posted
Fantasy and Science Fiction fall on seperate sides of an invisible divide. However there are a few authors that manage to make one blend into the other seemlessly.
Mental powers, vampire virus, the Force, all efforts to put magic elements into science fiction stories.
I think that the effect of traveling outside through the theories and methods in Xenocide and Children of the mind make those novels more fantasy then science fiction. However with the Core ideas of the theory in mind I think one could back into a description of how Alvin's and all the other magic works in the Tales of Alvin Maker.
It would mean that there is one set rules in all the OSC books, however there is the discontinious history that would keep them seperated. BC
Posts: 1249 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
So an opinion question: is the Alvin Maker series sf or fantasy? Obviously no one is trying to pretend that Alvin's powers could happen. But there's a lot of talk about HOW he uses his powers. DNA and such. Does that make it qualify as sf?
Y'all may know I love Kurt Vonnegut, jrs work. But I always am stumped as to why they put him in the sf section. Because while he does put out ideas like martians and time warps and things, it is shown more like magic than the actual magic is in Alvin Maker.
So my question I guess is, IS there a gap to be bridged, and how do you decide what side things go on?
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posted
The guy that does the book reviews over at Analog (Tom Easton?) insists the series is science fiction. He points to some of those same things, particularly at the talk of atoms and molecules in Prentice Alvin.
I disagree completely (what about The Visitor? Hexes? Doodlebugs?) but the point's valid.
Some Sci-fi stories feel more like fantasy (Dave Wolverton was always accused of this) and some fantasy feels more like sci-fi.
Some themes are more traditionally associated with fantasy (good and evil are absolutes, quest stories) while some themes are more traditonally associated with science fiction (good and evil are relative, idea stories).
So there's lots of places to try to bridge the gaps--a sci-fi world with a fantasy theme, a fantasy with a sci-fi quest for explanation.
Or there's the way Peirs Anthony did it with his Apprentice Adept series--you just stick them both in the same books.
This did come up before, I think. Dog had some intersting points on the idea that all Card's works were set in one giant universe.
Somebody will probably come along and link to it.
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Then Xenocide is Fantasy. I use another test however. It is something like this, if there is an interior consistencey in the rules, a structure then you are dealing with a science, and likely science fiction. Thus I group the "Wheel of Time" novels into the cleverly concealed science fiction catagory.
If there is a type of magic that warps reality with the will, then you have fantasy, even when it is set in some future reality.
If you have both, then you have fantasy because science fiction does not allow for magic.
I do not adhear to Clarks Law except as a perspective, Hi-Tech is not the same as magic.
posted
Xenocide is only fantasy if everything with a tree in it is fantasy, in which case the world we live in right now is fantasy.
And I lump the wheel of time books not into sci fi or fantasy, but into a sub genre called 'crap'.
I despise the aging writers need to weave all their stories into a single narrative. It ruined much of what Asimov did, and is threatening to ruin Stephen King, if he's not careful.
If OSC starts writing meta books to squish his whole library into a single universe, I will drive to North Carolina and personally give him a wedgie.
Posts: 5383 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
When dealing with OSC, I think that it is meaningless to try to differentiate between fantasy and scifi. His fantasy has just about as much science as his scifi, and his scifi has as much magic as his fantasy.
There is a difference between scifi, which Card writes, and Hard Science Fiction, which he does not.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
How is Rebecca's loom sci fi? Does the Golden Plow someday result in Jane? I guess there could be an interesting Archaeology adventure about someone who is trying to figure out the semi-ancient power that somehow results in the genius of Rackham, the Wiggins, the Delphikis, etc. It could tie in those antique hunting game shows. I guess I could write it. Card didn't invent purposive metal, so it wouldn't be a fan fic.
By the way, where does Peggy get her power? She's an only child. Did the experience of her father's secret and then looking after Alvin cause her to sharpen a relatively average gift? Or does it matter? I was kind of thinking that everyone eventually is some magic number relation to someone else.
posted
Peggy's power is more science fiction then Calvins, Peggy just looks into the theoretical i -temporal axis of space time and sees down all world lines. This is straight out of Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
I think this is what accounts for the miracles in the Bible myself, a time axis of potentiality. However Alvin's power can be accounted for only by giving awareness to fudemental particles, to account for their seeming response to awareness, which is an observable fact.
Down that path are the auia's of the Speaker for the Dead trilogy. So it is science fiction, just science fiction that opens the door to great realms of the improbable. It is no different really then Heinlien taking time travel for a given, or Asimov taking Hyper Space for a given. It is still science fiction.
Admittedly it is science fiction that blurs the fantasy line, hence the topic.
posted
So why is the Seventh Son aspect important? That is more what makes it fantasy. Though I guess the idea that an accident of birth order endows one with power does come up in the Enderverse. Do you think it is important that the relative lack of third (and whatever number John Paul is) children increases the power of that number when they are born? In this crazy unified Alvin/Ender-verse?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It could been seen as a calling or yearning to the Outside, like when the Hive Queens call a new Queen, the expectation of what people think a seventh son should be is what calls the Auia of someone like Alvin.
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