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Post by tuigirl on Jun 10, 2019 7:39:34 GMT
I have been to an excellent interactive talk by two German SciFi and Fantasy authors at the convention and the question was- what is the difference between the genres or are they both the same? They gave lots of great examples and dismantled them piece by piece, the most famous might be that Star Wars is basically Fantasy and Star Trek is SciFi. Or is it ? Because things like magic and dragons and semi- scientific explanations for why things work exist in both genres. Same with past and future- there are fantasy stories in the future and SciFi in the past. All the while having a lively discussion with the audience. In the end, we went down to the basics and Fantasy appears to be more about the characters, individuals and their journey and the base science of writing would be psychology, while in SciFi, it is about societies and how they work and are build and the base science would be sociology.
I personally agree with one of the writers (he is one of my favorites) who says that in reality, you cannot draw a clean line and the differences become more and more muddled. You just cannot put a good story in a box and slap a general label on it. I personally also do not really care about what genre a good story is, really, if I enjoy it. I have been pleasantly surprised before when I started out with a story and thought it was a certain genre and it turned out to be something completely different. Famous example- I got the girl with all the gifts recommended to me as an awesome SciFi novel, however, it belongs to a genre I do not like very much. At all. But I really loved the book! Would I have bought it had I known that it really was of that certain genre, even if the person said it was very good? Most likely not.
Long story short- this got me thinking. What genre is Doctor Who? Seeing all the points made by the talk, it would fit Fantasy best. Of course deviating into everything else, too, but the base would be fantasy, right?
What do you think? I am really curious what you think of this discussion, what you prefer or if you are like me and open for anything.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2019 8:48:43 GMT
Ooh, Doctor Who's definitely in the science fiction camp for me, but there's 1,500 years of variation to cast doubt on what exactly that means. If you're speaking in terms of SF being a means of commentating on the anxieties and phobias of the time, you could not do any better than The Daleks. A story set in a radioactive hellscape populated with mutated remnants of a former world that tipped itself over the edge. Coming only a year or so after the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably the closest humankind has come to an atomic firestorm, it's extremely provocative stuff. Likewise, the decision to explore the consequences of unswerving pacificsm in the face of a re-emerging horror. We've distance from them in the twenty-first century now, but they're not light subject matter. Something that feels very much the purview of science fiction.
That said, the expedition towards the end of the adventure could easily have been taken from the pages of Tolkien's Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The character work and heavy emphasis on the power of individuals rather than wider communities points to the traditional ideas of fantasy. As do the concept of the Thals themselves as creatures that have come "full circle" from their mutation and become human once more. Although, I find the idea of "fantasy = individuals" or "sci-fi = communities" being a bit reductivist, to be honest. There are a lot of really great personal character stories that would fall under the traditional scope of space opera or action-adventure. Likewise, there are explorations of alien cultures that exist solely within the sword-and-sorcery of what's commonly perceived to be fantasy.
Doctor Who taps into both ends of this spectrum with its future stories and past historicals, so there's quite a bit of overlap. Occasionally, writers decide to throw a future historical at us where all the tropes of a tale from history are intertwined with starships and lasguns. The idea that one particular genre could be tut-tutted as too lowbrow for it kind of betrays the flexibility of the format. There's no other show that can almost invisibly slip into another setting's ruleset without much grief. Sometimes it even gives us The War Games or The Holy Terror to lull us into a false sense of security regarding one particular story's genre. Even if you narrowed it down to that box, science fiction can cover cyberpunk, solar punk, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, comedic, romantic, Romantic (with a capital 'R'), space operas, space westerns, sword-and-planet, military, kaiju, first contact, gothic, hard, soft... The list goes on.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2019 8:50:06 GMT
I appreciate the need to draw lines for marketing and things but honestly I like you said in the second paragraph often don't care if something is a bit more fantasy than sci0fi, or the reverse. If I like it, I like it and if I don't, I don't.
