I read both science fiction and fantasy and enjoy huge swaths of both genres in both fiction and film, but I’ve never really given a lot of thought to why I tend to prefer science fiction (all other things being equal, such as that any two given books to compare are well written). David Berreby at Big Think may have gotten close, however:
Game of Thrones: The Sadness of a World Without Science
The Game of Thrones universe is a world without science. It has technology and, no doubt, the continuous improvement that ingenuity breeds out of regular use (for example, the very bad young King’s new-model crossbow, much easier to load than standard-issue). It has geography and the sort of rule-of-thumb anthropology that practical people need (OK, so to get through this ceremony I need to eat what?). It has some lucky-accident discoveries, jealously guarded (looking at you, green napalm stuff). But among the warlocks and warriors and maesters, there is no system for accumulating, testing and sharing knowledge about the world. So that body of knowledge never changes. There are no new inventions, no new ideas. The past stretches back thousands of years (the Watch has had, what, 997 commanders?) like a mirror reflecting itself. And the future promises only more of the same.
To we who prefer the robots and spaceships, this world feels sad and suffocated. What is there to talk about, that hasn’t been said before? Which noble house has the throne, which dynast is truly nuts. Same things they talked about 500 years ago, with, now and then, a bit of dragon overflight to make this decade a little different from the preceding hundred and fifty.
There’s much more, which I encourage you to read. I don’t agree with everything Berreby says here, but he does have me thinking about why I generally prefer the sort of ideas that fuel SF over those that fuel fantasy. Just in a very general sense: as I said, I take a lot of satisfaction out of many works in both genres. Yet given the option to choose between two books or movies that I knew nothing else about except their genre, I’d probably choose the science fiction one.
What about you?
Do you prefer science fiction or fantasy? And why? What do you think are the fundamental differences between the genres, beyond the obvious?
Image above from Something Awful.
(If you have a suggestion for a Question, feel free to email me.)
I think my general preference for SF over fantasy has more to do with so much “modern” fantasy either ripping off Tolkien, ripping off Robert E. Howard, or ripping off Dungeons and Dragons (which itself ripped off both Tolkien *and* Howard).
Granted, there’s a lot of derivative stuff in SF as well, but at least it’s ripping off a wider range of source material.
This actually isn’t so true anymore. What you’re describing is mid-1980s to mid-1990s fantasy. When it comes to epic fantasy, there has been a huge shift towards deconstructionist fantasy since then, some of which completely turn the old tropes on their head, some of which are genuinely brutal and bleak (George R R Martin being only one example, and not even the most extreme). It’s also quite reductive to think of fantasy only as epic fantasy. I don’t mean to pick on you when it comes to this, though, but more my problem with how this article frames the “fantasy vs. sci-fi” issue. There’s also urban fantasy, magical realism, supernatural fantasy, steampunk (which has its roots in sci-fi but in practice tends to require some sort of magic), and dozens upon dozens of other subgenres. When it comes to my personal tastes, I think fantasy, when done right, can be more human and emotion-based than sci-fi, which often has intriguing ideas but even more often is more interested in these concepts than in characters. Fantasy speaks more to the primal and is able to use various mythical constructs as metaphor. Sci-fi only seems to do this when it blends in elements of fantasy, as well, such as in “Star Wars” or “Doctor Who,” both of which might be labeled “sci-fi” but are much more “science fantasy” or “science magic”.
Yes. This is why I’m more drawn to good fantasy than even good sci-fi. However, there’s no denying that fantasy can be baaaaad sometimes, and very much prone to what I refer to as ‘silly name syndrome’. It’s possible I’m missing some gems this way, but I really can’t bear to read fantasy when it’s full of people called El’wryl’an’ylari or whatever other pin the tail on the apostrophe the author has come up with. (I’ll forgive Anne McCaffrey her F’lar and F’nor etc, as she has a reasoning behind it as an honorific).
Also – there seems to be a feeling that, because it’s fantasy, no research is necessary. This is particularly galling for anyone with (for example) any expertise in horses. Particularly, horses do not have ankles, they have fetlocks, and what the author is calling an ankle is not even the right joint to be an equivalent. On the front leg, the ‘ankle’ fetlock is equivalent to the knuckles, or first finger joint (the horse knee is equivalent to our wrist). On the hind leg, the ‘ankle’ is the first toe joint, with the hock (the bit that bends ‘backward’) actually the equivalent to the ankle/heel.
