SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I would love to find out what people see as, at least loosely, definitions of science fiction and fantasy.


What spurred this on:

In a nomination thread, for deceased fantasy authors, I submitted The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle.

This was rejected as science fiction, not fantasy.

Reasons given, to me:

--dinosaurs are seen as science fiction (?)
--Bookreads shelves it, primarily, as science fiction.

My argument compares two books, Conan Doyle's "Lost World" and Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.

In the first, there is no science involved. None. It's an adventure to a magical realm in the middle of the jungles (as science fictiony as Tarzan), it includes dinosaurs, imaginary monsters that never existed and imaginary alternate sub-human species that never existed.

The other involves an island amusement park/zoo populated with dinosaurs created in a lab, with advanced genetics procedures.


One is fantasy, the other is science fiction. This seems clear, to me. What about you?

I have read the Sherlock Holmes books of Arthur Conan Doyle, but not The Lost World. Dinosaurs no longer exist, but they did once. A story about humans encountering dinosaurs in a hidden world, I would class as a fantasy. As the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were created by scientists with the use of machines, I would class that book as science fiction. If a story has magical, otherworldly elements to it, then I would class it as a fantasy. A story composed of strange events and strange worlds, governed by the use of machines, of this world or another, I would class as science fiction. A story that is classed as a mystery/thriller has the same problem as one classed science fiction/fantasy. When is a mystery no more than a mystery, without being confused with a thriller, and when is a thriller no more than a thriller, without being confused with a mystery? If people remembered the science in science fiction, they would be able to separate such works more clearly from works of fantasy.

There is no point in arguing about this (especially with the people in charge of the other thread). A very great many works could be argued either way. In fact the works that are clearly SF, or inarguably fantasy, are rather rare, Most books in the genre can shift in classification by simply changing the cover. Put a unicorn on it, and it's fantasy. A rocket ship, and it's SF.

Well, in general and very loosely, I'd say SF has a strong backbone of some type of science and Fantasy takes place in a world that is not our own, or not in our believable/explainable (hand wavy is okay because they make an effort lol) future.

Now it seems to me (and I haven't read it) that The Lost World is some kind of pocket area where evolution wasn't interfered with by humans and so it went all wonky. Not in a magical way, but in a weird science way (science for the times of Doyle).

So for me, that puts it in the SF arena with Jules Verne and HG Wells and stuff. But I could be wrong :)

When it was written, The Lost World wouldn't have been seen to be as unscientific as all that. There were still parts of the world that had yet to be explored by Europeans, and for all they knew there could be surviving dinosaurs somewhere. At the same time, the genre of science fiction as we know it today was just getting started, with writers such as Verne and Wells. I think it's meaningless to try to separate SF from Fantasy until a later date.

Brenda wrote: "There is no point in arguing about this (especially with the people in charge of the other thread)"

It was recommended, by the people in charge of the other thread (moderators) that I consider starting this thread.

So... you know.

If the made-up animals and humanoids were discovered on some other planet, wouldn't you call that science fiction? Why does it make a difference if the discovery happens to be made in a previously unknown region of our own planet?

Actually, if one must classify, I would call both Tarzan and The Lost World adventure stories, and leave it at that.

As I see it, fantasy is a broad umbrella that has had many sub-categories which come and go. Tall-tales, ghost stories, science fiction, high fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, etc, etc..

All of those categories involve a fantastic world that either does not exist or can only be guessed at. Traveling to other stars in a short time is as fantastic as a wizard's teleportation. We just have different justifications, for them.

Some people prefer one justification over another, some like mixing it up.

What I'm curious about is when a story becomes science fiction? At what point, with what element, does a story become undeniably science fiction? Obviously this is different, for different people, which is why every response given builds a better picture.

Margaret wrote: "If the made-up animals and humanoids were discovered on some other planet, wouldn't you call that science fiction? Why does it make a difference if the discovery happens to be made in a previously..."

