posted
While both Fantasy and SF are sub-genres of Speculative Fiction, they strike as being pretty different, particularly in what expectations a reader brings to a story.
For example, I think (and there’s a good chance I’m wrong) that SF fans are much more demanding in terms of world-building than Fantasy fans. However, I also think that that’s because a lot of Fantasy is set in some variant of Tolkein’s Middle Earth.
I was wondering what other reader expectations Hatrack members felt readers of the different sub-genres had, and whether, as writers, we should try to cater to those expectations.
Of course you may not agree with me that the different audiences have different expectations (I for one, as a reader of Fantasy, love a well-constructed, original universe) and I suspect there’s a fair amount of cross-over between the 2 audiences. Anyway, I’d love to hear what other people think.
posted
I read both scifi and fantasy, but as I complained about in another thread, I've been going over to scifi more often as of late, not because scifi is inherently better, but because at the moment that genre is fulfilling more of my expectations.
The truth is, I have very similiar expectations for the two genres:
1. A well-crafted world, even if it's this one. That's right, both scifi and fantasy can be set in modern or near-modern times and even then I expect the world to feel real to me. Hidden magical communities need to be convincing and near-future scientific discoveries need to be incredibly plausible. Far-flung futures, adjacent realities (which can both exist in either genre) need to be rational and obey rules.
2. Strong, sympathetic characters. Both genres often fall short on this point. I've read the shallowest, most pitiful, most story-driven characters in both fantasy and scifi...the hero riding his horse and the star ship captain having sex with lots of women. I want motivation, I want depth, I want humanity (meaning flaws), and I want to get in their heads and know them (that's just a personal preference, but it's why I dislike omniscient POV so much).
3. I expect competent writing. Sounds strange, maybe, but it's amazing how often the writing itself turns me off of a story. Piers Anthony comes to mind (and he writes in both genres so it's a good example on that note). I used to like his stuff, but recently I tried to read something else of his and I found that the language is stilted, choppy, and even childish. (Could just be a style preference.)
4. I expect a compelling story. What is the story about? It has to be about something that I'm interested in. And here's where we start to get into some differentiation between the genres..I'll go into that in a bit.
5. I expect depth and meaning beyond the words and the story. Many will disagree with me on this, but don't hand me a book without a theme, message, or even orientation that helps me broaden my mind and explore the depths of...something!
As to the differential expectations:
Fantasy:
1. I expect magic to come with limitations and a price. I have never found a fantasy novel without this to be anything but childish.
2. I expect internal consistency. You'd be amazed at the number of times I've seen fantasy (novel, movie, tv) break their own rules. You made them up, which is fine, but now you have to live with them!
3. I expect the novel to not resemble Tolkien too much. Here is where I am so often disappointed, but I can still hold the expectation. (BTW, any middle-ages reanaissance wanna be sort of setting is also bad. In fact, I'm stick of fantasies set in old times, whatever those old times may be.)
Science Fiction
1. I expect plausible science based in what we know today. I make exceptions for writers of the past, and in fact have enjoyed many scifi novels that contain outdated science. I would not enjoy that same outdated science written by a modern author, though.
2. I expect that this science does not consume and weigh down the story. I want to know how that science effects people, or at the very least sentient beings.
posted
You don't like any ancient setting? Just because Mideval/Renessaince/Greek/Roman have been used and used again doesn't mean there aren't exciting possibilities elsewhere. Have you ever read a Maya fantasy? I haven't. One day, I'm going to write one. Inca? Aztec? Olmec? I can't even name any historical fiction, let alone fantasy, that touches these civilizations. There's more set in India, or fuedal Japan...but I think there's a lot available for setting there, too.
Oh, and that's one of my biggest expectations for fantasy: I want to be drawn into a world with a new and engaging setting. That's one of the reasons I liked OSC's Enchantment so much. It was set in very early mideval Russia. Very cool.
posted
so, where IS the dividing line between fantasy and science fiction? Personally, I see the invention of motorized transportation as the break point between the two. Once you get into speculative forms of motorized transportation, you are into Sci-fi.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Did Jonathan Swift write Fantasy or Sci Fi? For that matter, is OSC's Alvin Maker series Fantasy or Sci Fi? Vonnegut's stories? Late Heinlein? Bradbury? Stephen King?
Personally I think that good speculative fiction is bigger than the stereotypal boundaries of its genres. So how to get ten million adolescent and barely post adolescent readers to demand only good fiction?
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited September 29, 2005).]
posted
I'm not much into expectations. I think that to the extent that art merely fulfils my expectations, it fails. Partly because I tend to expect that stuff will be crappy
But also because the entire point of art is to exceed the expected.
posted
Ah, so much of that which fills the shelves at the local booksellers' fails to live up to my expectations since I started reading as one who wishes to write better, newer, fresher, or at least different from what has gone before. I see what they have managed to get away with, that with which I would've once been mildly entertained but now it falls flat. I want to write something that breaks the mold, and get it published, to achieve success (whatever that is) as an author.
Yet, browsing those same shelves for no more than half an hour this evening, I watched as literally armloads of David Eddings and R.A. Salvatore were marched to the checkout counter. I saw money change hands. I wondered again what "success" means -- or should mean -- to me.
posted
I remember when I first started reading science fiction I was surprised too see it stacked together with fantasy in libaries and bookstores.
My brother had been into reading Dragon something novels. They seemed all the same to me (he admits the same now that we are adults). I couldn't get into a simple quest story. It wasn't until I read Tolkien that I enjoyed a fantasy novel.
Since Tolkien I haven't found too much I like. At least as far as medieval fantasies go.
I do however enjoy other kinds of fantasies that twist our world in different ways.
Which is why putting the two genres together makes sense to me. They are both about twisting things under "what if?" circumstances.
And again I think there are two different versions of each. We often hear "hard" and "soft" scifi, but I think the same applies to fantasy.
(Actually, a laugh when I hear soft sci-fi (e.g. Doctor Who) get classified as fantasy--simply because it was "soft").
Some people want the scifi/fantasy that has plausible explanitions for when it branches away from known reality. Others couldn't care, they just want the story.
I go between them both, and as long as I feel the author's writing well, I'm happy.
I guess that's my only expectation: quality writing. An interesting (or even gripping) story that looks at some aspect of what being human is all about.
posted
Mixed genres are problematic My favorite mixture used to be Sci Fi which superficially seems to be Fantasy until you figure out its cosmology. On the other hand Edgar Rice Burroughs' pseudo Sci-Fi Fantasies set on Mars and in the African jungles were both well written and interesting despite their softness.
There comes a point where this becomes too stylized. My least favorite mix has consistantly been the Historical Romance / Time Travel Fantasies. They seem to be a female version of Hustler Magazine and nearly pointless otherwise.
posted
Burroughs wrote the first of his "Mars" and "Tarzan" books before the term "science fiction" came into common use. Wells and Verne wrote work later classified as such even earlier. So how could any of them have written "science fiction?"
(If I recall what I've read correctly, "science fiction" as a term for this kind of literature was first used about 1929, reportedly introduced in a subscription flyer for a new magazine called "Science Wonder Stories." "Speculative fiction," I believe (but am less certain of) came about later, in the late 1940s, put on by those casting about for a more dignified and less technically-associated phrase to apply to their work, but wanting to keep the "SF" initials. Thus endeth my pedantic history lesson for today...unless I think of something else.)
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(BTW, any middle-ages reanaissance wanna be sort of setting is also bad. In fact, I'm stick of fantasies set in old times, whatever those old times may be.)