Robert Jordan, as much as I enjoy the WoT series, could have discovered with a very little bit of research that one cannot carry a longbow tucked under the horses ‘saddle girth’ (just ‘girth’ will do, thanks). Not only would it mean that the horse couldn’t turn easily in whatever direction the bow was tucked under (because it couldn’t bend in that direction due to the bow being there) but it would very quickly cause serious injury and ulceration to the horse due to the fact that it’s got a whacking great stick of wood rubbing against it, in a constantly moving part of its body right behind its forelegs and shoulders (not to mention, it’d really get in the way of the rider’s leg, too). And besides, if your girth is loose enough to just tuck something under, you (and your saddle) will quickly end up on the ground.
ETA: sorry about the rant, it’s just a bit rampant and I find that bad research just hoiks me right out of the narrative, whilst I fume about lack of said research. I’m sure it happens with carpenters, blacksmiths etc etc, but horses are pretty common in fantasy and seem to be something people often don’t bother to research.
Re horses and fetlocks and ankle equivalents: I saw an exhibition on horses at the Museum of Natural History here in NY, and it was a revelation to me to learn about horse anatomy and which horse bones actually matched up to which human ones. One of the coolest facts I’ve ever learned.
Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Gives you a whole new perspective on the way they move, and how they get the power for jumping etc.
John, yeah, that actually doesn’t surprise me much, as that time period was the last time I was reading much new SF or fantasy literature. So my mindset and prejudices may very well be outdated.
There has never really been a generic science fiction in the way that there has become a generic fantasy. Star Trek and Star Wars come closest, but those seem mostly to have spawned their own fanfictions rather than beein massive influences on literature in general. Possibly there are just more potentially-incompatible things: it’s reasonable that different schools of magic might spring up in different parts of a world, less reasonable that two completely different forms of FTL drive should be in use by the same people with each never mentioned by the people who use the other.
Fantasy in the Tolkienian mould is essentially nostalgic: everything was better in the old days, magic is going out of the world. Science fiction may be desperately pessimistic – look at all the ecodoom stuff of the early seventies – but a lot of the time its characters at least believe in the possibility of a future better than any past they know about.
While it’s more of a trend than a rule, science fiction is more likely to be internally consistent than fantasy; even if you allow for strange mind-powers, calling them “magic” instead of “psionics” seems for many authors to be a licence to tweak them about as the plot demands. (“My powers are weak this far from home.” “My powers have grown with use.”)
There are certainly exceptions, but generic fantasy has often tended to be about lone heroes operating outside society. Science fiction generally assumes that there is a society out there, even if it’s corrupt, and the characters will often interact with it in a fairly extended way.
I very much prefer SF as a genre, for the same reasons as given by the earlier posters. Generally I can enjoy most SF – I like the internal logic that is implicit in SF, even if it is sometimes a little way-out. Much science fantasy is plain soppy – Star Wars and Dune included. People have magic powers or come from an advance civilisation, but still fight with swords. Star Wars is just a western set in space. Certain writers I love though – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman for two. Perhaps the internal logic, the satire, the darkness (in the case of Neil Gaiman) or the wit (in the case of Terry Pratchett).
I think that one of my problems with the current version of Doctor Who is that it feels to me much more like a space-fantasy show than like science fiction. Obviously that’s personal taste, but (judging by comments here on The Rings of Akhaten) even quite a few of the enthusiasts would probably admit that it’s rather more willing to write things off as “the power of myth” than it used to be.
I enjoy fantasy very much, but it’s important to me that it has clear internal logic and follows it, just as much as sci-fi does. Fantasy becomes unreadable when it either doesn’t set up its internal rules at all, or runs willy nilly roughshod all over them. Doctor Who, currently, appears guilty of this (IMHO) and that’s why it’s bothering me. I wouldn’t mind its going in a space-fantasy direction, if only it was doing it well!