It would be called science fiction because of the fact that humans would have had to travel to that other planet, most probably by spaceship. If the action started on that said planet and involved only indigenous life forms, then it could be called fantasy if no actual advanced technology or science is involved and if it involved any magic/supernatural/paranormal factors. If the action is on another planet, involves only indigenous life forms but no magic or supernatural things, then I would call it an adventure story in outer space.

I glanced at a couple of reviews of The Lost World and somebody said that it has scientists trying to explain the phenomenon using existing scientific theory. Is that correct?

Also, I'm curious what people would classify this as if the dinosaurs were removed.

I wish there was a way to classify as both or neither but still speculative fiction because I've run across this problem before. I was the one in the other thread who mentioned that Goodreads has this primarily listed as Sci-Fi. I typically go with what they pick if I'm in doubt. However, they do get it wrong. A prime example is The Orphan Master's Son which is primarily classified as historical fiction even though it takes place around 2008.

I've found a number of books of late that are called fantasy that I'd call science fiction. In some cases, the terms seem to be used interchangeably, which I definitely think is incorrect.

For science fiction, I define it as either having some sort of scientific / technology base (not necessarily polished and advanced) or futuristic. Fantasy covers a broader range of topics and, I suppose, is the fallback if you're not sure about science fiction.

I think these two genres go hand in hand at lot of the time. They both deal with characters going through extraordinary situations, but they also still have to be relatable, as well as intriguing.

I've not read the other thread.

I have read (several times) The Lost World. Doyle did consider Challenger's expedition to be of scientific merit. At the time it was written, there was a lot of room in unmapped lands for isolated plateaus, and a lot of speculation that very exciting discoveries were yet to be made. (Basically, I'm saying yes to Michele's post.) I consider this to be primitive SF.

James wrote: "As I see it, fantasy is a broad umbrella that has had many sub-categories which come and go. Tall-tales, ghost stories, science fiction, high fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, etc, etc..

All of t..."

I've never seen fantasy to be an umbrella term. In most discussions *that I've seen* and in my opinion. speculative fiction is the umbrella term. Fantasy (unicorns, sword&sorcery quests) and SF (rockets, What If questions) are subsets of Spec. Fic.

What's convenient about using the term Spec. Fic. is that it includes all the stories that were written before genres were defined, and all the stories that have elements of (say) both SF and Fantasy, or are Alternate History, or are otherwise difficult to classify, and horror, tall tales, etc.

Goodreads classifications are crowd-sourced and notoriously unreliable.

James wrote: "What I'm curious about is when a story becomes science fiction? At what point, with what element, does a story become undeniably science fiction? Obviously this is different, for different people, which is why every response given builds a better picture."

I divide it pretty simply: Fantasy is the literature of the impossible, while Science Fiction is the literature of the possible.

A lot of Ye Olde Scientifiction has since been superseded by known science -- either by simple technological progress overtaking it (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) or by science disproving something (Niven's short "The Coldest Place") -- but those things ought to be grandfathered in because they were believed possible by the science of the day.

The Lost World falls squarely into this latter group for me. Regardless of whether or not it's *good* SF is immaterial beyond the fact that Doyle attempted scientific explanations for what was going on.

Until fairly recently, we shared the planet with a number of other sentient hominid species, Neanderthal being the last. So a lost race of "ape-men" living on in some remote corner of the Earth isn't much of a stretch, especially a hundred years ago when there were still great tracts of the globe apparently unexplored.

Rebecca wrote: "For science fiction, I define it as either having some sort of scientific / technology base (not necessarily polished and advanced) or futuristic. Fantasy covers a broader range of topics and, I suppose, is the fallback if you're not sure about science fiction.
"

I don't think either genre covers more topics than the other. There aren't any limitations to either one.

Sarah wrote: "I glanced at a couple of reviews of The Lost World and somebody said that it has scientists trying to explain the phenomenon using existing scientific theory. Is that correct?

Yes. They speculate about the types of dinosaurs and the ape-men.

Sarah wrote: "Also, I'm curious what people would classify this as if the dinosaurs were removed."

