I'm wondering if this trend is happening in written fiction too, or whether its a marketing ploy to get people to watch something they probably wouldn't if they think its science fiction.

Does this mean that as writers, we can get away with submitting something we believe is clearly science fiction to an agent or publisher that deals in fantasy and not science fiction if we label it fantasy?

BSG and Dr. Who have been sold and are now being marketed which is different than trying to pitch them. I can see no scenario in which during pitches BSG and Dr. Who were ever called fantasy.

That being said, BSG and Dr. Who are both space operas. This label allows them to posses many fantastic elements and to follow Clark's maxim that any sufficiently advanced technology will appear like magic.

Now how does this apply to us mere mortal writers? It means know thy audience. If you're attempting to write Hard SF make sure it really is Hard and don't try passing off bolognium for the real thing.

Yet this does not mean that you can just ignore science if you're writing what OSC calls "fantasy but with science as the magic."
I say this because while you don't have to write plausible science in space opera, you do have write believable science-ish advances. For example If you are trying to write a story like say Simon R. Green's Deathstalker Series, in the query letter when describing the distinctly fantastic elements of ESP powers, clones etc, you can't call these "magic" because the setting is in space and other planets and a large galaxy spanning empire.

Yet this doesn't mean that you need to have a empirically backed science foundation in your space operas.

Of course then there is "slipstream" which is or isn't a real and/or viable sub-genre depending on who is doing the description. Slipstream has yet to have a "big" title that can clearly be labled as slipstream, though some have tried to label books like The Time Traveler's Wife as slipstream but those who did weren't the powers that market a book.

I guess it's probably different in the states than it is here in England.

Dr. Who had some technology component when the plot involved some capability of the TARDIS, but it was often presented with waving hands or dismissed as an accomplishment only the Time Lords could ever do. Science was often played at the level of magic. I’ve always thought of Dr. Who as character-driven fantasy, especially when compared to Star Trek. The most recent seasons have only used the TARDIS as an awesome gimmick and there aren’t any other Time Lords anymore.

BSG has a technology set a little closer to our level. Their FTL drive and Cylon development being the exceptions. They also have holes such as propulsion physics in their small ships. Those are glossed over - they are there in the story without any infodump explaining the differences from our technology. BSG is about the characters and the human/Cylon conflict gets to the personal level. There’s so much more of that than of the science, that BSG cannot be labeled science fiction – in my opinion, not even ‘soft science fiction.’

After all, it's never emerged as a separate "fantasy" section. It's always there with the "science fiction," unless it pops up in the children's books or mainstream stuff or the occasional bookstore that still has horror as a separate section.

quote:

---

The later Star Trek series had larger audiences and longer runs because they got farther away from the science.

---

That is a preposterous statement. The original series only ran three years because the networks didn't understand their audience. You're implying the letter-writing campaign that brought season three was from a small audience? The Star Trek conventions held before the first motion picture were small gatherings?

But I'm straying from the topic. I have to disagree with darklight here. IMO, Signs was a fantasy. I haven't seen Children of Men yet, but based on the previews, I'd have to say it's sci fi.

I'm calling Signs a fantasy because though it has a quasi-scientific core, i.e., alien invasion, the story actually has little to do with the fact that the invasive force are, in fact, aliens. The aliens are just a vehicle for a completely different story.

Sci fi is when the story is about exploring a specific scientific question or situation. BSG explores an epic battle between cylons and humans. THe scientific idea is the driving principle of the story. i realize this is a hazy distinction, but it's what my gut's telling me.

Needless to say, there's a ton of cross over, and I'm not even sure how worthwhile it is to form hard and fast definitions, except that it comes in handy in marketing, I suppose. I do think the audience of both books and movies cross over, and i don't think marketers are likely to get more readers/ watchers if they classify something one way or another. THough the recent popularity of LOTR and HP books and movies might change that--i.e., they appealed to people who might not normally read/ watch fantasy, so they are ore likely to read/ watch fantasy again, rather than sci fi.

Oh, and Zero, I'd put my money on fantasy. In a literal fight, it's because fantasy has magic, and magic can kick technology's rear end any time. Figuratively speaking, I think fantasy has a much broader definition and would win out--think of all the "mainstream" novels that push the borders of fantasy--Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, etc.

quote:

---

I'm calling Signs a fantasy because though it has a quasi-scientific core, i.e., alien invasion, the story actually has little to do with the fact that the invasive force are, in fact, aliens

---

I have to respectfully disagree with that. I beleive its science fiction, and a brief look on the internet confirms that. Admittedly, its also in the genres of thirller and drama, I could find no reference to fantasy.

Fantasy is if things happen because of unexplained magick

Science fiction is if things happen because of science

The site applied this explanation to Star Wars, if you follow these explanations Star Wars Episodes 4, 5 and 6 (originally released ones) were fantasy. The force was unexplained magick, and for those who would say Star Wars is futuristic, it is set in the past, just in space.

Episodes 1, 2 and 3 introduced the science of midiclorines (not sure about the spelling) which scintifically explained the force, therefore something people would claim as Science Fiction may have started its life as Fantasy.

"Fantasy is if things happen because of unexplained magick

Science fiction is if things happen because of science"

I have to take issue with this. There's Fantasy that has no magick. Mine included. Where would these fall? I suppose you could call them speculative fiction, but that's really just another flavor of fantasy.

I think Robert's got it right. It does help to have some idea, though, when querying an agent.

annepin, I find it interesting that the fact that Signs deals with human issues and ideas as it's primary focus, with the science elements in the background, is your primary reason for excluding it from the science fiction genre. A great deal of sci-fi deals with ideas, in my experience to a much greater degree than fantasy ever has. A great deal of sci-fi is technology/alien/science based, but many of the greatest and most profound works in the genre are very idea driven to the exclusion or reduction of the scientific elements.

Contrast that with fantasy, which generally tells a story more than it deals with ideas. I agree that fantasy can and does deal with ideas, but as a rule it is dealt with either as a subtle side not for the close reader, or not at all. Maybe I've been under a rock for a great deal of time, but I've never seen a fantasy character question their own existence in a way that even remotely resembles the internal conflict apparent in Rick Deckard.

An interesting topic all around, and it's nice to see everyone's points of view.

Jayson Merryfield

First of all, the most basic - "science fiction" is anything with technology, and "science fantasy" is anything with magic with alien (read: extra-terrestrial) settings or elements (otherwise it's just "fantasy")

Now here comes the hard part. I would further define "science fiction" as "anything where technology plays a crucial role in the story." To quote what's on Analog's science fiction submission pages, no technology, no story. Or in other words, at least from the perspective of TV shows, episodes usually revolve around a plot device that in turn revolves around some sort of technology - hence, Star Trek is definitely science fiction. So where does this leave stuff like Star Wars or Dr. Who? Well, like Matt Lust was alluding to, I would classify these as "Space Operas." I would further define a "space opera" as any story with a space or alien-themed setting which may or may not feature technology as central to the story (Star Wars certainly does - Star Destroyers, Death Stars, the Millennium Falcon, X-Wings etc.) but of which the main focus is on a character or characters, i.e., character development.

And that leaves us with "hard" and "soft" sci-fi which is more of a sliding scale than a hard definition. The more adherent to real-life physics, the more "hard" it is. Thus, Star Trek is "soft" sci-fi since it uses a lot of concepts that are either scientifically fallible or completely impossible (warp drive, transporters, replicators etc). A fictionalized account of a near-future Mars mission based on actual NASA plans would probably be the best example of the most extreme form of "hard" sci-fi I could think of off the top of my head.