Terry Pratchett presents the perfect antithesis to the article that the was quoted above. He created a world that is on the surface is very goofy, but it is one which is slowly advancing technologically and scientifically book after book, a world where people openly seek knowledge and to reveal the nature of their world, experiment and do all the things that the article writer accuses the entire genre of not doing (despite clearly never reading the books that he is critiquing).
I’ve never felt a need to choose. Most of my favorite fantasy writers also write science fiction. Both genres are based on the same premise: We’re not limited to the world we live in.
But lately I’ve been reading a lot of urban fantasy, because it seems very plausible to me. When I see flowers blooming on a dogwood tree or hear a really brilliant musician suddenly start playing in the middle of a subway station, it’s easy to think: Magic is real. If we really wanted to, we could cast a spell. There’s probably a dragon hiding under one of the subway platforms, guarding a treasure. We could find it if we looked hard enough. I live in New York. Odd things happen here all the time. Magic is just one more odd thing.
I think that’s partly why Harry Potter is so phenomenally successful; because the magic is right there, tucked alongside the ordinary world. It makes it seem that much more possible.
I definitely lean toward science fiction myself. Haven’t given it too much thought either. Don’t really have an explanation I like, but I think it has to do with the ideas in it. People being clever and figuring out how the world really works and adapting it, or themselves, to accomplish their goals. True possibilities of where we can go from here in our future. Things that, if we live long enough, we may actually see come to pass. Science fiction seems to be more a celebration of the intellect than fantasy. There does seem to be an aspect of learning and growth in science fiction that seems absent from most fantasy. Fantasy seems to look back or sideways while sci-fi tends to look ahead (of course these are generalizations, there are all sorts of stories that contain elements of both or are some sort of exception). Guess I’m something of a futurist at heart.
I couldn’t say I prefer one over the other, except that I’m more likely to read fantasy today, while as a kid – during the blockbuster early days of SF – I couldn’t get enough SF.
It is worth noting the achievement of the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, which combined both genres. The first books were essentially fantasy, with the semi-medieval society and dragons. But there was a backstory of the human population colonizing the planet from Earth, which eventually led to the “prequel” origin series that was essentially SF. I don’t know of anything else quite that thorough. There’s some commonality with Firefly, which had high-tech and low-tech in co-existence, but on Pern the high-tech devolved to low overnight and knowledge of the past was lost to history.
Sharon Shinn’s Archangel series and Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series are the same kind of SF/fantasy hybrids, and both are very good (especially the Kirstein books).
I looked up those series, and they sound great. Steerswoman appears to be out of print, though. http://www.amazon.com/The-Steerswoman-Rosemary-Kirstein/dp/0345357620/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=18OR12DQCKS3U&coliid=IPJ5HC3F8CP4J
That’s a bummer, as it sounds like something I’d like to read.
Amazon is selling a volume, “The Steerswoman’s Road,” which combines the first two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Steerswomans-Road-Rosemary-Kirstein/dp/0345461053/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039670&sr=1-1&keywords=rosemary+kirstein
The third book, “The Lost Steersman,” is available through third-party sellers:
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Steersman-Rosemary-Kirstein/dp/0345462297/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039670&sr=1-4&keywords=rosemary+kirstein
And the fourth book, “The Language of Power,” is still in stock:
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Power-Rosemary-Kirstein/dp/034546835X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039670&sr=1-3&keywords=rosemary+kirstein
She’s not done with the story, and I’m looking forward to the next volume whenever it comes out.
In general, even if a book is out of print, you can usually find reasonably priced used copies on Amazon via third-party sellers. Just go with the sellers with 4- or 5-star ratings and the books listed in “very good” or “like new” condition (which the seller usually describes in detail). I’ve done this many times and have found many sellers to be reliable.
Of course, you should resort to all this *after* you check if your library has it. ;-)
Libraries don’t work for me because I read too slow. When it takes a couple months to get through the average book, I’m better off buying them.
Thanks for the extra links. I put it on my wish list. The series sounds very intriguing. Although I generally don’t start reading unfinished series nowadays. Martin has taught me that.
I have zero problem buying used books, especially if they’re older. I figure the Author got their cut a long time ago. I bought Titus Groan used, and it was only in “good” condition. Great book, that one.
Encouraging to meet someone else who’s heard of this series…
Heard about it thanks to Jo Walton.