Dinosaurs are the point of the story, though. Take them out and it kind of loses its motivation. It becomes just a wild, unusual place. Since this was based on actual explorations of the Amazon, you could read those books instead.

There have been Fantasy versions of this type of story. Most recently the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, but also Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson.

Sarah wrote: "I glanced at a couple of reviews of The Lost World and somebody said that it has scientists trying to explain the phenomenon using existing scientific theory. Is that correct?"

Let me counter with another question:

If the story had a wizard who cast spells and a couple scientists who attempted to explain the magic spells scientifically... would you call that science fiction?

We've probably all seen some type of horror or fantasy movie or tv show where some misguided soul attempts to explain away the magic/supernatural, with science. Their presence has no effect on whether it actually is science fiction.

Trike I like your divide at impossible vs possible. This would have helped me classify a difficult recent book.

Actually, you pretty much answered all of my questions and taking the dinosaurs out does sound rather pointless.

James, I hadn't read the book so I was clarifying rather than judging.

To your question I would say yes if there was a scientific explanation, and no if the scientists were unable to explain it.

Cheryl wrote: "What's convenient about using the term Spec. Fic. is..."

The problem with the more recent "speculative fiction" is that all fiction ever written is speculative ("engaged in, expressing, or based on conjecture rather than knowledge.") fiction.

And I suspect that the average person has never even heard the term.

Trike wrote: "James wrote: "I divide it pretty simply: Fantasy is the literature of the impossible, while Science Fiction is the literature of the possible."

Find a good scientist who will let the words "x is impossible" leave his lips, and I'll reconsider that idea.

Science fiction regularly deals with what, to the best of our knowledge, may be impossible. But may not. So I can't see how you draw that line.



How do you determine impossible vs possible? Even within our current understanding of the universe?

James wrote: "Let me counter with another question:

If the story had a wizard who cast spells and a couple scientists who attempted to explain the magic spells scientifically... would you call that science fiction?

We've probably all seen some type of horror or fantasy movie or tv show where some misguided soul attempts to explain away the magic/supernatural, with science. Their presence has no effect on whether it actually is science fiction."

This depends on how it's treated. Generally in a Fantasy story (usually Horror, which is really just Scary Fantasy), the person who tries to come up with a rational explanation is eventually shown to be wrong, because at its heart Fantasy still holds to the conceit that "the world is ultimately unknowable." The characters have to accept what they're presented with is something beyond their ken.

That said, there are plenty of apparent Fantasy tales where a person comes up with a rational explanation and that person is proven right. Which handily removes it from the Fantasy genre. The most famous example is Scooby Doo.

That said, recently there has been a convergence of SF and Fantasy into what's called Hard Fantasy.

On the SF side, they offer scientific explanations for typical Fantasy tropes. The virus that causes zombies or vampires, for instance. Or a genetically-engineered horse that has a horn growing from its forehead. That's a scientific unicorn.

On the Fantasy side there are books like Lyndon Hardy's Master of the Five Magics or Brandon Sanderson's novels where magic has specific rules and is treated like a science one can learn.

Really, it's in how the typical tropes are treated. A zombie virus would be Science Fiction, while Hardy and Sanderson are still clearly writing Fantasy.

Sarah wrote: "James, I hadn't read the book so I was clarifying rather than judging.

To your question I would say yes if there was a scientific explanation, and no if the scientists were unable to explain it."

It's hard to come up with a Fantasy trope that can't also be altered in some way to be science fictional, really. It just depends on which side the author comes down on.

If they see a guy riding a flying carpet, most people would think it's pure magic. But suppose there were a breakthrough in antigravity or electromagnetic levitation. Now you've switched it up. After all, we've had levitating trains for decades now. It's not completely unreasonable to think someone might be able to both miniaturize that technology and increase its power so that it could be built into something that appeared to be a carpet.

If the author shows that the person speculating about electromagnetism is wrong, it stays Fantasy. But if it's ultimately shown to be true, it switches to Science Fiction. Depends on which way the author wants the red herring to misdirect the reader.