The genius of Who is that it never needs to be sci-fi or fantasy - it can be one, both or neither depending on the story. It can also be romance, adventure, farce, historical drama, tragedy, epic and all sorts. Gary Russell's era of BF showed this best with stories that were just absoutely pushing the boundaries of what Doctor Who "is", putting the show in contexts we'd never seen. A lot of releases now tend to lean more on the sci-fi side and play down the fantasy (or fantastical) and adventure which is a bit of a shame. I do think the most appealing thing about Who is that it can do things no other show can - completely changing genre, cast, setting and tone every time.
I would like to see the show on TV take a few more leaps too. Did Rosa or Punjab need alien threats? I imagine that the mandate to always have a monster that RTD spoke about is, if not still an officially a BBC edict, then an unwritten rule. Yet a pure historical would be great. The show on TV was at it's weakest when doing sci-fi this past year. Tsurngra Conumdrum, the finale...pretty weak. Yet the pseudo historicals and the fantasy (which It Takes You Away most certainly is) were highlights of the year. Yet I don't think any ep was good because of its genre but because of the writing. The Chibnall sci-fi eps were just not written well compared to Rosa, Punjab and Takes You Away. Not because they were sci-fi just because the writing wasn't there.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Jun 10, 2019 8:58:02 GMT
Long story short- this got me thinking. What genre is Doctor Who? It is a genre all of its own, it transcends any genre pigeonhole you try to put it in.
It just is ..... Doctor Who!
And we all love it
And that's all anyone can really say about it.
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Post by tuigirl on Jun 10, 2019 8:59:01 GMT
Ooh, Doctor Who's definitely in the science fiction camp for me, but there's 1,500 years of variation to cast doubt on what exactly that means. If you're speaking in terms of SF being a means of commentating on the anxieties and phobias of the time, you could not do any better than The Daleks. A story set in a radioactive hellscape populated with mutated remnants of a former world that tipped itself over the edge. Coming only a year or so after the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably the closest humankind has come to an atomic firestorm, it's extremely provocative stuff. Likewise, the decision to explore the consequences of unswerving pacificsm in the face of a re-emerging horror. We've distance from them in the twenty-first century now, but they're not light subject matter. Something that feels very much the purview of science fiction. That said, the expedition towards the end of the adventure could easily have been taken from the pages of Tolkien's Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The character work and heavy emphasis on the power of individuals rather than wider communities points to the traditional ideas of fantasy. As do the concept of the Thals themselves as creatures that have come "full circle" from their mutation and become human once more. Although, I find the idea of "fantasy = individuals" or "sci-fi = communities" being a bit reductivist, to be honest. There are a lot of really great personal character stories that would fall under the traditional scope of space opera or action-adventure. Likewise, there are explorations of alien cultures that exist solely within the sword-and-sorcery of what's commonly perceived to be fantasy. Doctor Who taps into both ends of this spectrum with its future stories and past historicals, so there's quite a bit of overlap. Occasionally, writers decide to throw a future historical at us where all the tropes of a tale from history are intertwined with starships and lasguns. The idea that one particular genre could be tut-tutted as too lowbrow for it kind of betrays the flexibility of the format. There's no other show that can almost invisibly slip into another setting's ruleset without much grief. Sometimes it even gives us The War Games or The Holy Terror to lull us into a false sense of security regarding one particular story's genre. Even if you narrowed it down to that box, science fiction can cover cyberpunk, solar punk, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, comedic, romantic, Romantic (with a capital 'R'), space operas, space westerns, sword-and-planet, military, kaiju, first contact, gothic, hard, soft... The list goes on. I always like what you write because it always sounds way more scholarly than my own thoughts. Well made points. So we both appear to be on the same side, in that we both believe that these genres are an artificial construct and you just cannot put a great story into a neatly labeled little box.... love your who examples, too. And I think War Games is a Great example of a subversive story switching genres... I think time meddler right be another. Both very well done.