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2008/10/not-only-science-fiction-but-more-science-fictional-than-anything-else-rosemary-kirsteins-steerswoman-books
There’s an element of that in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, too. The particular era in which we find ourselves is very primitive, and full of magic, but there has been a highly technological society in the past (mor e than once).
This series also is relevant to a point someone else made about fantasy being derivative. The first book of WoT I found so derivative of Tolkein that I was going to give it up in disgust but was persuaded to continue by a friend. And they were right – Robert Jordan does go on to build a distinct world of his own, despite the presence of the very Orc-ish trollocs and Wraith-ish Fades.
I like both. I find the snobbishness of “speculative fiction” to be a bit misplaced though; just look at the collective works of Michael Crichton to see how many of those fiddly little world-building tech details are now seen as either obsolete or understood my many to be impossible or implausible. Exploring how people will react to a technology can be accomplished just as easily through magic and metaphor.
“Speculative fiction” is like “magical realism”: they’re terms meant to not scare off readers who think “science fiction” and “fantasy” are for dorks.
I grew up loving everything fantasy. Dragons, castles and wizards was everything for me. I didn’t even dabble in Sci-fi until my teen years.
Then I started realizing how amazing Science Fiction could be. I read Firestar and Hyperion, and my appetite was whetted. Then a few years ago, a fellow employee loaned me his Gap books by Donaldson. GREAT series.
I’ve been going back and forth ever since.
Right now, I’m back to reading a more traditional fantasy novel(Sword of Shadows series by J.V. Jones), and am finding myself a tad bored. The writing is good, but it just feels so primitive. If I’m going to read Fantasy I prefer it be of the more magical, dragon-infused variety, and this isn’t it.
Funny thing, though. I read Titus Groan right before this and loved it. Killer writing with great characters. No magic or dragons needed.
I realize I’ve focused on my reading, but it’s the same with any other medium.
So I think what I want is a mix of the two. I want fantasy mixed with technology. Giant robot dragons flying through space. Wizards shooting lightning bolts with one hand and a laser rifle with the other.
Yeah, now THAT would be cool.
Of course, the Gap Series was Wagnerian opera loosely reimagined as a space opera, so it sort of fits into both categories.
Can’t I just like weird shit, man? Sans classification, other than it makes me say “whoa, that’s weird. Cool.”
Of course you can. But isn’t it fun trying to figure out why you like different kinds of cool shit?
Well, I suppose if I had to narrow it– I lean more to scifi, but with a big healthy dollop of horror. I’d rather have straight horror than straight scifi. Dragons and swords don’t really grab me. And it’s fairly easy to trace– I grew up with the Doctor, with Spock and Kirk and with the 6 Million dollar man.
I prefer SF. SF is steeped in what is and what might be.
Fantasy is steeped in what isn’t and never will be.
But that’s what makes Fantasy fun! Why entrench ourselves in reality? Why always follow the rules? That gets boring fast. I certainly enjoy Sci-fi, but generally the kind that has fun with it. I love deep themes that get me thinking, but surround it with a thrilling story and great characters. Throw in some laser firing space dragons with Wizard riders, and I am SO there! ; – )
Well yeah. Dragons make everything better :)
Alas, in my experience all too often they mean “I am a Real Writer who doesn’t do this genre rubbish, so I won’t bother to read any of it before writing my own masterwork, and so I will end up with something that to anyone who has read widely in the genre seems very old-fashioned and boring”.
The term may have come to have those connotations now, but it was originally coined by Robert Heinlein in 1947,
I enjoy both, but prefer fantasy that fits scientific rules. Harry Dresden, Vlad Taltos, books by Simon Green and similar fantasies tend to seem like modern film noir with magic as the rule rather than technology. Science Fiction like Star Trek (not Star Wars, that’s just futuristic fantasy), Fringe, and similar material do well as long as the story is good, not just the special effects or plot devices.
I much prefer SF over Fantasy, in fact I really do not like Fantasy of the sword-n-sorcery variety at all. I adored the Lord of the Rings trilogy (my friends quite literally had to guide me around on a class trip because I could not stop reading it) and I’ve been unable to read anyone else’s version of a heraldic dragon-elf-troll-royalty-based fantasy world since then. It just seems thin and derivative, and believe me, I’ve tried.