The invisibility cloak is a staple in Fantasy, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, but we're on the verge of actually creating one in real life. They've already managed it with live video feeds projected onto a cloak, and recently scientists were able to bend light to make a very tiny object disappear. Another group is looking into camouflage based on the way certain mollusks behave, by controlling pixels in their skin. It's not "true" invisibility but it is "effective" invisibility.

It's not unreasonable to project technology a couple hundred years into the future where soldiers have suits that are like the Predator's, able to bend light effectively enough that the wearer essentially becomes invisible. To an unsophisticated audience, that looks like magic.

James wrote: "How do you determine impossible vs possible? Even within our current understanding of the universe? "

We know some things are impossible. For instance, we know how an internal combustion engine works. You can't pour water in the gas tank and expect it to run. Therefore a car that runs on water is impossible.

But, a car that runs on electricity and has a hydrogen fuel cell as its power source can run on water. All you need is a method of safely cracking the H2O into its constituent parts. Which we've been able to do since the 1800s.

So if you see someone fill their car's tank with water and it drives off normally with the whine of motors rather than the roar of engines, you know it's a hydrogen-powered electric car.

Impossible v. possible.

Some things we don't know about. I say that as long as we don't know something is impossible, let it into the genre as long as the author makes a stab at a plausible explanation.

Lots of people will assert with vigor that both time travel and faster than light travel are impossible, and any story with either of those two things is Fantasy.

Thing is, there are actual physicists who think that both time travel and FTL are possible. Some of them believe the two are inextricably bound together because of Relativity and FTL means time travel. Weirder still, they also think that cause and effect become decoupled, so the Grandfather Paradox no longer holds true.

However, they also say that while it is possible, it's also highly unlikely that we will ever do either of these things. Still, there was a recent shift in thinking that figured out creating a timespace-tunneling wormhole would not actually require all the energy in the universe but just a doable fraction of it. Not something we'd be able to accomplish any time soon, but it brings the concept of traveling through time closer to reality.

Until we know for sure either of those things are impossible, I say we let them into the genre.

Many people debate whether or not the dragons in McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series could actually exist. The answer is simple: no. Despite the author's insistence that Pern is SF, the dragons have abilities that simply can't work in nature as we understand it. Beyond teleporting through time and space and having psychic abilities, the dragons simply can't fly as described. We know how the aerodynamics of such creatures would work, and McCaffrey's dragons don't. They certainly couldn't carry the loads described in the book.

Maybe a lot of the tech in Star Trek has come true or is possible, but we know for a fact that someone like Mr. Spock is a biological impossibility. Even if you ignore the preposterous amount of coincidences required for parallel evolution to arrive at two species in different parts of the universe being able to mate (even invoking the aliens who supposedly seeded the galaxy) just the fact he has copper blood means he can't exist. Either Amanda's body would have treated him like an infection or Sarek's bodily fluids would have poisoned her. Copper toxicity is a real (and pretty horrible) thing. She would essentially be giving birth to an octopus.

So a lot of it is common sense. If it's an edge case like FTL, I give it a pass and let it into the genre.

Wow, those are long. I'm a wordy bastige, ain't I?

Trike wrote: "So a lot of it is common sense. If it's an edge case like FTL, I give it a pass and let it into the genre. "

Trike wrote: "This depends on how it's treated."

Basically, "I know it when I see it".

This is the obvious approach and I guess, in the end, is probably unavoidable. But the problem is that it only increases contention, whenever the question arises, if we have no more then "it's what I think".

For example, I can understand that The Lost World was science fiction, of its time. And I can understand that it is (and was, to scientists in the early 1900s) fantasy.

(surely no 1910 scientist thought it plausible that "The Lost World" could be true)

So both can be argued. I know this.

I guess there's no way of working with this. When you have the reality that the presence of a test tube leaves some people thinking "science fiction and that's the end of it", you end up with science fiction dominating. And fantasy is whatever isn't science fiction or contemporary fiction.

