Found a humorous comic strip at PartiallyClips which brings up the striking difference perspectives Fantasy and SciFi take on subjects such as two talking rabbits riding a flying rocking horse.
(Click on the picture to see the whole strip)
As the first rabbit indicates, in a fantasy setting such a subject is usually just accepted. 'Two talking rabbits on a flying rocking horse? Okay.'
Science Fiction on the other hand almost always demands an explanation. 'Two talking rabbits on a flying rocking horse? How did the rabbits learn to talk? How can a rocking horse fly?'
Both genres have their pros and cons, but at some point can't we just accept some of the things in Science Fiction without having to sit through a lecture by the author as to why something is the way it is?
Star Wars was pretty good at telling their story without resorting to giving us a technical thesis as to how Light Sabres worked, why there was gravity on the space ships, and how the the Force worked (well not until the Phantom Menace...). Some will argue that Star Wars is Science Fantasy rather than Science Fiction. I'll argue that the stories were just 'cutting to the chase'.
After the Bomb rides the line of 'cutting to the chase' and trying to offer up a technical explanation as to why there are mutant animals in the world. The plausible--but not definitive--explanation is given that it started out as a prank by a couple kids which got out of hand. Other than that, the game pretty much cuts to the chase that humanity is near extinction and that animals--both those mutated by the virus and those engineered before the Big Death--are rising up to become the dominate species on the Earth.
Do we really need to know why and how? No. However, our curiosity compels us to find out. And that, really, is the nature of Science Fiction; curiosity.
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4 comments:
while that does show a difference between the two, science fiction doesn't have to actually explain its stuff.
the main distinction between the two is that when writing science fiction, the author does actually figure out explanations for the wierd stuff, even if it isn't explained. in fantasy, it just happens. so while talking rabbits on a flying rocking horse could look the same in both, the main difference tends ot be that in science fiction the author tried to figure out why the rabbits are talking and the horse is flying, and thus figure out the limits and such of it. in fantasy it's just two rabbits and a horse.
the main reason you usually see the explanations given in science fiction is the fact that to a reader, unless the rabbits are described to be geneengineered, and the horse to be some anti-gravity vehicle, it will be assumed to be fantasy.
Orson Scott Card, author of many science fiction and fantasy novels, actually discusses an example of this in his book "how to write science fiction and fantasy". early in his career, he wrote a story set in a medieval type setting, with a charater who can talk to birds. he submitted it to a science fiction magazine, but it was regected because "they don't print fantasy." he was shocked, since in the background for his story it was set on a colony planet settled via a generation ship, and the main characters ability was a rare psychic trait. but because he hadn't put any mention of this in the story itself, it came off as a fairly typical fantasy setting.
so the main reason you see descriptions is so the reader will know wether the stuff in the story is magic or just sufficently advanced technology. it really doesn't matter too much to the story, aside from establishing the feel of the setting the writer is writing.
Thus Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
So while an author isn't required to explain, they may find that the nature of SciFi compels them to just to distinguish it from fantasy.
pretty much.
personally, i distinguish the two by looking at the stories themselves. science fiction usually shows how some aspect of science or technology, when taken to a certain level or adopted on a widespread manner, changes the world we perceive. the matrix, for example, makes the assumption that extrmely realistic virtual reality and advanced AI is possible. and spins off from there to assume "what if our reality is just a computer program?" at least in the first movie, the stuff morpheus and company pull off, as well as the agents, are outgrowths of "if the world we know is a program, what could you do if you knew that?" had the same stuff been in a movie WITHOUT the plot explaining the matrix and how the machines took over the earth, the viewer would have to conclude what the characters were doing was magic.
sometimes science fiction can use many of the same elements of traditional fantasy, like mythical creatures, 'magical abilities', and such. John ringo's "council wars" setting, advanced technology has allowed humanity to create dragons and other 'mythical beings', magic, and all the trappings of a high fantasy world. since advanced technology is the root of it, it still ends up science fiction. not for the technology, but because it takes something we have today, the MMO culture, and extropolates that out to make a new setting.
Sounds like a fantasy version of Westworld or Jurassic Park, or something along the lines of that old Star Trek episode Shore Leave. On the surface it may appear to be fantasy or supernatural, but just below the surface is a carefully orchestrated scientific marvel of engineering and/or gengineering.
Smoke and mirrors.
I've often thought it would be interesting to have something like that in After the Bomb, hidden somewhere in the Appalachians or out near Hollywood.
Hollywood would have loved being able to create all manner of monsters--fantasy and alien--for the entertainment industry. Basically anything from any of the Palladium books would be fair game.
Of course you could always throw a SciFi story for a loop by adding a big old question mark as to whether that creature or event was the result of science or...something else.
However, since AtB already incorporates the element of psionics (which is more supernatural than science fiction) and James Wallis included Druidic Magic and Earth Magic in Mutants in Avalon, you have a setting that is a sloppy mix of Science Fiction, Supernatural, and Fantasy where anything can already happen.
But when I take into account your analogy of Cards early story that was mistaken as fantasy, one could write off the magic and psionics as the result of advanced tech that falls back on Clarke's Third Law.
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