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Post by tuigirl on Jun 10, 2019 9:15:21 GMT
I appreciate the need to draw lines for marketing and things but honestly I like you said in the second paragraph often don't care if something is a bit more fantasy than sci0fi, or the reverse. If I like it, I like it and if I don't, I don't. The genius of Who is that it never needs to be sci-fi or fantasy - it can be one, both or neither depending on the story. It can also be romance, adventure, farce, historical drama, tragedy, epic and all sorts. Gary Russell's era of BF showed this best with stories that were just absoutely pushing the boundaries of what Doctor Who "is", putting the show in contexts we'd never seen. A lot of releases now tend to lean more on the sci-fi side and play down the fantasy (or fantastical) and adventure which is a bit of a shame. I do think the most appealing thing about Who is that it can do things no other show can - completely changing genre, cast, setting and tone every time. I would like to see the show on TV take a few more leaps too. Did Rosa or Punjab need alien threats? I imagine that the mandate to always have a monster that RTD spoke about is, if not still an officially a BBC edict, then an unwritten rule. Yet a pure historical would be great. The show on TV was at it's weakest when doing sci-fi this past year. Tsurngra Conumdrum, the finale...pretty weak. Yet the pseudo historicals and the fantasy (which It Takes You Away most certainly is) were highlights of the year. Yet I don't think any ep was good because of its genre but because of the writing. The Chibnall sci-fi eps were just not written well compared to Rosa, Punjab and Takes You Away. Not because they were sci-fi just because the writing wasn't there. Yeah, I agree with you there. Demons of Punjab and Rosa did not need aliens or time travelers, they would have been strong enough without. I actually thought that the aliens did really distract from the real story. I fear with this dogma of always having monsters in there, the show is pidgeonholing itself and limiting its potential. This is one of the reasons I like BF, where we can get real historic stories without aliens, some great horror like in night thoughts and pretty much any genre including a musical. Although sadly recently I got the impression BF also have limited their scope a bit... however, things like „no place“ and „the Brocken clock“ are Great efforts to play with subverting common TV genres. And Chibnalls writing is a completely different kettle of fish... I just had a laugh when I watched him in this DVD extra of the 6th Doctor era where he appears in a Talkshow in his youth and criticizing the writing of the TV show back in the day... the level of irony is through the roof. But I am happy to see that other people are also happy to see fluent genres and genre mixing and I am not the only one...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2019 10:52:43 GMT
Ooh, Doctor Who's definitely in the science fiction camp for me, but there's 1,500 years of variation to cast doubt on what exactly that means. If you're speaking in terms of SF being a means of commentating on the anxieties and phobias of the time, you could not do any better than The Daleks. A story set in a radioactive hellscape populated with mutated remnants of a former world that tipped itself over the edge. Coming only a year or so after the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably the closest humankind has come to an atomic firestorm, it's extremely provocative stuff. Likewise, the decision to explore the consequences of unswerving pacificsm in the face of a re-emerging horror. We've distance from them in the twenty-first century now, but they're not light subject matter. Something that feels very much the purview of science fiction. That said, the expedition towards the end of the adventure could easily have been taken from the pages of Tolkien's Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The character work and heavy emphasis on the power of individuals rather than wider communities points to the traditional ideas of fantasy. As do the concept of the Thals themselves as creatures that have come "full circle" from their mutation and become human once more. Although, I find the idea of "fantasy = individuals" or "sci-fi = communities" being a bit reductivist, to be honest. There are a lot of really great personal character stories that would fall under the traditional scope of space opera or action-adventure. Likewise, there are explorations of alien cultures that exist solely within the sword-and-sorcery of what's commonly perceived to be fantasy. Doctor Who taps into both ends of this spectrum with its future stories and past historicals, so there's quite a bit of overlap. Occasionally, writers decide to throw a future historical at us where all the tropes of a tale from history are intertwined with starships and lasguns. The idea that one particular genre could be tut-tutted as too lowbrow for it kind of betrays the flexibility of the format. There's no other show that can almost invisibly slip into another setting's ruleset without much grief. Sometimes it even gives us The War Games or The Holy Terror to lull us into a false sense of security regarding one particular story's genre. Even if you narrowed it down to that box, science fiction can cover cyberpunk, solar punk, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, comedic, romantic, Romantic (with a capital 'R'), space operas, space westerns, sword-and-planet, military, kaiju, first contact, gothic, hard, soft... The list goes on. I always like what you write because it always sounds way more scholarly than my own thoughts. Well made points. So we both appear to be on the same side, in that we both believe that these genres are an artificial construct and you just cannot put a great story into a neatly labeled little box.... love your who examples, too. And I think War Games is a Great example of a subversive story switching genres... I think time meddler right be another. Both very well done. Yup, we are, and thanks, that's my English Major typing. Yeah, some of the best stories come from that explicit denial of boxing itself into a specific genre. Terry Pratchett's Discworld, for instance, could be described as science fiction stories set within fantasy trappings. Where Star Wars put the wizards in outer space, Pratchett put outer space within the wizards. Blake's 7 is another, with very strong ties to the premise of Robin Hood, particularly early on with Blake (Robin), Travis (Guy of Gisbourne) and Servalan (the Sheriff). It's how fiction works, all the colours on the palette -- whether they come from the same paintbox or not -- make a picture on the easel.
