Blurring boundaries

All fiction is fantasy. There are fairly good definitions for both Science Fiction and Fantasy, so you might search for such definitions and read several of the results. I think that you will find that a fair number of people think they know the definitions, but they don't all agree.

You'll get different answers, as the definitions are somewhat subjective and there are stories that can blur the two (like science fantasy books).

Some people say fantasy is defined as stories that contain elements that could not be possible on our Earth (thus the fantastic elements or alternative, secondary fantasy worlds that don't exist in the real world), and that scifi is supposed to have elements of what can be (scientifically? technically?) possible in the future, like certain types of technology or methods, like cloning, robots/computers/AI, and space travel, etc.

Or something like that. I guess?

I've heard some people say scifi is about exploring the human conditions (especially with the effects on how technology can affect society), though I think that's more for the social science kinds of stories?

It's all speculative fiction with somewhat subjective definitions, anyway, so the line can be blurry for some types of stories.

Someone - I'm too lazy to look up right now who - said something along the lines of "Fantasy is anything I point to and call fantasy."

My personal definition:

Fantasy has something that cannot exist in any Earth, past or present, as we understand it: magic, telepathy, "impossible" creatures or beings, etc.

Science Fiction speculates on what could exist - past, present or future - with some basis in reality (theoretical or practical): alternate histories, tech advances/offshoots, aliens, medical advances/epidemics, etc.

The moment you introduce something provably impossible (as we currently understand things), it becomes fantasy, even if it's "science fantasy." But, then, that's just my personal definition - what I point to and call "fantasy" or "science fiction."

Publishers have their own definitions, based on what audience they believe will be more likely to buy a given story. So, McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series - with telepathic alien-hybrid dragons who can carry impossible loads and transport themselves and passengers instantaneously between any two points in space and time - are sci-fi, while Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon Chronicles - with an alien species of dragon more or less right on the sapience line, bred by human colonists for pit fighting, with realistic physical limitations and only a touch of something like telepathy, far more plausible than Pernese beasts - are billed as fantasy. And some stories that are actually fantasy get lampshaded as "magic realism" and billed as mainstream or literary fiction, pitched at an audience that would turn up its nose at traditional genre but will find all sorts of wonderful things to say about it if they don't admit they're reading specfic...

As has been said, the boundaries tend to blur when you zoom in close. Can there be a biological basis for telepathy? Time travel - where on the spectrum does that fall?

Ultimately, it comes down to what you want to point to and call "fantasy" or "science fiction", unless you just go with "speculative fiction." If you publish traditionally, your publisher will likely get the final say. If you're self-pubbing, look at what the nearest comparable titles label themselves, and pitch accordingly.

Some people might say magic is the dividing line. Both genres deal with the fantastic, but sci-fi tries to present it as advanced technology, whereas fantasy just says "a wizard did it."

Damian said:

That being the case then couldn't a time traveling scientist from however far in the future be considered a wizard if the time frame was the 16th century. Again with the blurry lines.

Click to expand...

Depends on whose POV we're looking at, I guess? If it's from the 16th century citizen, then I guess it could look like fantasy (or magic realism?) to him. From the time traveler's POV, it would be a weird scifi/science fantasy thing to him, with the time travelling aspect--

Wait a minute, is time travel considered fantasy or scifi? I mean, I always thought that kind of thing was a bit...fantastic for scifi label, lol. I consider it like a scifi magic method. Maybe it's a science fantasy thing?

Yep, it's all subjective and depends on your personal definition.

To me:

Fantasy is when the majority of technology cannot be explained.

Sci-Fi is when the majority of the technology can be explained.

Damian said:

That being the case then couldn't a time traveling scientist from however far in the future be considered a wizard if the time frame was the 16th century. Again with the blurry lines.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't call that blurred lines, but rather a misunderstanding. "Oh, weird clothes. HE'S A WIZARD!"


Anyways, my favorite controversial pop song: Blurred Lines.

Damian said:

That being the case then couldn't a time traveling scientist from however far in the future be considered a wizard if the time frame was the 16th century. Again with the blurry lines.

