Defend Your Favorite -- SF or Fantasy (split off from "Race to 100")

[Culhwch]

But even you, an admitted reader of both, denigrate fantasy as 'cheap and quick thrills'. I don't know about anyone else, but that just seems to me to be the prevalent attitude across these boards from those who tend towards SF.

Whereas, of course, I've never said a bad word about SF. Certainly not in this thread. Just don't read back through it, mind, take my word for it.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Connavar

Casual readers have prejudice against SF they dont have against fantasy.

Casual readers have a prejudice against both, and read neither.

Originally Posted by Culhwch

It's like me saying I don't like science fiction because I'm put off by the metallic, skin-tight jumpsuits that everyone in the future has to wear.

Gosh I hate those skin-tight jumpsuits. It's like everyone in the future will have perfect figures. As if.



Oh, and TheEndIsNigh, would it be possible for you to spell my name correctly, when all that is required is to scroll up a little bit and look at the post you are responding, too? Or, you can cut-and-paste as I've just done with your name. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with the abbreviation TE. Whichever one you think will be easiest.

You wouldn't want to give the impression that readers who prefer

son of Mifril', 'son of Quantruth' and his potion of newt breath

read with more attention than you guys who like six-armed aliens with green skin and ichor flowing through their veins, do you?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Whereas, of course, I've never said a bad word about SF. Certainly not in this thread. Just don't read back through it, mind, take my word for it.

Well, gosh, I've never seen you do so.

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

So, J-Sun, are you saying that this denigration of science has even had its effect on people who used to devour science fiction but now prefer fantasy?

I would have said that science fiction readers would have been the last people to be influenced in that way.

I don't know such people but, no, I doubt this would have much effect on them except insofar as it makes high-quality hard SF hard to find, which begins to get into the internal dynamics of a fantasy dominated market place, which I was alluding to earlier. For instance, Analog (a hard SF magazine) has a pitiful circulation rate but it's still larger than either Asimov's or F&SF (both basically fantasy magazines with a significant, but generally softer, SF mix) - larger than both combined if I'm not mistaken, but I may be. And it is completely shut out of the awards, for instance. And the Nebulas are given by that institution which has officially changed its name to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. (Oddly, it hasn't dispensed with the "America" part, which is probably just as inaccurate as the pure "Science Fiction" part was.) And the Hugos are awarded to things like Harry Potter (a rocket ship trophy to Harry Potter?) because that segment of fandom is now made up of people primarily raised on TV and movies which rarely have much to do with actual science fiction vs. science fantasy or pure fantasy.

These are probably trivial examples, but I'm just saying that I see more of a decline in SF readership than a mass migration. But, if there is a migration it would be explicable as being the case, for those who never much cared for hard(er) SF anyway, they would just insensibly slide into fantasy because that's the bulk of what's out there and it provides them something that's distinct enough from prosaic reality. In SF, one's really looking for hyper-reality, but many people may have just read SF because it was a alternate reality and fantasy also suffices for that well enough. In one sense, not to denigrate fantasy, fantasy is "easier" than SF. There are no barriers to entry because fantasy can be sort of solipsistic - it brings its rules with it and that internal consistency is all that's required. Hard(er) SF references the external world and uses those rules and doesn't necessarily explain them so may be harder for many to read. (Note, I don't exclude myself from this - I am not as scientifically literate as I ought to be, but I enjoy the exercise - many don't.)

And, like I say, I very much prefer SF, but I'm not knocking fantasy, either. Fantasy is virtually limitless on the one hand, and may contrain itself just as rigidly to external references, such as psychological "truths", as SF does to physics and chemistry, etc. I don't mean to rile up fantasy fans when I say it's "easier" - that's just in one way - it may be thematically or symbolically more difficult, for instance. Perhaps not intrinsically, but in practice.

Sorry for rambling. Anyway - I guess my main point is that there's the extreme edges of SF and fantasy and large middle ground and the bulk of that middle was (softer) SF and is now more (harder) fantasy in that there's a lot of alternate history and steampunk and crossover stuff in addition to purer fantasy. And so with the fans if you're correct - some fervent SFers, some fervent fantasy folks, a bulk who might go where the wind blows.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've split off this discussion from the other thread. I think I moved all the right posts here, and left all of the right ones there, so that both conversations make sense.

Originally Posted by J-Sun

I don't know such people but, no, I doubt this would have much effect on them except insofar as it makes high-quality hard SF hard to find, which begins to get into the internal dynamics of a fantasy dominated market place, which I was alluding to earlier.

Well, you now have the pleasure of my acquaintance, and I've changed my reading pattern from SF to Fantasy, and my reasons bear little resemblance to those you have postulated.

And may I ask (because it may really be relevant to the discussion) how old you are, and how long you've been reading SF?

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Well, you now have the pleasure of my acquaintance, and I've changed my reading pattern from SF to Fantasy, and my reasons bear little resemblance to those you have postulated.

Indeed, I am pleased to meet you (formally, as I believe we must have crossed paths before, anyway).

I had no idea - I thought you were native to the fantasy camp. So what are your reasons? (BTW, my speculations weren't meant to apply to every individual - just that they might have some relation to some statistics.)