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Post by Digi on Jun 10, 2019 11:27:00 GMT
In my understanding, the (broad stroke) difference between SF and F is that one is plausible even if it's not currently possible, and the other is just purely imaginary.
Sci-Fi: Star Trek imagines a world with instantaneous communication, artificial gravity, phasers, FTL space travel. We now have instantaneous communication, we can simulate gravity with rotation, it's not currently technically feasible but we can imagine directed energy weapons, and FTL...well, that's just a gimme in any space-based story. Although, there is an attempt to make it scientifically feasible in that 'warp bubbles' apparently reduce the ship's mass in order that it can defy e=mc^2 (even if that's not possible by the laws of physics as we currently understand them).
Fantasy: LOTR imagines a world populated with sentient species entirely unrelated to humanity -- immortal Elves, long-lived Dwarves, sentient trees, sentient eagles, etc. It's a world where wizards can summon light and fire by pointing a stick and concentrating and/or yelling. A world where the most concentrated evil in creation is an evil piece of jewelry that was forged in an evil mountain and which turns non-evil people invisible to everyone except the devil himself for some reason, whose attention it immediately draws. (I feel like I should note here that I am not meaning to mock LOTR, and that I'm actually a massive Tolkienite - I'm just trying to illustrate the difference between the genres)
I mean, the genres are at the very least cousins, so there's some overlap. There are a not-insignificant number of properties (I'm looking at you, Star Wars) don't fit neatly into one or the other, so we often group them into SF/F. But, broad strokes, that's how I understand the distinction between the two.
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Post by tuigirl on Jun 10, 2019 11:46:05 GMT
I always like what you write because it always sounds way more scholarly than my own thoughts. Well made points. So we both appear to be on the same side, in that we both believe that these genres are an artificial construct and you just cannot put a great story into a neatly labeled little box.... love your who examples, too. And I think War Games is a Great example of a subversive story switching genres... I think time meddler right be another. Both very well done. Yup, we are, and thanks, that's my English Major typing. Yeah, some of the best stories come from that explicit denial of boxing itself into a specific genre. Terry Pratchett's Discworld, for instance, could be described as science fiction stories set within fantasy trappings. Where Star Wars put the wizards in outer space, Pratchett put outer space within the wizards. Blake's 7 is another, with very strong ties to the premise of Robin Hood, particularly early on with Blake (Robin), Travis (Guy of Gisbourne) and Servalan (the Sheriff). It's how fiction works, all the colours on the palette -- whether they come from the same paintbox or not -- make a picture on the easel. Yeah, Discworld is also another great example that you cannot neatly stuff in a certain box... one of the reasons, I think, why I am such a massive fan...
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shutupbanks
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 10, 2019 21:40:38 GMT
Conceptually there isn’t much difference between SF andFantasy. They both set up rules for their universe and have to follow them for the story to make sense; SF just came with a lot of its rules already assembled. Trouble is, though, that a lot of Fantasy has been going down the road of “medievalism” rather than Fantasy, which is a topic for a whole ‘nother thread...
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Post by Hieronymus on Jun 11, 2019 0:37:54 GMT
Everyone has their own criteria for distinguishing the two genres, and there is a lot of overlap.