Click to expand...

Yes, time travel would be consider fantastic in any era before the 19th century, even if is were done through advanced technology.

Think also that the level of the surrounding world can be used to determine whther something might be possible. Cyrano de Bergerac's novels were science fiction, because he thought the methods used to get to the Moon and the Sun could work, but some people say they are fantasies, because the "science" was fantasy. Whose definitions are you going to use? The ones from the 16th century or from the 28th century?

Damian said:

why is it that genre lines are that blurry?

Click to expand...

Because nothing is certain. What one calls fact another can show is fallacy, and so on.

Damian said:

why is it that genre lines are that blurry?

Click to expand...

King Neptune said:

Because nothing is certain. What one calls fact another can show is fallacy, and so on.

Click to expand...

+1 to KN, with the addendum that genre lines are artificial distinctions, generally created by publishers to categorize and market stories. Stories often contain elements of more than one of these genres.

Is Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series - about a WWII nurse who is pulled back in time by a ring of stones in Scotland, where she encounters a Highland hottie and the tyrannical ancestor of her current-time husband - romance, sci-fi, fantasy, or general fiction? It can be said to contain elements of all four (romance - lots of time on the sizzling passion between the MC and the Scot; sci-fi - time travel, plus nothing really identifiable as outright magic, as the past appears to be identical to our own recorded history save the presence of a woman who doesn't technically belong there; fantasy - the time travel mechanics, at least in Book 1, mysteriously only work at certain times, and only on women, with a certain element of will/focus possibly involved, plus a circle of stones isn't exactly H. G. Wells's time machine so far as a tech or science explanation goes; general fiction - a woman finds herself lost in a foreign land, where she discovers her purpose and her true love), but I only ever see it in the romance or general fiction sections of my local B&N. There are also books that appear in multiple categories, but with different covers emphasizing different "angles".

snafu1056 said:

Some people might say magic is the dividing line. Both genres deal with the fantastic, but sci-fi tries to present it as advanced technology, whereas fantasy just says "a wizard did it."

Click to expand...

And then there's K. J. Parker, who writes fantasy with no magic whatsoever in it.

To me, the only definition that makes sense is, "Fantasy is what people who like fantasy novels read, and science fiction is what people who like science fiction novels read."

The book gets shelved where it will sell the most copies. That means the distinction between fantasy and science fiction is not a matter of accurately classifying the contents of a book, but of accurately classifying who that book will appeal to.

It's a tough distinction to make.

There's no clear line, just a multi-layered Venn diagram of tropes and genre conventions with lots of exceptions.

There are three kinds of genre: Academic, marketing, and what readers call it/what readers who read it self-identify as reading. They can often come to different conclusions.

There are various ways you can make a guess: setting, time period, tech level, tropes, whether "our" Earth exists in the world and how it's history compares to real Earth history, etc.

King Neptune said:

All fiction is fantasy.

Click to expand...

Interesting point, and it reminds me of a conversation with a writing buddy about how even stories set in the so-called "real" world, even in the here and now, involve world building. He argued that we all live in our own version of reality, and even when a writer is creating a story that reflects the truest reality as the writer understands it, he or she has to get the reader to buy that version. Their culture, values and personal experiences will drive what they present as "truth" and "fact." This may be the reason why it's the little things that sometimes knock readers out of novels, even fantasy novels.

We can argue about the "hard" versus "soft" SF lines, and when something becomes so implausible it's "magic" for all practical purposes. But for me, the line where something becomes SF or fantasy is partially one of aesthetics, at least in stories not set in the contemporary world. If you write something that feels like it's modeled off a historical setting, or invokes beings or creatures from mythology, it's likely to attract fantasy fans, even if the stuff in the story is scientifically plausible. If you write something that feels like a futuristic setting, it may appeal to a different sensibility than traditional fantasy, even if many elements of the setting seem improbable (like aliens that can breed with humans for no reason that makes any sense, or psychic powers that act a lot like magic).

jjdebenedictis said:

To me, the only definition that makes sense is, "Fantasy is what people who like fantasy novels read, and science fiction is what people who like science fiction novels read."

