Is science fantasy a thing? What can I get away with?

gtanders

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I have this WIP in which the crazy stuff is presented as "magic, that's just the way it is" for a good portion of the story.

Then, big reveal, MC finds out it isn't "magic" at all, but a scientific research project that failed to discover what it set out to discover. Instead, the project discovered the effect which the MC knows as "magic." The researcher has been studying it in secret for decades but still can't explain what's going on. The novel will end with no scientific explanation for the effect, only the MC's satisfaction at using this mysterious effect for tangible good.

I have no freakin way to explain the effect other than quantum entanglement. The problem is that in real life, entanglement breaks down when particles are "observed" by other particles, and I need this effect to remain in the story after interaction with other matter.

Am I good to leave this effect as scientifically unexplained in the narrative? This is character-driven fiction, not hard SF, but I don't know how rigorous people expect things to be.

Thanks everyone! :)
 

Woollybear

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I've been abused and hammered for using the phrase science fantasy. I'd stick with science fiction and if you have space add a qualifier. Light science fiction might (or might not) apply.
 

nickj47

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I read a lot of hard SF where the tech is never really explained, because it can't be. I've also read a lot of pseudo-explanations for advanced tech that didn't make a lot of sense either. Time travel (impossible IMO) is never explained. Same with FTL travel, although we all believe in wormholes. Or would like to. If you really want an explanation, I'd go ahead and use quantum theory, since we're all pretty sure we don't fully understand it anyway. In one of my stories I used quantum intelligence to explain away some impossible tech, without getting into too many details about what that was, exactly. So you could make something up.

My only concern is if the story leads the reader to think that what's going on really is magic, and therefore fantasy (my view of the genre anyway).
 

Metruis

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(points at the direction of Star Wars and the like...)

It sounds like your genre is fantasy, honestly. Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic, remember. Plus if we don't have the tech, it's very difficult to plausibly explain. I write stuff that smushes all the genres together and just call it speculative fiction. Have at it. As if someone who reads fantasy would be really upset by the twist that it turns out to be advanced science that is inexplicable to the protagonist, appearing like magic, and remains unexplained! Shenanigans! Write your novel.
 

gtanders

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I saw the term "science fantasy" on an agent's wishlist the other day, and it lined up with this dilemma, so I wondered.

It's a contemporary setting, and I think I can rely on the in-narrative fact that the researcher still can't explain the phenomenon to buttress my labeling it SF.

I hope.


No, I don't care. :tongue

Thanks everyone!
 

jjdebenedictis

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Science fantasy is a real thing, but it's a rare thing.

I got an agent for a book I called science fantasy in my query letter, but that was an agent who specialized in science fiction and fantasy. An agent who handles more genres might not know what it is, and when the book heads to bookstore shelves, it's going to be called either science fiction or fantasy regardless.
 

Brightdreamer

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If you set readers up to expect a hard SF explanation and fail to deliver, you will definitely run into Problems.

Since it sounds like you're doing something softer, you ought to be okay, provided you do a good stage magician's job - direct the audience to look where you want them to look, and see what you want them to see.

Yes, science fantasy is a thing, and has been for a while. Some of the SF/F divide, TBH, is more about tone and marketing than specific content. (My go-to example of this is Anne McCaffrey's Pernese dragons - who have abilities that seriously nudge fantasy lines - marketed as SF, while Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon books, with dragons who have far less line-nudging and are also alien life forms on another world, got marketed at Fantasy. Yolen herself has said that the reason was marketing, plain and simple... though McCaffrey was notoriously ornery about anyone suggesting Pern might be Fantasy.)

Read around. The blurring of lines, and soft science as an explanation for fantastic abilities/effects, is not new. Off the top of my head, David Brin wrote a somewhat forgettable outing, The Practice Effect, about a world where things "got better" with practice. You started with a rock tied to a stick, and after a while of swinging it at a tree it would become a stone axe, which could become a futuristic cutting tool if "practiced" enough... but, if neglected, it would slowly revert to the rock and the stick. Rich people had prisoners wear their clothing to "practice" them up from rags to robes fit for royalty. There was a sort of scientific explanation for it in the end - been a while since I read it, but it may have touched on quantum principles - but naturally for such an idea to have such radical application as to physically alter items and improve technology through simple use pushed it into realms that could easily qualify as Fantasy. (The guts of the plot was pretty much standard "scientist goes to weird other world, figures things out better than the natives, becomes hero, gets laid by beautiful lady" fare, often seen in portal adventures.) There are also books where "gods" are aliens or "aliens" are faeries and such.
 