I don't like it, but there's little to do about it, I suppose.

There's a problem that people tend to up-sell literature from a century ago.

Example Frankenstein, where the good Dr. clearly and explicitly uses alchemy in the actual physical creation of his monster. (although this is compounded by the movies, where purely scientific methods are used) The novel is about a golem created. The inclusion of electricity hardly makes it science fiction, anymore then the presence of electricity makes the tv series Supernatural science fiction.

And that's the main problem, I suppose. I don't believe that, in its time, The Lost World would have been considered science-based, by scientists. But if Frankenstein, with it's alchemical golem, is science fiction, then I can never argue the point about a movie with a professor as the main character.

Trike wrote: "Wow, those are long. I'm a wordy bastige, ain't I?"

I trimmed and cut and eliminated entire paragraphs, so I hear 'ya.

Trike wrote: "James wrote: "I divide it pretty simply: Fantasy is the literature of the impossible, while Science Fiction is the literature of the possible...."

I like this description -- clear and simple. However, as has been discussed above, sometimes what is possible vs. impossible is debatable. I may re-visit some of the books that seem incorrectly classed to me and see if I'd change my answer.

What about professor X?
Is X-men science fiction in that it's evolution that sparks the changes, and the inclusion of space traveling people at times, or is it fantasy because telepathy and Lazer beam eyes aren't really a thing, and gems can't turn people into unstoppable Juggernauts...

I think the Lost World straddles that fine line of SF/F that it could be argued either way. In my opinion, at the time it was Fantasy. However, things today that we know as advanced science could have seemed magical to the people of a hundred plus years ago.

So the answer to the original question is: are we determining genre based on its written intent, or based on its current perception?

This question has been beaten thoroughly like the proverbial dead horse.

There is no universal answer to the OP quesion, other than something like:

"The difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction is like Art: one cannot define it, but one knows it when one sees it. And no one will convince you that you saw otherwise."

Nathan wrote: "I think the Lost World straddles that fine line of SF/F that it could be argued either way

Bingo.

Micah wrote: ""The difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction is like Art: one cannot define it, but one knows it when one sees it. And no one will convince you that you saw otherwise." "

Except that's not an answer. It's a cop-out.

I say you base if off written intent. My question for Lost World is, is there more then 1 kind of fantasy magical thing. Normally I feel that what if sci-fi has a caveat where one kind of unexplained fantasy thing is allowed to happen in order to be the what if.

Pern or at least the first few is like the opposite of this. It's 1 sci-fi thing happened in order to allow all the fantasy.

Nathan wrote: "What about professor X?
Is X-men science fiction in that it's evolution that sparks the changes, and the inclusion of space traveling people at times, or is it fantasy because telepathy and Lazer b..."

Actually superpowered fiction is normally just put in it's own genre, though it's a very close cousin of Hard Fantasy.

Don't forget things can be both at the same time. Fantasy and sci-fi are not opposite sides of the scale.

James wrote: "Except that's not an answer. It's a cop-out..."

I don't think so.

From the endless discussions I've seen on the topic, it's clear that the difference between the two is in the eye of the beholder. Just like Art.

There is no universally acceptable demarcation. That's just the way genres are. And books clearly break with genre all the time, grabbing from here, from there, from elsewhere as the author desires.

Is sushi made with smoked salmon and cream cheese Japanese or Amercian food? What about inside-out maki rolls?

The answer is they're both and neither.

Same way with much of SF and F.

To me, the difference is clear when I look at a specific book. But I've found that is definitely not the case for others, and just like politics and religion, there's no convincing someone who sees a particular work differently.

Subjective is not a cop out.

Micah wrote: "Subjective is not a cop out. "

Offering your opinion is, by definition, subjective. But saying that there is no real opinion is a cop out.

I understand that genre is an artificial construction that can not encompass the reality of written fiction. This should be obvious to anyone.

