Side note: Ben, now would be a good time for you to post a long screed on your “sources of reader pleasure” theory of genre distinctions.

Shorter Sarah Monette:

Characters and cultures (and authors) interact differently with a world that is predicated on technology from a world which is predicated on magic. . . . Science fiction is about human beings’ relationship with technology, with the machines we build. . . . Fantasy, on the other hand . . . There’s a terribly weird way . . . in which fantasy is always Marxist, because it refuses the alienation between the worker and his work caused by the advent of machines. Wizards’ power is not displaced into technology; it remains in their bodies, in their minds.

Shorter Ted Chiang:

[F]or me, a useful way to understand the difference between SF and fantasy is to consider the difference between science and magic. . . . I submit that what distinguishes magic from science — even imaginary science — is the role of consciousness. Magic has a subjective component — the intention, desire, or willpower of the practitioner — that is explicitly excluded from scientific experimentation. . . . So why would some phenomena depend on a practitioner's will or desire? Because, in fantasy, the universe distinguishes between persons and mechanisms. . . . Before industrialization, it was easier to believe that we lived in a universe that recognized persons. . . . Once conscious intention was removed from the creation of devices, inventions could spread so rapidly that you could see society change within a single lifetime.

Longer but still shorter Jeff Vandermeer and his Evil Monkey:

[Po-mo Thomas Kuhn riff about subjectivity of science] . . . [Ted is] comparing what is done in the real world with science to what is done in the fictional world with magic. Because, as I keep saying, magic doesn’t exist in the real world. So why doesn’t he compare what’s done with science in the fictional world to what's done with magic in the fictional world? . . . [H]e's mostly talking about certain forms of heroic fantasy. . . . Which leaves out surrealism, magic realism, urban fantasy, and all kinds of other things that don’t dominate the best-seller lists but that do constitute the core of the really cool cross-genre stuff being done. . . . Does science fiction really concern itself with progress? I think it assumes progress many times. It assumes it, but it doesn't engage in the implications of it. Which may be one reason I think of science fiction and fantasy as being more or less interchangeable.

Exactly the same length Elizabeth Bear:

[O]n the difference between fantasy and science fiction. I still say there isn’t one.

Bear, you win a prize: You’re the first science fiction writer I’ve heard say that, whereas fantasy writers (Moorcock, Miéville, Jeff . . .) seem to say it all the time. (I know it’s inaccurate to pigeonhole you as a science fiction writer or pigeonhole Jeff as a fantasy writer, but I hope you’ll both know what I mean.)

It’s really easy to find exceptions, shelves full, to any strict definition of the line between fantasy and SF. I’m not going to try to make one here. Instead I’m going to point you at an essay called “Mark Twain” by Gordon Atkinson, aka Real Live Preacher. (Also here.)

---

Update: Oops. Fixed link to Jeff’s blog.