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

And may I ask (because it may really be relevant to the discussion) how old you are, and how long you've been reading SF?

Um, let's say I've been reading SF for over 25 years and I began within the realms of a conventional age. If that's too vague, I could consider tightening it up but hopefully that'll do. (It's a net thing - I'm not shy about specifics like that otherwise.) And yourself, if I also may?

[Xelebes]

To me, fantasy is just too inaccessible. After I read The Hobbit, I was done with fantasy and moved onto Foundation and certainly found it more inspiring. Couple this with the fact that science fiction in the other mediums - music and film - are able to draw my attention more so than what always seems contrived in fantasy. Modern science fiction is bogged down with the contrived, but there are a few gems to keep me with it ala Scott Bakker and Neal Stephenson.

Just a personal opinion.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

After I read The Hobbit, I was done with fantasy and moved onto Foundation and certainly found it more inspiring.

If you are judging the entirity of the fantasy genre by The Hobbit, please, please, please don't! I want to assume that you'd read more widely before that, and Bilbo's tale was merely the last thing you read before giving up. But if not, I'd really suggest trying some more modern fantasy, which really bears no resemblance, in most cases, to Tolkien. And the good stuff, or any genre, isn't contrived. Perhaps you just hit upon bad examples...

And:

Science fiction... music? Come again?

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Science fiction... music? Come again?

Rush's 2112 and the like, I guess. Ziggy Stardust. Rocky Horror. I dunno.

Vs. Rush's By-Tor and the Snow Dog, maybe.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've been reading SF and Fantasy for 40+ years ... well, if you don't count things like The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, which I read in grammar school.

The reason I asked your age was because the shift from science fiction to fantasy had reached a point where it was noticeable enough that people (professionals in the field and hard-core fans) were discussing it by at least 1989, when my first book was published and I first came to be discussing such things with authors and editors, which means that the drift must have been going on for quite some time byt that point. SF was still selling better, but Fantasy was finally catching up to the point where SF writers were moaning that Fantasy writers were claiming too much of their shelf space.

So from my point of view, since I can remember a time when the most active and vocal readers in the genre were reading SF most of the time, and a time when there was (at least in some people's eyes) a perception that SF was mainly for male readers and Fantasy was mainly for female readers, and a more recent time when Fantasy is definitely in the ascendent (and very popular indeed with male readers), I do see what amounts to a mass migration.

There was a period of several years in my life when I had an enormous amount of time on my hands, to the extent that I was generally reading a book a day, four or five days out of the week, and most of those books were SF, plus I was working my way through my (new at that time) husband's large collection of Analogs, which was a magazine I was also buying as it came out each month. After that, I was still reading a lot of SF, but I was slowly switching over to Fantasy, until finally it came to the point where I was somewhat surprised to discover that I was hardly reading any SF at all. (Although it has never reached the point where I've stopped reading it altogether.)

So when I say that I rarely read SF, I say this as someone who has nevertheless read a vast amount of the stuff, even though not much of that in recent years. In fact, probably a lot more SF than many younger readers who read nothing else, but, due to that whole business of having a life, haven't had the opportunity to read as much, though no doubt they would have if they could.

Which brings us to the question of why I switched over. I don't believe it's because there was more Fantasy on the shelves, because at the time I was switching over SF was still more easily come by. And I wouldn't say it was because of the cheap, thrills, because action scenes are rarely my favorites. When I was reading SF, it wasn't for the gadgets or the technology or the concepts, it was because I was interested in how people -- not necessarily human people, I love well-written aliens -- reacted to and dealt with those technologies and concepts. Because anything that explores human nature and examines it from different angles and offers true insights into the human condition, well, to me that has a great deal more to do with reality and the possible, and the things that we really ought to know about ourselves and others, than any quantity of technology and science that might someday exist. And eventually I came to realize that I was getting more of that in Fantasy than I was in SF, and so that was the direction in which I gravitated.

Although, of course, I do like the sense of wonder, and the visiting other worlds and other times -- which is one reason why I'm not looking for all those explorations of human nature (etc.) in contemporary mainstream fiction.

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

When I was reading SF, it wasn't for the gadgets or the technology or the concepts, it was because I was interested in how people -- not necessarily human people, I love well-written aliens -- reacted to and dealt with those technologies and concepts. Because anything that explores human nature and examines it from different angles and offers true insights into the human condition, well, to me that has a great deal more to do with reality and the possible, and the things that we really ought to know about ourselves and others, than any quantity of technology and science that might someday exist. And eventually I came to realize that I was getting more of that in Fantasy than I was in SF, and so that was the direction in which I gravitated.

Well, it sounds like you may have been native to the fantasy camp after all, and just didn't know it at first. Science fiction's raison d'etre is the gadgets, technology and science and, to me, any literature that ignores that is missing something key about humanity. We are the tool using apes, the opposable thumbs, etc. Fantasy, it seems to me, either wishes that away, or addresses it unrealistically, or artificially halts it at some earlier stage than the present (not to mention the future).

(Not that that's all we are or that any thing has to address every thing all the time. The mosaic of partial portraits work together to present a fuller picture.)

