F & SF

[shewhomust]

Health warning: We have known since before Montaigne pointed it out that "Il y a plus affaire à interpreter les interpretations qu'à interpreter les choses, et plus de livres sur les livres que sur autre subject: nous ne faisons que nous entregloser". To the making of genre definitions there is no end. I, too, have posted about this before, and I, too, rise to the bait and talk about it again.

Further disclaimer: I love this stuff, I can't resist this game, and I really haven't time to do it justice. Apologies for ruthless editing: this is going to be quite long enough, whatever I do. And even greater apologies to those friends whose contributions to the debate I haven't read yet - no doubt I would be saying something completely different if I had the benefit of your insights, but that will have to wait until this one comes around again (as it will, never fear!)

This time round, it was truepenny who started the game:

Science fiction is about human beings' relationship with technology, with the machines we build... Fantasy, on the other hand, tries to imagine worlds in which the machine never came to power...

aireon quotes an appealing definition

A science fiction universe is one in which the universe is finite, that is, it is assumed that all things can, in the end, eventually, even if not within the time frame of the story, be understood (measured, quantified, etc).

A fantasy universe is one in which the universe is infinite; there will always be things that can't be understood.

What I like about these, of course, is that they chime with my proposed - well, it's not so much a definition as a description:

The difference between fantasy and science fiction lies not in what happens, but in precise nature of the suspension of disbelief asked of the reader. SF tells you that in certain circumstances, the laws of nature could operate in certain way, and invites you to set aside your disbelief; fantasy concedes that the laws of nature do not operate in a certain way, and invites you to imagine how it might be if they did: the unnatural, or supernatural. The otherness of the unreal is essential to fantasy, the extraordinariness of the real is essential to SF.

We seem to be agreed that SF is the stuff that talks about a real, objectively verifiable, quantifiable world, the sort of world that we live in, while fantasy proposes another world, where things are mysterious, not known, or simply not as we know them.

But, as matociquala points out, coming up with definitions is one thing, agreeing which texts fall where is another. I offer the example of Robin Hobb, whose initial Farseer trilogy seems to me to be classic fantasy, feudal court, mental powers, dragons and all. Yet the second trilogy, although set in the same world, has a very science fictional feel. It's not so much the shift from the royal court to the merchant ports, although that contributes, it's the fact that the Rain Wild traders are dealing in artefacts from an alien civilisation of which they know nothing: it's a pure SF trope, handled in the language of fantasy. So which category do her books belong to?
Out of time: but next time, ask me about Prester John, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the history of fantasy.

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I like your definition, too, especially the phrase "the extraordinariness of the real".

But you're also right about Hobb's Liveship books.


So. What about Prester John, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the history of fantasy?

And speaking of Prester John, have you read LN Gumilev's Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom: The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John?

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Is the Gumilev good? I don't know. I thought it was fantastic, one of my favorite books ever.

He also wrote a huge monograph called "Ethnogenesis and the biosphere". He was one of those 'large picture' Russian academics of the previous generation.

Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom basically grabs strands from all over the place and pulls them in to try to understand the legend of Prester John, mostly having to do with the Mongols, the Mongold court, and the adoption of some among the tribes of Nestorian Christianity.

I have a particular fascination for these 'big picture' studies, which is why I liked this one so much.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you - good to know it works so far! And I will come back to the next phase, but I'm afraid it will have to wait...

Meanwhile, no, I haven't read Gumilev: is it good?

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

I think your definition of science fiction is too narrow, in that it does not necessarily ask me to set aside my disbelief. Given that scientific knowledge is always growing, there are always going to be writers who write speculative fiction that postulate new discoveries that are consistent with the laws of nature as we know them. Think of all the stories written about space travel before the Sputnik was launched (48 years ago -- gulp). Somebody must right now be writing about the implications of global warming: if only their story required me to suspend my disbelief how much happier I'd be. In Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut postulates the existence of ice-nine, a form of water that freezes at normal temperatures. It's not been discovered yet, but since he wrote that the Buckminsterfullerene, C₆₀ molecule of carbon has been discovered.

For some reason the words of Tom Lehrer come to mind:

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discavard.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Aha! Curiously, although you present this as disagreement, it is actually the perfect introduction to the next phase of my argument - but you, too, will have to wait to find out why!

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Why would you say that the switch from royal court to merchant port gives it a more SFnal feel? (I can see where it would, I'm just wondering how to qualify it--is it just that so much fantasy revolves around the idea of the rightful ruler/usurper of power? Or that a story that focuses on ordinary people making a living just has a more rational feel to it?)

I'm finding all this discussion of the nature of speculative fiction very interesting. Like matociquala I don't worry about it much, since both sides of the coin interest me. But I like reading other people's insights.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Why would you say that the switch from royal court to merchant port gives it a more SFnal feel?

Ah, yes, that is compressed beyond the point of making sense, isn't it? The line of argument, I think, was that classic heroic fantasy = medieval, therefore shift away from pure medieval feudalism to renaissance bourgeois society ("bourgeois" in the etymological sense, growth of the towns, as well as labelling the middle - trading - class) = move away from a fantasy feel. And away from fantasy, in the opposition currently under scrutiny, means towards SF.

To which I'd better add that I'm not talking, at this particular point, about definitions or identifications, simply about the flavour of a particular group of books. And that many of my favourite fantasies are set in the modern world.