But you have your own guidelines. You have your own ideas, perceptions, categorization methods. You know what makes a story science fiction or fantasy. For you.

That's what I'm asking, at this point.

Should I start a new thread, to clarify that?

As long as you're not after absolutes, then like I said, I know the difference when I see it.

I haven't read the work mentioned in the OP, so I don't know about that. But to me, if the story is predominately set in a future or high tech setting, and/or things are explained with some kind of scientific reasoning (no matter how bogus or handwavium it is), then it's SF.

If magical things are explained with supernatural or non-technical, non-scientific means, or not at all; if the setting is not given some reference to the real world (be that on Earth or other planets)...if it's obvious the author is not trying to make the strange stuff part of the possible world--it's fantasy.

But there are works that defy all that and there's no point pidgeonholing them. Perdido Street Station, for example. It's SF/Fantasy/Horror. If you want to slap some more creative sub-genre on it, be my guest.

And there is, as some earlier poster pointed out, a steady evolution. A work that was clearly SF when it was written (LOST WORLD is one, IMO, as are things like THE TIME MACHINE) can shift into fantasy, as we learn more about Mars, or dinosaurs, or Einsteinian physics. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about Mars -- SF without a doubt in his day. But not today.

At the end of the day you can ask 50 people and get 50 different answers. Genres are subjective. I was at a panel yesterday where Patrick Rothfuss, Peter V. Brett, Steven Erikson, Robin Hobb and Peter Orullian debated what makes fantasy books and there was no consensus. Most of them agreed that science-fiction should be a subgenre of fantasy.

As moderators Penny and I have to walk a tight line but the fact is you can't please everyone.

Cheryl wrote: "Goodreads classifications are crowd-sourced and notoriously unreliable."

I disagree with this statement. Genres are crowd-sourced. If enough people call a book fantasy then like it not that's what it is. There will always be edge cases.

Micah wrote: "Perdido Street Station, for example. It's SF/Fantasy/Horror. If you want to slap some more creative sub-genre on it, be my guest."

There's already a term for it, New Weird. Authors like Mieville and VanderMeer are seen to be the main writers of this modern blend of sci-fi/fantasy/horror and successors to the styles of authors like H.P. Lovecraft.

I think it is as much about how the question is framed as it is possible v. impossible. Science fiction posits a alteration from our reality and the narrative is a device to better understand the question. There is generally a "what if" involved. In fantasy the unexplained deviations can be accepted without justification.

In Harry Potter you don't ask "where did magic come from", "how do the physics of magic work", "what are the consequences of the various energy transfers". It is the interpersonal relationships and politics that fuel that narrative. Same with Star Wars; future, space, but the narrative focus is not scientific.

This is the fundamental breakdown in the TV show Lost. They laid out a narrative framework that was science fiction. "What is the smoke monster", "what do the numbers mean", "why is navigation impaired", "what is the deal with the four toed statue". But in the end they answered "magic". If they had told the audience from the start it was Fantasy Island people could have enjoyed the show on its actual merits rather than the story they thought they were being told.

Another way of looking at it would be "God-made" vs "human-made."

I don't mean that in the literal sense, but in the abstract.

For instance: angels traveling through time and space by focusing vs Vulcans using a worm hole. They're both doing the same thing, though one is overcoming the natural law of physics by their own free will, and one is using technology.

If it was always that easy, then this debate wouldn't happen. Like I said earlier, you have intent vs perception, and an evolution of what is fantasy vs science. Take the "God Particle" in Switzerland, for example. They're basically doing magic to people of the 1600's, but it's just science to us.

Basically, grey questions demand hard, unruly answers. So, let's give the SF/F question a try, even though both are basically the same thing.

If you look at the movie Lucy, the main character is doing all sorts of God-like stuff. She can shape shift, control other people's bodily functions, subvert time, and basically do things that we know (right now, anyway) aren't possible. However, she can do it because some drug opened up her entire brain for use.

Scy-fy or fantasy? The answer? Complete garbage, that movie sucked.... I mean, SF.

