Aw crap, you caught me, meant to fact check that when I got home before I posted and forgot to. Fixed now.
]]>Well, it all depends on how you think of it--I think much of Homer and the tragedians work is fantastic--but does it count if they really thought magic, curses, witches, and monsters were literally real?
I think that Chaucer can be said to have written fantasy--he certainly would not have believed (at least openly) in the Greek deities he writes about. Frankly, I think almost everyone in the Western canon who is not a 20th century writer wrote "fantastic" literature. Making up things that aren't real is kind of par for the course.
And these days, lots of folks write it and don't get the label--it's the old: if it's good it's not SF rag.
]]>Yes, I absolutely do think that's the case. I also think it's the case for the actual Rapture enthusiasts--they want to be part of a big story, and a world without magic is one they quite literally cannot bear. Science, as it stands, is not enough. There must be Huge Personified Forces at work--and hell, maybe there are. But yes, I think the instinct comes from precisely the same place: both Singularities express a desire to see the world profoundly and extraordinarily altered by the magic of choice, be that religion or science. To enter Paradise--and be the one who gets to define what that means for everyone else.
]]>And I've always been puzzled by dicta against those things as "not hard SF" or "science fantasy" in a tone that implies it doesn't live up to some sort of standard of rigor that X type of SF does. (I know our host has a lot to say on that score, it still puzzles me when he says it!) Those things might also come to pass--we can't know for certain that our current model is completely correct, or what cheats and workarounds might become commonplace.
]]>Groundbreaking is never the norm in any genre. (Not saying my stuff is.) Most of science fiction doesn't live up to its own challenges either--fantasy is not special in that. Mimetic fiction doesn't live up to its own standards pretty damned often. Sturgeon's Law lands with a thud. But so much fantasy does do this, and I take it as part of my mission statement should I have such a thing, to do so in my own work. I referenced three extremely mainstream and popular series precisely because I believe we can't help how the present works on itself in our fantasy.
]]>Actually, having recently re-read Barsoom, I would argue that pulp SF has very little do do with new technology. And if you mean LOTR as what fantasy "originally" set out to accomplish I have to argue there, too. It is one book, and though it has many imitators, even among JRRT's contemporaries you can find books like Lud-In-The-Mist (which I almost referenced in the post but couldn't really discuss the end, which I believe is heartbreakingly relevant to this and to transhumanism in general, without spoiling it) that go a wholly different way.
Have you ever heard the phrase "There has always been a feminist movement?" It's the title of a Joanna Russ essay, I believe, discussing how each generation is lead to believe they must do all the work from scratch, that before the 20th century there was never a women's movement anywhere.
Likewise, there has always been radical fantasy.
My point was that though the simplest explanation is that SF is about technology and fantasy about magic, I don't find either of those true. SF is often about ancient narratives and instincts toward magical thinking playing out, and fantasy is often about how humans change in the face of a new set of rules or tools.
]]>The point of this post was far more than rehashing the old what's the difference between F & SF argument, which I agree is not the most interesting. Though discussing something in the 80s hardly means it is settled once and for all--people are still discussing this and still getting in Team Fantasy and Team Science Fiction debates. If we only had to have an online conversation once and that put a lid on it for all time, well, it'd be a far smaller internet.
Also, I am well aware of the definition of hard SF. But you can't have failed to notice how the hardness of the SF gets conflated with the goodness of it in many circles--that's all I meant to point out in my comment.
I could have spilled far fewer words if all I meant to say was LOLZ FANTASY AND SF ARE TEH SAMEZ. There's a lot more there, there, or at least I like to think so.
]]>That sort of thing you mean?
Hasn anyone else here come across two SF works by Donald Moffitt? "Genesis Quest" & "Second Genesis" ?? Hard SF - maybe, fantasy - maybe. Come to that, my first SF book, reading my father's pre-war copy of "Last & First Men", when I was 9, and a little confused .....
]]>The Game of Rat & Dragon
]]>SF on the other hand is typically about change, either "hey Bob, look what I just invented" or more recently constant change and futureshock.
This is why I call Star Wars "science fantasy" - not because I place it on some value scale such as you describe, but because the Star Wars universe is pretty static. Nobody comes up with a better turbolaser or lightsaber. Even the Death Star is only built at a different scale, not out of radically different technology.
As for both being about folklore and neither having much value as prediction, I agree there. Both have immaginary settings, but both fail if the setting is all there is and the actual story is weak or the characters are not believable.
]]>Suggesting either that it was an "alternate past" or a future. The technology of the Numenoreans, in particular was as good as, or better than that of the 1950's. They had extra-strong STEEL bows, for instance (And I have one - they were made for target archery in the period 1960-70) they had "missiles"(?) that passed across the country "for many miles, with a great roaring sound and never missing their mark" Neither Morgoth nor Sauron wanted to destroy Arda/Earth, thew wanted to control it, then there's the bio-engineering, isn't there? The conflict at the end of the First Age, when Morgoth was overthrown resembles a cis-lunar space battle, if read in the right light (ahem) ... And are the Alfven (Elves) actually from Earth at all, originally? The "people of the long journey, the people of the stars" - IIRC a quote from LotR.
Alain @ 74 & others on this same meme ... The real trouble with LotR is that it (very sadly) fits perfectly into a traditional Romam Catholic christian view of the "fallen" world - as has been pointed out by others, AFTER my thesis referred to above, unfortunately. Ah, Dave Bell @ 80 has remarked on that also.
As for technology/magic, there are two others who deserve mentioning: H. Beam Piper's "Gunpowder God/Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" and L. Sprague de Camp: "Lest Darkness Fall"
]]>I'll concede most. But not all: John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's Dark Star is still one of my favourite SF movies of all time, and that ship almost makes the Falcon look good.
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