I love discussions of the difference between fantasy and science fiction because there are clearly things that we can all look at and say, 'science fiction' and everybody will nod sagely and say, 'yep, definitely sci-fi.' And there are things that we can look at and clearly say 'fantasy' and 'yes, yes, fantasy.' And there are clearly things that we can look at and say, 'well...I think of that as fantasy' and someone will say, 'wait, no...'

All fiction has conventions. What we as humans do (among other things) is place meaning on experiences. We make narratives out of the world. When we do that, we leave stuff out. Emphasize other stuff. We mention the lion tracks but don't mention the thornbush that neither we nor the lion went near, because this is a story about how we were almost eaten by a lion. We over-emphasize cause and effect. When we tell fiction we observe certain conventions without thinking about it. We downplay coincidence because if the cavalry comes over the hill at just the right moment three times in a story we consider that bad. Sometimes in real life the cavalry DOES come over the hill three times in as many days. But it's bad fiction.

We need conventions in fiction and movies and all those made-up story forms. Too much of it and you have an entertainment that's banal. Too little and you have an entertainment you can't exactly follow. (And that's what a lot of avant garde artists experiment with--how far can we go from convention?) One of the things that I think really good fiction does is it takes the existing set of conventions and changes it sufficiently that it feels startling and fresh. Take the hero's journey and put a reluctant gay Chinese-American guy in the middle of it. Then hide all the trappings of mastery of power in engineering instead of weapons. (No, I did not conciously do this, but it might be there.)

So all these discussions of the differences between genres are interesting because they illuminate some of what makes fiction work, and what our unspoken, unexamined conventions are. It's probably less exciting to people who don't write the stuff. Hell, listening to scientists talk about the solutions they grow stem cells in is about as exciting as listening to a tax accountant. But for me, it's cool stuff.

Sorry to go on so long.

It's a big differentiated ball of fantasy, of course.

Aha! Much better, Lois.

Maureen, no need to apologize — what’s the web for? I like your point about the positive value of conventions; I hadn’t really thought about it that way before. It’s kind of a generalization of the “reading protocols” argument (though it seems to be trendy to bash that these days).

And of course one decade’s avant garde is the next decade’s convention.

Clearly a workable definition would be that it's the literary equivalent of Katamari Demancy. Variations matter not; just pull in enough stuff to build the ball into a sufficient mass for Genre, the King of All Cosmos to turn it into the star Fantasy.

Or something like that.

Why should "worldview" be the distinguishing characteristic of genre?

Raymond Carver's stuff presents a different worldview than Mark Twain's, yet both fit under "realism."

Why shouldn’t it? Why should there be a distinguishing characteristic? And how valuable is “realism” as a category?

I've got to thank Maureen for bringing up the avant garde. That distinction speaks, I think, to what I find appealing, and it settles a thread of a conversation I've been having with my brother about musical genre.

So I've decided I'm avant garde. Thanks Maureen, you've been a big help :)

The reason why it shouldn't is because the production of the SF and F genres is consttrained in a variety of ways, both of which lead to their worldviews actually overlapping in great amounts. And yet, there are differences, however, one simply has to ignore a good 70% of the actually-existing SF and F (and the actually-existing worldview of modernity, which has plenty of room for personal agency within the universe) to come to, say, the view Ted Chiang expressed recently.

Realism is a pretty straightforward category, one rather more connected to the modern worldview than SF, I should say.

Wait, if realism’s closely connected to the modern worldview, does that mean Carver’s and Twain’s worldviews aren’t that different after all?

I don’t think what you mean by “worldview” is what I meant. Maybe I’m using the wrong word, but I’m talking not talking about anything necessarily shared by some putative SF as a whole, or fantasy as a whole, let alone by anything as broad as “modernity.” And I don’t mean to formulate a rule that allows everything, or even most things, on the “science fiction” shelf to be placed unequivocally in either the fantasy pile or the science fiction pile, either.

But I do think those two stories (and others more or less like them in certain ways) express significantly (to the extent that any of this discussion is remotely significant) different attitudes toward nature, the supernatural, and humanity’s relationship thereto. Many people seem either to be tone-deaf to this difference or just not find it very interesting, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

"Modernity" is a big tent, big enough indeed for Freud and Marx both, for example. So yes, we can have Carver and Twain, who have very different views of just about everything, but still handily fit under realism.