Why? It attempted to explain, ever so briefly, why she was able to do the things she did. It didn't go deep, but it gave an answer.

On the flip side, we don't know why Daenerys and other Targaryens are able to walk into fire and not be burned, other than the fact she is really, really HOTTTTT already, but something about their bloodlines prevents it. It's fantasy because it just is.

So, to answer the OP, does the LOST WORLD attempt to explain why things are the way they are? If yes, it's SF. If not, it' Fantasy.

I prefer the term science-fantasy to describe the millions of titles out their that balance the line.

So Rick does this mean you would consider a series that asks these questions "where did magic come from", "how do the physics of magic work", "what are the consequences of the various energy transfers" and many more a work of Science Fiction?

What fantasy, science fiction, and related things have in common is that they have things in them that are surprising or actually false compared to our consensus reality. I subdivide this kind of thing into genres based on what authority it appeals to to justify the differences. When it appeals to science, I call it science fiction. When it doesn't attempt a justification, or appeals to beliefs that I don't think the author believes ("magic" covers a lot of those) then I call it fantasy. I think that puts me in a similar school to Micah except I'm less fond of the word "subjective."

By my definitions, The Lost World is pretty clearly science fiction. Living dinosaurs and pterodactyls don't really exist, but it's through science that we even have the concept of dinosaurs and pterodactyls, and Doyle has a scientist discover them through scientific exploration. The completely imaginary animals are supposed to have come into being through Darwinian evolution, which is another appeal to science. By contrast, a book where people went to an undiscovered plateau and found dragons there would typically either avoid bringing science into the picture, or make a big deal out of how science couldn't explain them, and would therefore meet my definition of fantasy. For the record, I think Tarzan is science fiction too, at least based on my hazy memories.

All this is not to say I think there's such a thing as wrong definitions. Definitions are not statements and cannot be right or wrong. But given the definition I use, it's objective to say that e.g. The Lost World meets it.

Science tells you how to clone a dinosaur.

Science fiction tells you why this is a bad idea.

Fantasy is more or less the same, but with dragons instead of dinosaurs.

Kim wrote: "At the end of the day you can ask 50 people and get 50 different answers. Genres are subjective"

I agree. My point is to get actual, subjective, answers. Rather then, "I don't know... can't say". Because you can say, for yourself.

That's what I'd like to hear: how does a story become scifi or fantasy, in your mind?


Kim wrote: "If enough people call a book fantasy then like it not that's what it is."

No.

Now you are describing something objective and you've already agreed that genre is subjective. It can't be whichever serves the argument.

If X-Number of people call a book fantasy, then X-Number of people have called a book fantasy. That's how subjective works: the opinions don't define the thing being described.

What are you, personal definitions?

rick. wrote: "In Harry Potter you don't ask "where did magic come from", "how do the physics of magic work", "what are the consequences of the various energy transfers". It is the interpersonal relationships and politics that fuel that narrative. Same with Star Wars; future, space, but the narrative focus is not scientific."

Actually, many fantasies deal with conservation of resources and consequences of abuse of magic and etc.. And many scifi novels make no reference to where the fuel for spaceships comes from... or even what the fuel is.

Specificity is not unique to either genre.

Nathan wrote: "So, to answer the OP, does the LOST WORLD attempt to explain why things are the way they are? If yes, it's SF. If not, it' Fantasy."

But there are fantasy works that attempt to explain how/where certain magics/creatures/things are the way they are.

And there is science fiction that simply tells the tale and makes no efforts to explain such things.

Micah wrote: "But to me, if the story is predominately set in a future or high tech setting, and/or things are explained with some kind of scientific reasoning (no matter how bogus or handwavium it is), then it's SF.

If magical things are explained with supernatural or non-technical, non-scientific means, or not at all; if the setting is not given some reference to the real world (be that on Earth or other planets)...if it's obvious the author is not trying to make the strange stuff part of the possible world--it's fantasy."

Thanks. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.