently produce quality books is astonishing. Reynolds, Asher, Hamilton, MacDonald, Morgan, Stross, Stephenson,  (I don't know if those last two are British, to be honest), all easy to rely upon to produce a cracking read. Possibly Iain Banks also, though his best days tend to be a bit behind him on current evidence - I'm willing to be convinced otherwise!

[Bauchelain the Evil]

mandog, on 21 December 2009 - 05:54 PM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 21 December 2009 - 04:39 PM, said:

mandog, on 20 December 2009 - 09:20 PM, said:

Does a sci-fi writer have more freedom than a fantasy writer? I tend to think yes. It seems there are less "rules" that a sci-fi novel has to adhere to.

And I disagree with this 100%.

Sci-fi has to be based (somehow) in the real world. Once you lose that real-world basis, you've just entered the realm of fantasy. Unless you want to narrow your definition of fantasy to "dragons and magic and stuff".

Dune is part of the real world? Star Wars too? Sweet!! There is nothing real world about either of those. and those are just the first two to pop into my head.

Actually, the answer for Dune is yes. There are many references in the books to the Golden Age of earth and in Children of Dune Leto says he descends from Agamemnon, whic is actually rather obvious if you think they are called Atreides(not that I caught that until then).

[meili]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 23 December 2009 - 12:07 PM, said:

Actually, the answer for Dune is yes. There are many references in the books to the Golden Age of earth and in Children of Dune Leto says he descends from Agamemnon, whic is actually rather obvious if you think they are called Atreides(not that I caught that until then).

I am too geeky. I actually knew this... hahaha.

Oh pfft the things people are referring to now is not all of fantasy but just a recent subgenre with "dragons, magic and swords" a ala LotR. There are actually of a lot of other types of fantasy.

Historically, fantastic works have been as varied as Arabian Nights, literary fairy tales, gothic novels, romances, early dark fantasists like Edgar Allan Poe, etc.

It's just that after LotR, publishers and people have thought of fantasy as this "elf, dwarf, wizard" type thing, which it isn't

Also, my Amber books are labeled Science Fiction by the publisher.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Sombra, on 21 December 2009 - 02:47 AM, said:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Pretty much sums it up.

As soon as I saw this topic I knew someone was going to dredge up this drek. This quote pisses me off so badly. I hate it. It's bullshit, it's fucking stupid, and it's thrown around like the fucking solution to the question of ife every time there's a discussion about fantasy versus sci-fi. Pet peeve, anyone? I absoluely loath this quote, and spit on Arthur C. Clarke for ever uttering such drivel.

(No offense to you Sombra, I like you, but goddamn I hate this quote.)

Such bullshit. Ok, maybe to an uneducated savage who can't tell the difference between electricity and Godfire, this makes sense. To those of us who have been raised in the modern world, there's a difference. Especially in a story, where we are specifically informed when crazy stuff is tech or magic, this stupid quote makes no sense.

"Hmmmm. In this story, there is a space battle between starships. They are firing lasers at each other. If only I could determine if those lasers are the result of technology designed to produce these blasts, or if THERE IS A FUCKING WIZARD STRAPPED TO THE FUCKING SHIP FIRING BLASTS OUT OF HIS COCKGRABBING STAFF! It should be obvious but at this level, tech and magic are indistinguishable!" Horseshit.

We all know the difference between tech and magic. Sometimes they blend making it difficult to pigeonhole a story as scifi or fantasy, but even within a story like that you can still break it down and identify which parts are the fantasy (magic) elements and which are the scifi (tech) elements.

Well, that turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry. I have strong feelings about that quote.

[Illuyankas]

Say that to the timetravelling LARPer with the nanotech wand and see what happens, eh? Besides, it's really just for stuff that at that exact moment we have no clue how to replicate so it might as well be magic. At that exact moment.

[polishgenius]

The thing is, Clarke never meant that magic and technology are the same thing from different perspectives, I'm pretty sure. That quote always struck me as, like Illy said, being for stuff that's so far beyond our frame of reference that, to us, it has the same effect as magic would. It's not intended for things like laser battles and things, which are perfectly within our frame of reference even if we haven't reached there yet.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

polishgenius, on 11 February 2010 - 08:09 PM, said:

The thing is, Clarke never meant that magic and technology are the same thing from different perspectives, I'm pretty sure. That quote always struck me as, like Illy said, being for stuff that's so far beyond our frame of reference that, to us, it has the same effect as magic would.

I get what you're saying, but I think you might be contradicting yourself a bit. Things viewed from our perspective are also within our frame of reference, things out of our frame of reference are from a different perspective. You can interchange the phrases, using them to mean the exact same thing which implies they are the same. Watch me flip the phrases in your sentence and it still has the exact same meaning.