For me, science fiction should uphold the basic laws and patterns of the universe, and then ask "what if?" It might be the introduction of a new technology, the invention of some process, the discovery of a new world, an apocalypse, or a change in the nature of mankind, whether physical, mental, or social. But sci-fi holds most of the basic rules of the universe in place, and explores what happens when some one thing (or few things) changes.
Fantasy changes the rules or the world, and explores what people do and how they interact within a world that may superficially resemble the past or the present, or even the future, but in which the nature of reality is fundamentally changed. Perhaps there are gods, or magic, or monsters, or perhaps not. Like sci-fi, it may still explore some idea (or ideas), but it's more about the characters interacting with other characters or with the world in which they live, and the focus of the story lies upon the characters or the adventure.
By my criteria, Frankenstein is sci-fi, but Star Wars is fantasy. Star Trek and Doctor Who straddle the genres, with some individual stories lying squarely on one side or the other, and some not. Of course, this isn't a universal set of criteria to distinguish (or even to clearly define) the two genres, but I've given a quick sketch of what I think.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 1:38:38 GMT
Conceptually there isn’t much difference between SF andFantasy. They both set up rules for their universe and have to follow them for the story to make sense; SF just came with a lot of its rules already assembled. Trouble is, though, that a lot of Fantasy has been going down the road of “medievalism” rather than Fantasy, which is a topic for a whole ‘nother thread...What's the CliffsNotes version of this? I'm curious.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 12, 2019 14:10:30 GMT
Conceptually there isn’t much difference between SF andFantasy. They both set up rules for their universe and have to follow them for the story to make sense; SF just came with a lot of its rules already assembled. Trouble is, though, that a lot of Fantasy has been going down the road of “medievalism” rather than Fantasy, which is a topic for a whole ‘nother thread...What's the CliffsNotes version of this? I'm curious. The very short version of this is that a lot of fantasy used to be about made-up places that gave authors a lot of scope to talk about their pet ideas or to run thought experiments about various religious/ philosophical/ magical themes or to just have characters run about having adventures. For the last twenty years or so the plots have gotten more about the world being built rather than what’s happening on it. For all that I love what Tolkien did in creating Middle-Earth, it’s like a lot of authors saw that and tried to emulate it but took the wrong lesson from it and we wind up with endless series of books that take place in worlds that are so thick with history and detail that the plot seems irrelevant and there is no real fun in it. And many authors of fantasy seem to be doing away with magic in favour of realpolitik, which to my mind is only a short step away from just writing historical fiction ( I also love - along with historical fantasy) but the “history” gets in the way of the story. They can be interwoven beautifully (Ursula LeGuin and Guy Kay spring to mind) but not many authors can really do it well.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 23:01:03 GMT
What's the CliffsNotes version of this? I'm curious. The very short version of this is that a lot of fantasy used to be about made-up places that gave authors a lot of scope to talk about their pet ideas or to run thought experiments about various religious/ philosophical/ magical themes or to just have characters run about having adventures. For the last twenty years or so the plots have gotten more about the world being built rather than what’s happening on it. For all that I love what Tolkien did in creating Middle-Earth, it’s like a lot of authors saw that and tried to emulate it but took the wrong lesson from it and we wind up with endless series of books that take place in worlds that are so thick with history and detail that the plot seems irrelevant and there is no real fun in it. And many authors of fantasy seem to be doing away with magic in favour of realpolitik, which to my mind is only a short step away from just writing historical fiction ( I also love - along with historical fantasy) but the “history” gets in the way of the story. They can be interwoven beautifully (Ursula LeGuin and Guy Kay spring to mind) but not many authors can really do it well. Ohh, interesting, too much emphasis on 'building' and not enough on 'world'. I've always found the appeal of fantasy is the ability to slam cultures together that would never have met otherwise (e.g. an Edo samurai in Tsarist Russia) and extrapolate what flows from there. Most worldbuilding operates on the principle of a "leaky box": an author will write down pages and pages of greater context for that universe. Their Silmarillion, in other words, but it's predominatly for their eyes only. Something to ensure consistency over the course of the work. What the audience sees are references to events and people that, by inference, they're able to contextualise on their own: The author knows the details behind the title, but treats it in the context of how real people refer to these topics in conversation; i.e. less straight information, more opinion. The introduction to Mavic Chen in Master Plan, for instance, is a great bit of exposition because of the two characters' opposing viewpoints. It's all about interconnectivity.
