Science Fiction (SF) is a fictional story or stories which depend upon
speculation about the unknown -- at the time of writing -- in science,
any field of science, but which do not, ideally, contradict anything
actually known. Fantasy is a ficitional story or stories which depend
upon the laws of nature differing from what they are known to be.
We all know what a story is: it is a narrative, in this sense, having
an introduction, a series of crises culminating in a climax, and a
denouement, or conclusion.
The story could be about cavemen and still be science fiction, thus the
"any field of science" criterion. If anything actually known is
contradicted, then the story becomes Fantasy.
In both "F&SF", the story must depend upon the speculation or
changed law(s); take them away and the story cannot be told. This is a
requirement for calling a story Fantasy or Science Fiction, otherwise
we might have something such as "Magic Realism", in which the Fantasy
is a supporting element only, or alternatively a general fiction story
with an SF element.
Aside: Some have suggested that Science Fiction be renamed "Speculative
Fiction", which might be fine as a replacement name. However, I think
that
the discipline provided by the term "Science" should be retained, if
only
to keep the definition clear.
In practice, much SF does or seems to contradict what is known. It is
still charitably graced with the term, especially if its
key point does not contradict what is known, and presents us with a new
and
fascinating area of inquiry.
Aside: "What is actually known" is, moreover, a slippery concept. It
refers strictly to the results of controlled experiments. Thus a story
that depends upon relativisitic phenomena not occurring with
macroscopic objects in the same way that it does with microscopic
objects might be true SF, as experiments (or at least all possible
experiments) haven't been done with macroscopic objects. A few noteable
experiments, familiar to educated people, (such as the famous orbit of
Mercury observation) support relativity, but I have heard of an
experiment whose results would seem to require substantially modifying
the basis of the theory: killing it, to put it unkindly, although I
believe the insights it provides would still make up a good deal of the
replacement theory and that Einstein certainly contributed one whopping
leap forward in
science. The more experimental evidence backs up a scientific belief,
the
more it becomes Fantasy to contradict it.
Thus there is a spectrum of literature sliding from SF to Fantasy, the
more that what is known is contradicted. On the SF end, we start with
"pure" or "hard" SF that strictly contradicts nothing known.
Aside: scientific researchers could be thought of as doing the hardest
SF possible, since they make hypotheses in the area in which things
have not yet been tried. However, they are not concerned as such with
making their speculations the linchpin of narratives, of course.
Perhaps there should be a clear dividing line or litmus test of whether
the idea that the story actually depends upon does or does not
contradict
what is known. Superficial aspects of a story, such as "feel", or
whether
or not it has elves and dwarves in it, should not be considered. Some
writers,
such as Poul Anderson, are masters at writing SF with the "feel" of
Fantasy.
Anne McCaffery is good at it, too. A lot of so-called SF, such as "Star
Trek", or any story featuring FTL (Faster Than Light) travel could
really be considered Fantasy. The story may depend upon more than one
idea, of which some may be fantasy and some may be science, in which
case
classification becomes more difficult, perhaps impossible, if the
dependence
by, or importance to the story of the fantasy point and the science
point
are equal. Due to progress in science, there is thus SF which can only
be
considered as such on the basis of grandfathering: it may have been SF
when
it was written, but is strictly so no longer. This can legitimately be
kept
as part of the definition.
So what is the common element of Fantasy and Science Fiction? What is
the class definition of F&SF from which the two genres later
diverge? It must
be in the idea of speculation upon which the story depends: "suppose
the
world works in a certain way other than that in our experience". In
Fantasy, this supposition contradicts what is known in our experience;
in SF, this supposition is restricted to hitherto unexplored areas
beyond the reach of our current experience. Thus the definition of
"F&SF" would read: "A story
or stories which depend for their telling on the supposition that their
setting
obeys laws of nature other than those in our experience". Literally,
way-out
stories.
F&SF is further classified as "fiction", which is thus "A story or
stories about events that have not actually occurred".
Another category of fiction is "Historical Fiction", which is "A story
or stories which contain speculation about past events". Note that
there is not
actual dependence upon the speculation in order to be able to tell the
story
in this genre; the speculation rounds out the story and helps to tell
it. It has to be called fiction because it uses this speculation, and
so
it cannot quite be relied upon as an authoritative source; it does
contain events, for example, spoken sentences, that may not have
actually occurred.
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Updated July 25, 2005
Posted Nov 17, 2003