Does anyone else think SCI-FI/FANTASY should be separate categories?

blacbird said:

I think they're combined on this site primarily because they're also combined as a single marketing category at bookstores. I also think Fantasy and SF were more closely allied as writing categories a few decades ago than they now are.

caw

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Also, there are a good number of authors write both SF and F and a good number of readers who like both. I do, though which I'm looking for at a given time depends on my mood. I read in other genres too: romance, historical, and mainstream/contemporary, sometimes classic or literary fiction (though I probably read those less often than I should). Heck, I even enjoy reading or re-reading good YA and kid's books sometimes.

I agree with Amergina that both SF and F are diverse and broad genres that have something to offer readers with widely varying tastes.

There is definitely a difference between the two, as many have said, when it comes to marketing, as well as other elements. I used to separate them in my mind pretty much only based on iconography, but that's probably just my film studies background showing.

blacbird said:

I think they're combined on this site primarily because they're also combined as a single marketing category at bookstores. I also think Fantasy and SF were more closely allied as writing categories a few decades ago than they now are.

caw

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Yes, I was thinking back to the days of pulp magazines and how hard editors had to work to get writers to stay inside the lines for particular
magazines. Jack Vance would be one of the survivors of that era who flourished eventually when the lines got blurry enough.

Scripty said:

There is definitely a difference between the two, as many have said, when it comes to marketing, as well as other elements. I used to separate them in my mind pretty much only based on iconography, but that's probably just my film studies background showing.

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Iconography is a good way to put some ways that the various forms are distinguished in marketting. It might go a bit deeper than that or at least the iconography tends to follow certain sets of motifs as they emerge together. There's the spaceship thing for Sci-fi from say 1930 to 2010. There's the air of medievalistic nostalgia and rustic living for fantasy from the Norse Sagas to 2014 and so on.

Yes, sci-fi and fantasy or two genres

Yes, I think SCI FI and Fantasy should be separate categories, although I recognize plenty of overlap.
Fantasy, by definition, is outside science or science fiction. For example Buffy the vampire slayer: not sci-fi even tho there are sci-fi elements.
Science fiction is simply science that's being expanded upon. In many cases science fiction turns out later to be science fact. Being able to cast magical spells never has that chance. So Harry Potter is fantasy and 20,000 leagues under the sea is sci-fi.

Yeah, I have a novel and story-world in which the magic is essentially energy shaped by sound or form. One of the minor characters is experimenting with using vacuum tubes in magic driven machinery instead of the normal gemstones. (It's still a conceit that the stones can function in that manner, but that's okay.) But, the reason he can do that is because magic is basically electricity. (It's even generated by the human body.)

There are plenty of ways in which we can blur the line between "completely made up" and "theorizing about existing science". And, again, SF and Fantasy are separated in bookstores now. I have a feeling that the lack of separation was initially due to the size of the genres. My library had SF/F shelved together, but in it's own section but the number of total books was relatively small compared to what I find at the used book store or B&N these days (where they split everything up).

zanzjan said:

You mean from each other? Huh. That's not the case in my local B&N or any of the used book stores I frequent.

Now I wonder how much discretion on that is up to individual managers in the big chains?

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SF is on one side of the aisle, and Fantasy on the other. They've also started separating out Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance into a separate set of shelves. Could be something relative to total store size. Not sure.

It can be annoying. Elizabeth Bear (for instance) is shelved in more than one place.

I remember some stores were doing that for a while in the 90s. It didn't last long. I think it's one of those things that may sound like a good idea -- let's put every genre in its own section so it's easy for readers to find their books -- but it doesn't work out in practice when genres have fuzzy & inter muddled boundaries and both readers and writers don't differentiate strongly between them. They're not really separate categories at the retail level unless a store is willing to put a lot of effort into maintaining the separation and dealing with confused customers and lost sales because people are having more trouble finding their books, not less.

Over here in Waterstones (our version of B&N) there is a "Science Fiction and Fantasy" section which is subdivided into "Game of Thrones stuff", "Star Wars stuff", and "Everything else".

PeteMC said:

Over here in Waterstones (our version of B&N) there is a "Science Fiction and Fantasy" section which is subdivided into "Game of Thrones stuff", "Star Wars stuff", and "Everything else".

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See, here we also have half a shelf of "Star Trek stuff." You guys need to diversify.

