![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
SF v fantasy?
Dec. 13th, 2008 08:35 pmAn interesting post on Lois McMaster Bujold's blog, where she discusses how she writes, and also the dividing line (if any) between SF and fantasy.
I've never been too sure about this myself, so it's quite reassuring to know that she isn't, either. Some extremes obviously fall into one camp or the other (what I write is mostly fantasy), but in the middle, it gets messy.
I think I'd tend to say that to qualify as either, it needs to involve powers that do not exist in our world (or at least, aren't as powerful as in the story). I then apply Clarke's law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". If they call it magic, it's fantasy. If they call it technology, it's SF.
I suppose one could also say that if the setting is lower/earlier tech than the present day, it's fantasy, and if it's higher/later tech, it's SF.
The real answer is probably "who cares? just enjoy it!", but I'm getting tempted to try to come up with something that includes all four of my classifying options, somehow.
I've never been too sure about this myself, so it's quite reassuring to know that she isn't, either. Some extremes obviously fall into one camp or the other (what I write is mostly fantasy), but in the middle, it gets messy.
I think I'd tend to say that to qualify as either, it needs to involve powers that do not exist in our world (or at least, aren't as powerful as in the story). I then apply Clarke's law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". If they call it magic, it's fantasy. If they call it technology, it's SF.
I suppose one could also say that if the setting is lower/earlier tech than the present day, it's fantasy, and if it's higher/later tech, it's SF.
The real answer is probably "who cares? just enjoy it!", but I'm getting tempted to try to come up with something that includes all four of my classifying options, somehow.