I also find that a peculiar reason (or timing) to switch away from SF, as it's New Wave and later era SF that specifically cast out science and technology and turned to a sort of metaphysical inner space and also began promulgating the literary values that, to me, are often misplaced in SF. If anything, more recent SF more closely matches what you describe wanting than anything before. That'd be a reason to switch from fantasy to SF rather than the reverse.

In my time, fantasy was, in Bruce Sterling's words, SF's "small, squishy cousin... creep[ing] gecko-like across the bookstands," and Star Wars (while the sheerest fantasy) had partially restored a fascination with gadgets and cyberpunk was exploding and you could find Neuromancer in grocery store book racks (and find mention of it the mainstream press) along with reprints of Pohl and current stuff by Sheffield and so on - not to mention the bookstores. You could find SF magazines there, too, and Asimov's was even mostly SF and Analog could still win awards and circulation was several times higher than it is now. But all that collapsed in the later 80s and especially through the 90s. But I still don't necesarily see a mass migration. In authors, perhaps, from people back to Martin on up to people as recent as Zettel and too many more to recall, perhaps simply because that's where the sales are. But I'm not sure it's the case of readers. I think SF has probably lost many readers and fantasy has gained many more, but they aren't the same readers. The Harry Potter folks weren't generally Clement and Forward fans prior to the Pottermania.

I dunno - in the best scientific tradition, without hard statistics compiled from observed data, we're just kind of waving hands here.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

If you are judging the entirity of the fantasy genre by The Hobbit, please, please, please don't! I want to assume that you'd read more widely before that, and Bilbo's tale was merely the last thing you read before giving up. But if not, I'd really suggest trying some more modern fantasy, which really bears no resemblance, in most cases, to Tolkien. And the good stuff, or any genre, isn't contrived. Perhaps you just hit upon bad examples...

I've read Wallflower series back in Elementary. I tried Piers Anthony which was my most recent sojourn into Fantasy. Can't say I was too inspired by his writing.

Originally Posted by Culhwch

And:

Science fiction... music? Come again?

Electronic music (Jeff Mills, Carl A. Finlow, Vangelis, Richard D. James, David Flores) , modernist music (Gyorgiy Ligeti, Morton Feldman.)

Examples:

Silicon Scally (Carl A Finlow) - Proteus
Bytecon - Robots Ready For Mars
Jeff Mills - Metropolis Soundtrack
Gyorgy Ligeti - Atmospheres
Morton Feldman - Three Dances

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by J-Sun

Well, it sounds like you may have been native to the fantasy camp after all, and just didn't know it at first. Science fiction's raison d'etre is the gadgets, technology and science and, to me, any literature that ignores that is missing something key about humanity.

It's not a matter of ignoring it, it's whether or not it's to be the centerpiece of the story. As I said at the beginning, Fantasy is more character-driven. That has nothing to do with a denigration of science, as you said earlier, it's about putting the focus on human nature and human relationships.

It's funny, because so many SF fans complain about the magic swords and the magic rings in Fantasy, but they're just the trappings, and that's not what Fantasy is really about. But if the gadgets are what SF is about, as you say, maybe that's why some of the more hardcore fans are put off by Fantasy -- they're looking at the trappings and ignoring the real point.

Xelebes, when you say Piers Anthony, are you talking about the Xanth books, or some of his other books? And I've never heard about the Wallflower books; could you explain those?

[Grimward]

Originally Posted by J-Sun

Rush's 2112 and the like, I guess. Ziggy Stardust. Rocky Horror. I dunno.

Vs. Rush's By-Tor and the Snow Dog, maybe.

Only a Rush fan would know about By Tor and The Snow Dog, J (count me among them).

Of course, Rush possibly parlays this very thread into an album's worth of content on Hemispheres (yes, I know it's really about the battle between heart and mind, but work with me here....)

Just my two cents, but I think that, as both genres continue to mature (a better word than "age"!), authors are borrowing elements from each when weaving their tales. Is Stephen Donaldson's Gap series fantasy or SciFi? And why aren't aliens (for example) in some cases simply a different way to express something that can't otherwise be expressed with science (ie, where fantasy uses magic [again, as an example] as a vehicle to express similar such content)?

[TheEndIsNigh]

Teresa:

I am unworthy.

Sincere apologies

In my defence (pathetic scrivelling though it is) when you're tied in your chair in the dim light of a darkened, curtain drawn room, surrounded by the filth and squalor that builds up between the monthly hose downs my relatives have been reduced to arranging. I sometimes have trouble groping over the keys. Occasionally a fit will take hold as my bloated sausage like digits, grapple with the difficulty of pressing just one letter.

These fits are becoming more frequent, though I'm assured by the medics that the drugs will not have any permanent effects, well not within the short time we all have left at least.

I beg this explanation will, in some sad way, enable you to see it in your heart a way to forgive a low slug crawler, such as myself, for the grievous offences I have caused.

With hope, though precious little of that exists I know, I shall never offend in this manner again.

I go now to inflict several hundred harsh scourging that I'm sure will drive home the lesson that must be learnt.

Yours, with deep, unrelenting, waves of regret

TEIN.