My local bookstores have separate shelves for fantasy, science fiction, and horror, but the shelves are all side-by-side (with horror always at one of the ends). To me, that's perfect--someone who wants fantasy can go to the fantasy section. Someone who wants fantasy or science fiction can start at one end of the shelves they're interested in and just keep going until they run out of what they're willing to read.

And yes, the individual sections each have a subsection for the tie-in novels for various shows and properties. So my browsing experience is usually a case of me shuffling along the shelf going, "Warhammer...Warhammer...Warhammer...ah, here are the real books!"

(Not to disparage tie-in novels; they're just not what I'm looking for. )

Before last night, I would have said fantasy has magic and sci-fi has space ships. But I was surprised when a discussion with my son about the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek convinced me I was looking at the categories wrong.

He sees Star Wars as fantasy. It's the themes he's based that assessment on. He pointed out it was ridiculous to be fighting over resources in the future with the technology capabilities in Star Wars. The theme of heroes and villains, Universe domination, heroes with skills that let them dominate in battle after battle, that is fantasy genre regardless of the technology.

He compared it to Star Trek which deals with themes of society, like human morals vs the Borg or the Romulans whose whole value systems differed. The mission is to explore, not conquer. The themes on Star Trek are sci-fi genre themes.

It made perfect sense to me and it was yet one more example where my son's grasp of the literary world amazed me to no end.

I wanted to say something, but everything has already been said and better than I could say it. So I'll go here: As a reader — long before I ever started to write — I read a lot of SF. I expected it to have spaceships, scientifically-backed technology, and alien creatures/people (where do you draw the line between those two?). Fantasy did not interest me because I expected lovely fairies, lovely dragons, lovely unicorns, and rainbow endings. I don't think my expectations, or prejudices if you will, are uncommon, however erroneous they may be. Maybe that is why some people believe the two should be separated? Eventually I worked my way through Asimov and similar authors, and then discovered C. J. Cherryh. From there to my first vampire book, Fevre Dream by my (beloved) GRRM was not a far leap. From there to Ann Rice and on.

There are quite distinct differences between the SF and Fantasy authors I've mentioned, but the line between the two genres has thinned. My local B&N moves them away from each other, albeit with many overlaps, then moves them back again. Either way, I find what I want. WTF are we arguing about? Does it matter?

lizmonster said:

Where do you draw the line?

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Yeah. The line is that slash between the two. Science Fiction/Fantasy.

I work at Books A Million, and Sci-Fi and Fantasy are lumped together in one section separate from the rest of fiction. Part of me likes that because it keeps the paranormal romance out of the way when I'm looking for a book (no offense to PR lovers it's just not what I'm looking for ). Part of me hates it that all the fiction is separated from each other. How can you discover anything new especially if you're no an explorer? I realize this is a little off-topic, and I apologize for that, but since the line between genres can sometimes be pretty thin people miss out on real treats because everything is separated. I see the need for the separation, but I've seen customers explore a section but not the whole store, I think having segregated sections makes it harder for people to discover new authors and genres. Put it all together I say and let people see all the options at once.

Fairies wear bOOts:) said:

Okay so I finished a novella a while ago that is literally BOTH sci-fi and fantasy... much to my surprise. I started it with no outline and by the time it was finished it ended up being both sci-fi and fantasy as it had both mythical elements and also a futuristic appeal, as in both unicorns and things like clones. The thing is, I never really liked sci-fi much so I find it strange my book ended up being in that category as I used to think they should be entirely different genres... so I was wondering, does anyone know the specific reason the two genres are linked and like me is there anyone who thinks they should be separate?

Also, has anyone ever come across a story like mine that is both? I could be wrong but I feel like this is rare and because of that it adds to my idea they should be separate since they rarely ever intersect, or am I wrong? Has anyone ever heard of a book that is actually both genres and do you think they should be grouped together? I realize I could do a basic search on the web for this second question but I thought I would go to AW for a perspective from actual writers...

So any thoughts?

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Maybe. Maybe not. I am actually in your same boat. I am working on a fantasy novel, and as things have gone along, I've actually pulled a bunch of science in, including physics, biology, and technology. In fact, my magic system is based on being scientifically plausible. Which is funny, because I actually don't read much sci-fi. Mostly fantasy! And then my novel is at least 25% science fiction. Ha!

MaeZe said:

Before last night, I would have said fantasy has magic and sci-fi has space ships. But I was surprised when a discussion with my son about the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek convinced me I was looking at the categories wrong.