"The thing is, Clarke never meant that magic and technology are the same thing from different frames of reference, I'm pretty sure. That quote always struck me as, like Illy said, being for stuff that's from such a different perspective that, to us, it has the same effect as magic would."

Aside from that, our "perspective" or "point of view" or whatever you want to call it, is of people raised in the modern world reading a book. From our perspective, we know the difference between the scifi and fantasy elements.

My main gripe is how that quote is trotted out evey time scifi and fantasy are compared like it settles anything. It doesn't. Regardless of how Mr. Clarke feels, people reading can tell the difference, and normally have a preference for one or the other. This invalidates the quote. Even at a sufficiently high level, people can tell the difference, there are going to be those who don't like fantasy, and those who do not like scifi. To say otherwise is insulting to readers.

[Soulessdreamer]

The quote as I remember came out of books like the rama novels where modern man was exposed to advanced tech that was so far beyond their knowledge that the couldn't even guess how they worked. One example being the empty metal box that moved moons. No moving parts, no controls, dials, inputs, outputs etc they couldn't even measure if anything was happening beyond the witnessed effect.

In 3001 clarke even theorised that a primitive who believed in magic would be more accepting of super advanced tech than someone of our technolocial advancment.

TTFN

[Aptorian]

Wouldn't a sufficient advanced magic system indistinguishable from technology be interesting?

[Use Of Weapons]

Aptorian, on 12 February 2010 - 08:26 AM, said:

Wouldn't a sufficient advanced magic system indistinguishable from technology be interesting?

No, because our only reference for a system of organised knowledge which advances incrementally is science, so the comparison only works in one direction. To work in the other, there would have to be an example of a system of magic which had done the same. The only thing that even comes close is the progression of alchemy to chemistry. In which case it _became_ science. The process of advancement is a scientific process. All fictional attempts to create a systematised magic structure have essentially borrowed the terminology and practice of science, basically turning magic into a science, with researchers, universities, schools of study, different branches, etc.

[Soulessdreamer]

jitsukerr, on 12 February 2010 - 01:54 PM, said:

Aptorian, on 12 February 2010 - 08:26 AM, said:

Wouldn't a sufficient advanced magic system indistinguishable from technology be interesting?

No, because our only reference for a system of organised knowledge which advances incrementally is science, so the comparison only works in one direction. To work in the other, there would have to be an example of a system of magic which had done the same. The only thing that even comes close is the progression of alchemy to chemistry. In which case it _became_ science. The process of advancement is a scientific process. All fictional attempts to create a systematised magic structure have essentially borrowed the terminology and practice of science, basically turning magic into a science, with researchers, universities, schools of study, different branches, etc.

So what if science gave man innate herediatory ablities like telekinesis via genetic tinkering? Wouldn't that be science becoming magic.

And given the IQ and education of most of the world for all they care oe knowelectricity might as well be magic.

The old joke about the magic smoke in the box is only funny till you meet those who believe in it.

Humans (as a species) barely understand fire, everything else we do is basically stumbling around in the dark.

TTFN

[Arielas]

Here's a thought: in what category does Lustbader's "Pearl" series fall into? It clearly has elements of both, though not particualry deep in either. Any other hybrid series that mix both elements? I dont think the Pearl series was on the level of the best of either genre but curious to see what others think it should be classified in. Also, you could make a arguement DUNE could be classified as fantasy, at least the first three books.


r/s
Arielas

[polishgenius]

Arielas, on 14 February 2010 - 05:28 PM, said:

Here's a thought: in what category does Lustbader's "Pearl" series fall into?

The outrageously boring one. At least judging by Ring of No Dragons.

Anyways, there are enough books like that that there's a name for it; Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun is probably the series most commonly hit with the science-fantasy tag - Dying Earth in general being a genre prone to the mixing of the two genre's tropes. Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains is a more recent example of a fantasy with strong taints of SF elements.


I'd say Dune is definitely SF though - the only element that's really at all fantasyish is the Kwisatz Haderach and if you labelled everything that features a not-strictly-scientific idea as fantasy then it'd be a much bigger genre.

Mind you, there's a propensity to label everything that has a spaceship as SF, even if it features magic swords, ancient green-skinned elves and mystical forces that grant magic abilities, so it's an awkward argument to have. The genre line is definitely more blurred than is occasionally made out.

[monkeydog]

I love how the sides fight.

I love the tension between.

I offer the Robot series by Rudy Rucker as deep in world, strong in character and loose with humor.

also, to Calderon, whats not to like about the last two Banks? Surely a pickup from Windward?

***

[polishgenius]

Look to Windward is the best one you heathen.