But I do think those two stories (and others more or less like them in certain ways) express significantly (to the extent that any of this discussion is remotely significant) different attitudes toward nature, the supernatural, and humanity’s relationship thereto.

So? Lem's SF and Clark's SF have very different attitudes toward (super)nature and humanity's relationship to it, but both fit quite snugly in SF anyway, because some attitude toward (super)nature isn't the line between SF and F.

And that we can know simply by observing what people point to and that's before rolling a hand grenade shaped like Philip K. Dick's head into the conference room.

Saying we can know what the line is by observing what people point to (a) implies there’s a line, which I don’t think there is — Bear’s metaphor of red and yellow and a hell of a lot of shades of orange is probably more to the point — and (b) begs the question of why people are pointing at what they point at.

The line, whatever it is, isn't worldview. The claim that fantasy wishes for a personally-informed universe or ignored the Industrial Revolution can be refuted in a word:

Lovecraft.

What the line is, if you ask me (not that you were, but I'm happy to help) is what I alluded to in my most: branding.

SF is branded so that it appeals to folks who consider themselves rational-minded. This branding is so successful that Scientology, Dean drives, psionics, and Shaver Mysteries can be sold to them under the rubric of rationality ... and that was before fantasy ruined the party with girl cooties and men with long hair named Morgan.

Um. Reader pleasure. Um.

You know, the one thing that I notice in this is that the equation "science fiction:science::fantasy:magic" really bothers me, particularly where "magic" is construed as "people controlling the world with their conscious intention". It seems like a pretty impoverished definition of fantasy.

It makes me want to go back towards the standard-chestnut content-based definitions I find so problematic, and say something like:

Fantasy is the baseline. "Fantasy" is the word for "something made up", as in "power fantasy", "sex fantasy". Within that you have your stories that are closer to "consensus reality", where an intellectual game of having the hinted-at or explicit shapes of *rules* poke through the story's surface, and connecting those rules to the rules we describe our world with in certain (e.g. technological, scientific, historical, or simply practical-reasoning) contexts we know -- and fantasies playing those games we can call "science fiction" or "alternate history" or (for a slightly different consensus reality) "religious fiction". And then within THAT are stories that try to "mirror nature" in the strict sense of "appearing in setting like the settings the reader knows or believes existed", so that the reader has a source of reader pleasure -- or comfort -- based on familiarity of setting (that's "realism"). Or a source of pleasure based on being edified about history, in historical fiction.

SF treats the reader to "maybe this could happen!"
Althist to "maybe this could have happened!"
Histfic to "this kind of thing happened!"
Realism to "this kind of thing happens all the time!"

Fantasy is everything else.

Nothing to do with magic. Fie on your magic.

So, Ben, you don’t think there’s anything more specific going on in “genre fantasy”?

Nick, I don’t think I was clear enough; I should have added to Bear’s metaphor “and different people see colors differently.” Not only do I not think there’s a sharp line, not only do I think that people disagree on where the fuzzily-defined border region might be, I think they also disagree on where things are placed, period.

Lovecraft, case in point: I don’t think very many people would put him close to the center of the fantasy zone. But even granting Lovecraft as fantasy: power in Lovecraft’s universe doesn’t reside in replicable technological artifacts; it resides in cult objects and malevolent ancient beings; and it’s clearly a universe that does recognize persons, one that responds differently depending on whether you’re of sound Nordic stock or a decadent son of degenerate forebears with a secret history of nameless and shameful rites. If you’re not dicing Ted’s words just to make a rhetorical point, I think his work isn’t far out of line with what Ted was saying.

Lovecraft's impact and influence on the last 70 years of fantasy are beyond question.

I also have to say your reading of Lovecraft is about as fundamental a misreading as one can possibly come up with. Lovecraftian fiction -- certainly not the "great works" (pace Houellebecq) -- is certainly not about 'malevolent ancient beings'; indeed, the concept of malevolence has virtually no place in the work at all, not any more than it has in a description of your slaying bacteria and virii with every moment of your life.

