Science fiction, like fantasy, has a range. That's why there are sub-categories and what we deem as soft and hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi usually involved actual hardcore science and math. Your explanation actually had to be justified with probable science and math. Soft sci-fi usually involved space and the future, such as Star Wars or dystopian. Star Wars actually falls under the category Space Opera. To limit science-fiction to things that are probable or have high tech is to limit it to hard science fiction, which is a disservice to the genre. Fiction is, after all, a story that though similar to reality is made up. I would rather not ignore Star Trek and War of the Worlds (novel).
Fantasy is a category that deals with magic and is usually set in modern times or in a world that is similar to a past time. It is true that futuristic tech without an explanation and magic are similar, but magic never claims to be anything else but magic. Also, not all fantasy has magic in it. Some might simply have a warrior going about killing stuff or a knight in a made up world that deals with the politics of that universe.
I do think science-fiction and fantasy can cross over. I think you find this mostly in comics. X-men is a great one, because the basis of the story is an alternative world where people are evolving and this has given people genetic mutations that produces psychic abilities. So we have genetics, the future, and parasychology as the basis of the premise, but we also have things that are not science and people who actually have magic powers thrown in there and some of the mutants are more magical than psychic.
So those are my thoughts on the subject. If the categories didn't cross over we wouldn't have fantasy and science-fiction always lumped together. There are things that are very distinctively sci-fi and some that are distinctively fantasy, but sometimes the lines blur.
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Date: 2011-10-19 01:59 pm (UTC)Science fiction, like fantasy, has a range. That's why there are sub-categories and what we deem as soft and hard sci-fi. Hard sci-fi usually involved actual hardcore science and math. Your explanation actually had to be justified with probable science and math. Soft sci-fi usually involved space and the future, such as Star Wars or dystopian. Star Wars actually falls under the category Space Opera. To limit science-fiction to things that are probable or have high tech is to limit it to hard science fiction, which is a disservice to the genre. Fiction is, after all, a story that though similar to reality is made up. I would rather not ignore Star Trek and War of the Worlds (novel).
Fantasy is a category that deals with magic and is usually set in modern times or in a world that is similar to a past time. It is true that futuristic tech without an explanation and magic are similar, but magic never claims to be anything else but magic. Also, not all fantasy has magic in it. Some might simply have a warrior going about killing stuff or a knight in a made up world that deals with the politics of that universe.
I do think science-fiction and fantasy can cross over. I think you find this mostly in comics. X-men is a great one, because the basis of the story is an alternative world where people are evolving and this has given people genetic mutations that produces psychic abilities. So we have genetics, the future, and parasychology as the basis of the premise, but we also have things that are not science and people who actually have magic powers thrown in there and some of the mutants are more magical than psychic.
So those are my thoughts on the subject. If the categories didn't cross over we wouldn't have fantasy and science-fiction always lumped together. There are things that are very distinctively sci-fi and some that are distinctively fantasy, but sometimes the lines blur.