Click to expand...

Exactly, though there are so many subgenres of each these days, and relatively few readers would like everything that falls under SF and nothing that falls under fantasy or vice versa. Even subgenres that have some overlap, like MilSF and space opera, may differ in some important ways.

But there are expectations one has when they pick up a SF book that will be different from a fantasy, even when it's by an author who writes both (like Lois McMaster Bujold or Elizabeth Moon).

I once took a philosophy of science fiction class (yes, it was as fun as it sounds) and we spent the full hour arguing where the line between fantasy ends and science fiction begins. We never came to a consensus.

Plenty of books/films blur this line. Star Wars. Jupiter Ascending (the space royalty and design of the ships feels more fantasy). The Vagrant by Peter Newman does this, I think. Scott Lynch's series (who are the Elder? Are they aliens?). I play with a similar thing in my fantasy books, which are technically sci fi as there's no magic except for advanced tech.

There's the term "science fantasy," though it doesn't seem to be super popular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy

I think we see the line being blurred in movies more than in written fiction, but yeah, there are definitely some fantasy novels where it's possible the "gods" are really aliens, or a bygone civilization that had technology (and maybe left bits of it behind) that people in the story's here and now don't understand, beyond a few basic rules or pattern recognition.

Still, Lynch's book is classified as fantasy because of the aesthetic, which is that of an early modern era world with sailing ships and swords, and flintlocks, and a sort of renaissance-era level of social organization. I love that kind of setting, and everything about his premise, and I feel like they should be good comparable titles for my own fantasy. So it frustrates me that my first attempt to read TLoLL defeated me, because I just couldn't get into the characters and their problems the way I should have. Locke felt very cardboard to me, though some people say I just didn't read far enough.

He was a bit cardboard. Not my favorite rogue, really. Needs a tad more nuance.

There's also Richard (K) Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes series, which is firmly targeted at fantasy readers even though it's pretty clear after a while that the elves and dwarves are aliens and the magic voices in the sky are sentient satellites.

I think most of it comes down to aesthetics.

But I think a decent rule of thumb is that in science fiction, the speculative elements are justified as technology, in fantasy, the speculative elements are justified as the natural or supernatural, and in magic realism, the speculative elements are justified as metaphor.

Of course, it's possible for more than one of these to be true at once.

Hello everyone- first post.

Speaking only for myself, but I classify science fiction as a story in which some speculative aspect of the setting is essential for driving the plot (this is the famous "What If" element in sci-fi). In fantasy, the setting doesn't drive the plot so much (mostly because they are nearly all set in some version of the past- usually the European Dark Ages) and the plot is driven much more strongly by the contrasting morality of the main characters (usually "good vs. evil" or some such). In sci-fi, the plot literally cant happen or wouldn't make sense without the speculative element of the setting- imagine Dune without the desert conditions on Arrakis, Ender's Game without the Ansible, Star Trek without the Warp Drive, The Culture Series without sapient AI, etc. They don't work, because without those features there would be no story.

Fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones aren't driven by their settings, complex and well-developed as they are; they are driven by the presence of one or more deeply evil characters who want to conquer everything. Even magic isn't essential to fantasy- magic hardly drives the plot in Game of Thrones, and there are entire fantasy series with no magic at all. Usually the difference between the characters can be classified as "Good vs. Evil" but there are exceptions- in Michael Moorcock's series it was "Law vs. Chaos", and in Fritz Leiber's Grey Mouser series no one could be classified as "good", but the heroes demonstrate a sense of honor and fair play (while their opponents do not) that allows the reader to relate to them.

Star Wars is an interesting case, because it started out as Science Fantasy (a Fantasy story dressed up in science fiction tropes) but then changed when they introduced Midiclorians- now it's merely soft sci-fi. Steampunk I would propose as the exact opposite, that is science fiction stories dressed up in fantasy tropes- "Fantasy Science" as it were. Both are in-between cases.

I'm aware that there are exceptions, but I think this works reasonably well as a general rule.