Thomas Vail

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I'd say that doing fantastic things and then trying to give it a 'real' explanation might work, but to me just seems like a recipe for making readers end up going, 'wait, what? That's... not right.' Star Wars being a good example of that phenomena. There's plenty of fantastic sci-fi where psychic/technomany/whatever powers are just magic powers under another guise (See Mass Effect and 'biotics'). I don't really see much benefit to going too far down the rabbit hole of trying to explain how it _really_ works. Something internally consistent to your story would usually be the best choice.
 

Maxinquaye

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Isn't Science-Fantasy exactly what Star Wars is all about?

Absolutely. It has all the hall-marks of a fantasy story, including its own magic system. It's just that it also has space battles, and spaceships, and so on. Fantasy can be in the future just as much as in a past. Or it can be in the present, like Neil Gaiman's "Good omens".
 

Laer Carroll

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I'd suggest you focus on the story and make sure it works: likable or at least interesting hero/ine, a problem s/he has to solve, and a plot about h/ir struggles to solve it. THEN worry about how things work, the theory behind it, if you want to spend time on that. The story must come first if more people than you will become engaged in it.

It's rare in real life that we must know how things work. You flip a switch and light comes and goes. Why bother with how it works? For all we know, behind that switch are some bored fairies earning their daily starshine by providing electric power. If we had to explain the seeming magic of our everyday modern lives our books would never end.
___________________________________________

Joan said, "I can do all this fantastic stuff but I have no idea how it works. It just does. I'm sure there's some non-magical explanation, but it's beyond me. Besides, we've got to save Baby Jane from the terrorists NOW."

John said, "Probably something to do with quantum mechanics, or nano particles, or--WOW! Those bullets almost got me!"

Jane was too busy shooting fire bursts from her magic wand to answer. Men! Always with the mansplaining.
 
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Vhb_Rocketman

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Isn't Science-Fantasy exactly what Star Wars is all about?

caw

I think I would classify it more as a space opera. Since it's in space and involves spaceships. This is the first I've heard of Science-fantasy. Maybe Space Opera is just the most commen subcategory of science fantasy?
 

shadowsminder

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I think I would classify it more as a space opera. Since it's in space and involves spaceships. This is the first I've heard of Science-fantasy. Maybe Space Opera is just the most commen subcategory of science fantasy?

More like Star Wars stretches across sub-genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which is why it's often the poster child for Science Fantasy.

SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY
Space Opera ... Mythological fiction (+unique magical system)

The Secret of NIHM, Digimon, and Marvel's Thor movies are cited as other popular examples.
 

shadowsminder

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So, yes, Science Fantasy is a thing. Does this story fit?

The novel will end with no scientific explanation for the effect, only the MC's satisfaction at using this mysterious effect for tangible good.

Hmm... the science is weak. What about other sci-fi elements? Space ships, aliens, or a mad science that the characters describe as a wizards while readers recognize the scientific principles?

The description above looks to me as if it's for a fantasy story with a cry of "it's science!" ("midi-chlorians!") at the end.
 

mpack

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Am I good to leave this effect as scientifically unexplained in the narrative? This is character-driven fiction, not hard SF, but I don't know how rigorous people expect things to be.

If the narrative indicates the phenomenon has a scientific explanation, and if you treat it in a naturalistic manner, the story could fit into the bounds of science fiction. Plenty of science fiction has unexplained or handwaved technologies without them crossing over the border into fantasy. Consider, the android (Ash) in Alien. The slip drive in Scalzi's Old Man's War. The process of "sleeving" in Altered Carbon. The science behind these technologies remain unexplained.

On the other hand, if the cause of the phenomenon is never addressed, and if you treat in a mystical or occult fashion, the story might fit more comfortably in science fantasy (or even contemporary fantasy.) Science fantasy is certainly a distinct subgenre. Star Wars is a go-to example. The Marvel Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. King's Dark Tower series (especially The Waste lands and Wizard and Glass.) High levels of technology are explicitly mixed with magical phenomenon. For a somewhat less flashy version, consider Octavia Butler's Patternist series. However, your story doesn't appear to fit this category very well.

I suspect the answer lies in presentation and execution.
 

phantom000

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I saw the term "science fantasy" on an agent's wishlist the other day, and it lined up with this dilemma, so I wondered.

It's a contemporary setting, and I think I can rely on the in-narrative fact that the researcher still can't explain the phenomenon to buttress my labeling it SF.

I hope.


No, I don't care. :tongue

Thanks everyone!

My suggestion is to ask them what exactly they mean by 'science fantasy.' When I hear the term i think of something like Star Wars or Warhammer: 40,000 which are basically fantasy elements in a science-fiction setting. Dune isn't fantasy so much as it is Shakespeare and so is Star Trek but most people agree its not fantasy at all.

I think you should always ask what a agent means when they ask for something unusual like 'science fantasy' or a 'fantasy western.'