In which Chaz is vexed. Again.

[desperance]

Hmmph. The new Interzone has an interview with Christopher Priest, which I read straight off, having so much enjoyed the movie of "The Prestige". And he said, on the essential difference between SF and fantasy:

SF is in the end about human responsibility: actions lead to consequences, and the fiction describes, discusses and evaluates those consequences. Those actions can be couched in reality, or they can be speculative in nature. Thus it is a moral fiction, and the highest forms of it can be accepted as literature. Fantasy is the opposite: it is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control. Once fantasy attempts to grapple with reality it ceases to be fantasy, so the generalisation holds.

So what are we to take from this: that fantasy is not a moral fiction, because it does not address human responsibility? Actions do not lead to consequences, in even the highest forms of the genre? 'Scuse me, but both parts of that seem to me to be large and pendulous bollocks, only waiting for the snip.

Also, that last sentence is a weasel. It's the squids-in-space argument: "I do not write [genre of your choice], because it is without merit; where it has merit - or indeed where I write it - then it is not [genre of your choice]."

Bah, I say. Also, humbug.

Snip.

Comments

[szandara.livejournal.com]

That's just silly. I don't see a whole lot of difference between sf and fantasy, really. Both involve putting characters into an alternate universe containing situations and elements which are not currently possible. In SF, the impossible elements are usually technologies, often in an imagined future; in fantasy, the impossible is usually explained by magic, and set in some kind of imagined past.

But it's the same basic premise: what would happen to these characters if X was possible? And then it's matter of whether the writer gives the characters moral agency and spins out the consequences of their decisions in a plausible way, given the context of the story.

Fantasy is the opposite: it is about the intrusion of irrational and uncontrollable events, over which man has no control, or only nominal control.

So characters in SF, or naturalistic fiction for that matter, always have control of events, and those events are always rational? What crack is he smoking books has he been he reading? Pendulous bollocks indeed!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It would be true if all fantasy were Lovecraft.

Maybe he's only read Lovecraft?

[frumpo.livejournal.com]

A character creates devices which allow people to transport themseleves instantaneously to anywhere in their world and I want to explore the impact of such freedom of movement. If the device is activated by rubbing, I'm writing Fantasy. If it's activated by pressing a button I'm writing SF. Hmmmm.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The distinction is a matter of details, not themes. The remark quoted above says more about the person making it than it does about SF or fantasy, and what it mostly says is that he doesn't like fantasy and feels a need to justify his dislike.