As far as cult objects with power, what objects, precisely, do you mean? The Necronomicon and other books have no power at all. They appear as books of spells in RPGs and the like, but in Lovecraft tales they are no more cult objects with powers of their own than courtroom sketches are. Lovecraft is explicit in its depiction of an impersonal universe, and this is a direct result of writing for a modern audience, in modernity. The whole point of the project.

Lovecraft, 1927: "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To achieve the essense of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all."

As far as cult objects with power, what objects, precisely, do you mean?

[reference hat]

I would think that the Shining Trapezhoid qualifies as an object of power: put it in total darkness and Nyarlathotep shows up. If that's not power, I don't know what is.

Also the Silver Key, since it does an impressive job of transporting Carter through time/space, but there's also the whole Dreamland issue that might weaken its qualifactions.

[/reference hat]

That's no more an object of power than a radio transmitter is. It doesn't require conscious will or special powers or a magic "gift" to operate. Indeed, that's rather the central problem of the story. It's not something and does not appear in a narrative universe which recognizes persons, and the long history of legends and rumor left behind attempting to explain the ST are fragmentary, contingent, based on guesswork, experiment, and differing interpretations of effect.

(Also, the long list of folks, human and demi-human, who haved used the Trapezoid to pretty much the same end, rather puts the lie to the claim that the Lovecraftian universe "responds differently depending on whether you’re of sound Nordic stock or a decadent son of degenerate forebears with a secret history of nameless and shameful rites." )

This sounds like an invocation of Clarke's Third Law. A radio transmitter carved out of a rock, with no controls or battery, lasting for several million years with no loss of performance? Your crystal ball is simply a high-end camera phone! Now go about with the rites of your cargo cult!

Hell, if it works perfectly every time, then it's definitely magic.

It doesn't require conscious will or special powers or a magic "gift" to operate.

By this requirement, then (shifting universes) Sauron's Ring also doesn't qualify as an object of power.

Having said that, I fully agree with the impersonal nature of Lovecraft's universe. The only advantage to worshipping these beings is that you get eaten first, usually because you're closest to them when they manifest. Nothing more than a really flashy way to commit suicide, and take lots of other people with you.

Clarke's law is important as a sideline: if SAT is indistinguishable from magic, then really, is it meaningful to discuss mass production and individual consciousness as necessarily elements to "magic"?

I'd say not. Saying that Lovecraft is more like, oh, god knows, Mercedes Lackey than he is like Lem because there's "magic" involved in Lovecraft's tales and it is magic v. tech which is decisive when it comes to worldview is a sucker bet. It's like grouping all cars together by color. A red Rolls Royce would be grouped with a fire truck, while that same fire truck painted yellow for municipal purposes would be grouped with a checker cab.

It's just about the worst possible way to go about reading. Thus, it's no surprise to me that such distinctions find immense currency in fandom.

I'm with Lois. It's all a big differentiated ball of fantasy.

Whether it's fantasy or science fiction depends on marketing categories. Sure, there's fantasy that's escapist, anti-industrial, monarchist, Romantic twaddle.

...there's also science fiction that fits that list of criteria.

*Shrug* Whatcha gonna do, waste time trying to come up with definitions and distinctions that are all inherently flawed, or get on with the serious business of writing fantastic literature?

Nick: A red Rolls Royce would be grouped with a fire truck, while that same fire truck painted yellow for municipal purposes would be grouped with a checker cab.

...actually, I could find a lot of uses for that system of classification.

IJWTS that Nick Mamatas is hugely, importantly right about Lovecraft.

This comment thread may have veered off from my initial post, but for what it's worth, I have a follow-up post here.

I give you: “Ernie Puts Away His Toys.”

Oh, and I wasn’t misreading Lovecraft, so much as indulging in a bit of the pathetic fallacy.

> So, Ben, you don’t think there’s anything more specific going on in “genre fantasy”?

I was offering a prescriptive definition.

As a descriptive defintion of what you find on average bookshelves, I rather like Nick's Pepsi vs. Coke "would you like your wish consolatory fulfillment in wool or plastic?"

Well (rolls up sleeves), if we’re going to get prescriptive...