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Post by barnabaslives on Jun 13, 2019 21:47:51 GMT
I don't normally try very hard to distinguish the two - fantasy has swords and dragons that are dragons, sci-fi has stasers and dragons that turn out to be robots or aliens, which works fine for me :-)
I see Doctor Who as science fantasy and often historical fantasy, because even for the amount of thought or research that obviously goes into it, it doesn't seem to be aspiring to scientific accuracy that much, and is obviously taking some serious liberties with history.
I think Doctor Who might often aspire to have a foot in the horror genera also, what with space vampires and possession and and a werewolf companion and that sort of thing, but as we know it never turns out to be a bona-fide supernatural threat, which might be a disqualifier?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2019 2:48:04 GMT
I don't normally try very hard to distinguish the two - fantasy has swords and dragons that are dragons, sci-fi has stasers and dragons that turn out to be robots or aliens, which works fine for me :-) I see Doctor Who as science fantasy and often historical fantasy, because even for the amount of thought or research that obviously goes into it, it doesn't seem to be aspiring to scientific accuracy that much, and is obviously taking some serious liberties with history. I think Doctor Who might often aspire to have a foot in the horror genera also, what with space vampires and possession and and a werewolf companion and that sort of thing, but as we know it never turns out to be a bona-fide supernatural threat, which might be a disqualifier? That raises a really interesting point regarding stories that dabble in the magical. Olive Hawthorne's status as the White Witch of Devil's End, for instance. The Doctor dismisses a lot of the superstition out of hand for rational explanations, but... the story shows at least once instance where she's able to calm the forces operating beneath the village. Seemingly through nothing else but her own strength of will, which stops her local policeman dropping a rock on her head. We could call that witchcraft. Same thing with Battlefield. Under ordinary circumstances, the Doctor would likely adopt the same attitude he did in The Daemons, but since we're dealing with things like spacecraft grown from magic, the rules have changed. Just for this occassion. Therefore, is the Destroyer summoned by Morgaine an alien, in the traditional sense, or -- due to the nature of this other universe -- what we could consider a genuine supernatural threat? Something not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2019 14:22:36 GMT
SciFi is futuristic nonsense created by others that I intake for entertainment, fantasy however is created by me about situations & real life individuals.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2020 22:19:15 GMT
After my review of Robots Volume 1 Episode 1, I decided to see if I could find this thread to more formalise my statement of sci-fi (and I remembered that Dune had no aliens).
Science Fiction is about an exploration of humanity — exploring human issues by pushing us 'out there' and, by massively extending our area of influence, expose our shared character. It often uses aliens or 'robots' [implied entire species] — that is, non-human races — in this pursuit.
The entirely different setting and increased difference-in-kind allows writers to explore without stepping on the toes of real-world groups.
Thoughts?
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Post by tuigirl on Jan 4, 2020 8:26:42 GMT
After my review of Robots Volume 1 Episode 1, I decided to see if I could find this thread to more formalise my statement of sci-fi (and I remembered that Dune had no aliens). Science Fiction is about an exploration of humanity — exploring human issues by pushing us 'out there' and, by massively extending our area of influence, expose our shared character. It often uses aliens or 'robots' [implied entire species] — that is, non-human races — in this pursuit. The entirely different setting and increased difference-in-kind allows writers to explore without stepping on the toes of real-world groups. Thoughts? Sounds pretty close to the definition the authors gave in my original post. I still think it is hard to draw a line between sci-fi and fantasy, because similar things have been done with fantasy. Exactly what you describe is basically what Terry Pratchett does in the Discworld and especially the Night Watch books, concerning the use of non-human races (trolls, Orcs, werewolves, dwarves) as stand-ins for real life social groups and societies. He even has dwarf religious fanatic terrorists. However, I agree that the Robots is definitely Sci-fi.
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