Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 14:44:59 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Who said: SF is fantasy with nuts and bolts painted on?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 02:07 PM 4/1/05 EST, MarkLFischer at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 4/1/2005 10:56:05 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>omni at omniphile.com writes:
>
>>This is my best attempt to define the differences without just  resorting to
>>the old, "I know it when I see it" definition.  I'm  well aware that not
>>everyone will agree with me about it.  Feel free  to attempt your own
>>definitions!  :-)
>
>Most of it IS fantasy, if you look at it from a standpoint of  reality.  In
>the example of Niven, teleportation does not exist,

Small quibble...teleportation does exist.  It's been done in the lab.  Only
useful so far if you want to ship quantum particles though.

They've also demonstrated what appears to be instantaneous communication of
information (as in "ansibles").

>hyperspace travel does not
>exist, General Products #2 hulls do not exist.  None of  these things may
>EVER exist, and yet they are essential elements to some of the  stories.
>That's fantasy, regardless of window-dressing.

The difference between those things and magic is that those things *might*
someday exist (and in the case of hyperspace travel, might very well exist
today...just because *we* can't do it yet doesn't mean it isn't happening
;-).  Magic, as it's portrayed in Fantasy, won't (violations of a number of
physical laws).

>All stories, regardless of genre, are interesting and worthwhile to the
>extent that they are about humans dealing with human problems.

Yep.  Some have additional utility though, in giving us a chance to work
out the answers to real problems *before* we are confronted with them.  SF
has been dealing with things like cloning for decades...and now it's here
and we have to figure out how to handle it.  Thanks to SF there has been
some thought put into the question ahead of time, with speculation about
potential outcomes and uses.  Heck, it's possible that some of those who
developed the technology got interested in it due to SF (have to ask them
to be sure).  The same may someday be true for handling relations with
extraplanetary colonies, intelligent aliens, nanotechnology, artificial
intelligence, artificial life forms, drastically extended life or suspended
animation, etc..

>SF and Fantasy still have to follow  dramatic rules, however
>experimental and cutting-edge the work may otherwise  be.  The four types of
>conflict are universal: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature,  Man vs. God, Man vs.
>Himself.

Yes, but looking at how they are the same (both use words, both can be
written down, both have authors, both have plots, both have characters,
etc.) doesn't really help in distinguishing between them.  They aren't the
same, no matter how much they have in common.  There are differences, and
those are sometimes important.  At least to me, and probably to others.

>C.J. Cherryh's protagonists in some of her novels aren't human, but they
>think like we do, once certain postulates are accepted, and we can
identify >with them.

Bad example I think.  Her aliens are some of the most alien aliens I've
read about so far.  Some, like the Kif, are nothing at all like people.
They are like they are because of their biology, same as us, but their
biology is different from ours, so what makes sense for them would be
insanity for us and vice versa.  We can understand them once we understand
their biology, but we can't really identify with them.  Probably why none
were ever main characters.

She does have some, like the Hani, that are much more like us than not, but
when she goes for alien, she goes the whole distance and does it very well.

>matter what you call it.  Well-written fantasy sets the characters in a
>ruleset as immutable and internally consistent as any in the hardest SF,
it's  >just has different postulates.

Yes, generally ones that don't apply to real life, and never will.  SF has
ones that are reasonable, or at least not *un*reasonable, extrapolations of
real life as it is understood at the time it is written.  They may not be
important today, but they could be important at some future time (and often
have echos in today's world, though they don't have to).  Fantasy
postulates are, in good writing, internally consistent, but applicable only
to that world, not the real world.

There is a wall between fantasy and reality that you can't breach.  With SF
there may be a wall, but it's just tissue and could get ripped apart at any
time.  It has been more than once in the past.  That tends, for me, to make
SF more "important", or maybe "relevant".  Doesn't mean I don't enjoy
reading fantasy at times, I do.

-- Mike B.
--
My computer beats me at chess.  But it's no match for me at kick boxing.