He sees Star Wars as fantasy. It's the themes he's based that assessment on. He pointed out it was ridiculous to be fighting over resources in the future with the technology capabilities in Star Wars. The theme of heroes and villains, Universe domination, heroes with skills that let them dominate in battle after battle, that is fantasy genre regardless of the technology.

He compared it to Star Trek which deals with themes of society, like human morals vs the Borg or the Romulans whose whole value systems differed. The mission is to explore, not conquer. The themes on Star Trek are sci-fi genre themes.

It made perfect sense to me and it was yet one more example where my son's grasp of the literary world amazed me to no end.

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Smart kid. You must be very proud of him. I know I would be.

I think his metric for SF vs Fantasy is a good one for easy separation of the two genres families. However, I wouldn't say things are that cut and dried as many times SF and Fantasy borrow from each other while still remaining firmly Sf or Fantasy. A Scifi story, like classic Alien Invasion stories, often has the good vs evil, world/universe domination, and win lose cycle of Fantasy stories despite being SF. And you can just as easily deal with themes of society and other literary themes generally more common in SF in a fantasy story concerning faeries for example.

zanzjan said:

Huh, that seems really counter-intuitive to me. I usually go looking for SF, but sometimes I'll run across a fantasy book that catches my attention, and I'd be unhappy about my browsing serendipity becoming narrower.

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Late to the party, but there's huge variety in how things are shelved in the bookshops I go into. The level of separation seems to vary by the size of shop, from separation of science fiction and fantasy and paranormal romance in the biggest shops through to a joint science fiction/fantasy section in mid-size shops, through to my small local shop where there's just Childrens, YA, and Fiction. They do carry science fiction and fantasy, it's just all there in alphabetical order along with everything else. I find each brings me different things in terms of browsing experience.

Lillith1991 said:

Smart kid. You must be very proud of him. I know I would be.

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Yep.

Lillith1991 said:

I think his metric for SF vs Fantasy is a good one for easy separation of the two genres families. However, I wouldn't say things are that cut and dried as many times SF and Fantasy borrow from each other while still remaining firmly Sf or Fantasy. A Scifi story, like classic Alien Invasion stories, often has the good vs evil, world/universe domination, and win lose cycle of Fantasy stories despite being SF. And you can just as easily deal with themes of society and other literary themes generally more common in SF in a fantasy story concerning faeries for example.

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I'm not a fan of black and white categories in this case either.

I'm one of those people that would separate dune(dune is mostly really advanced breeding programs and drugs) and star trek(it has at least consistent rules for its tech, though some might consider the Q or other races fantasy elements.) into sci-fi, but star wars into fantasy(the force being this whole supernatural cult element and really no rules exist for much.) I draw the line in the tech/powers portion of a novel. If there are tech and no rules whatsoever, I just go with science fantasy. If their tech/powers has consistant rules, I'll go with science fiction(even if its in a fantasy setting) Like anything from Brandon Sanderson, I have a hard time labeling it just fantasy(his magic systems leading me to choose science fantasy for his). If, like star wars, there is a heavy cult/religious aspect that derives these powers/ whatever and limited/no rules, I'll go with fantasy. That being said, I do agree that most science fiction borrows from fantasy. But I don't see a lot of fantasy borrowing from from science fiction that much unless it's something like the Shannara Chronicles.

I'd rather have them separated, one is about magic, the other about technology. Crossovers can sit on whichever shelf they like. If you ask me, I'd also have a "crossover shelf" . And, in case you were wondering, I would also prefer the peas on the plate not to touch the potatoes Sadly bookshops are getting smaller and their book space is shrinking (there's all that other non-book stuff they try to make money on). I like online shops with tons of different categories

My MS was constructed off of inspiration of 1800's science fiction mixed with fantasy. I was shooting for a different take on a steampunk story, I think I have blurred the lines and ended somewhere in-between science fiction and fantasy.

This made it really hard for me to pigeon hole it.

I've decided on fantasy, because there is magic, despite the fact some of it is actually explainable via science, and particle physics (Higgs boson manipulation anybody?). I've had a genius friend of mine explain to me how the world would have to had been created and how the organisms would have to be in order to adapt to the electromagnetic waves going over the planet.

And then I go screwing that up by throwing in enchanting and having them make miniature suns to have nearly limitless steam power.


Signed,

Mr James.