Maybe it’s the sexism–the word “wench” makes me want to punch someone in the face–or the language in general, the way grammar is mangled to sounde olde-timey, forsooth, is yea verily a great plague upon my sovereign spirit. Or maybe it’s the stifling classism? Monty Python’s Holy Grail had a hand in ruining that sort of thing for me, with its cries of, “Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!”
Base your fantasy in the world of today (Harry Potter, anyone?), I’m okay with it. But I really do like a nice science fiction space opera best.
So frustrating: one of my favorite writers used to write the most amazing space opera-tv-show-based fanfiction ever, but writes only fantasy professionally (she’s not crazy-famous but she’s pretty successful at it). I want to read her professional fantasy novels, I’ve tried, but I really detest the kind of fantasy she writes. I do wish she’d try her hand at her own space opera novel with her own characters! It’s as if my favorite musician fools around by playing amazing rock and roll but will only record jazz… and I hate jazz!
*shrug* The local library and ivory tower elitists everywhere see them as the same thing. And with “Science Fantasy” like Star Wars to bridge the gap they might as well be. But as for me, I like hard HARD science fiction, because it takes more skill to create a plausible and entertaining story when you can’t just hand-wave it.
I liked the Tolkien trilogy. But there is nothing as good as hard serious suspenseful Sci-Fi. I’m thinking Crichton, Hunger Games and Limitless (Darkfields), and PKD – Blade Runner. The problem with hard sci-fi is that you have to have real ideas. Then layer on good character development. This is too high a bar for almost any writer. So good hard SciFi is rare.
Fantasy, well, you can just make stuff up. Fishheaded companions that can dance, sing and save your ass from the Dragozians (I just made that up) – sure, why not….. What ideas or thinking is really needed to tell a fantasy?
That’s very bad fantasy (I’ve moaned about it elsewhere on this thread). Good fantasy, on the other hand, has to have an internal consistency just as much as good sci-fi. It has to have done its research. Try some Ursula le Guin (the Earthsea series, for example) and you’ll find a lot of real ideas, and in depth thinking.
I am just thinking that if a fishheaded companion popped up to save Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect from the Dragozians one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, no one would have batted an eyelash about it.
It was less the fisheaded companion I was referring to as bad, and more the ‘you can just make stuff up’ idea.
THIS.
I don’t have anything against fantasy, but its never really resonated with me the way great sci fi does. I get the idea that Sci fi is for something, meaning it has a point of view on humanity, while I am not able to get the same thing from fantasy.
Star trek got me interested in technology and the humanities, this has shaped my life for the better, I hope.
Eh? Fantasy- at least if it is any good- is all about the question of what it means to be human.
But then I think this question is a bit difficult to start with. What about all the sub genres that blend both fantasy and sci fi together. That’s why people in the industry started using the term speculative fiction actually, and not to be pretentious as some people in this thread imply (though of course some people probably do use it in that sense). Both sci fi and fantasy speculate about human nature and do so by using the distance of another world, people, technology or planet to make that speculation more comfortable? More believable? Less confronting? I actually discussed this on my blog at some point.
That’s the interesting part, how is it that I can see this in sci-fi, both in utopian and dystopian stories, but not in fantasy? I mean sure, all stories are about humanity, that’s the anthropic principle at work right there. But when I think of fantasy I think more about camaraderie, adventure, power dynamics, the hero that never gives up, and that falls into the category of everyday living, certainly part of what it means to live life and consequently what it means to be human, but I don’t recall (and this could be a bias on my part since I don’t read/watch fantasy very much), fantasy addressing what it means to have a thing called humanity and examine the root of it in the very act of having consciousness in such a direct way as Blade Runner for example.
I don’t think you’ve been looking very hard.
There are plenty of stories about monsters that ask: What’s the difference between a monster and a human? And there are many other fantasy stories about what it means to be human, especially if you count classics like Pygmalion and Pinocchio.
And, of course, Star Trek and Doctor Who are often about camaraderie, adventure, power dynamics, the hero that never gives up.
It sounds to me like you just don’t like fantasy, which is perfectly fine. The stories you’ve read didn’t connect with your life experiences. If everyone liked every story about “the human condition,” then bookstores wouldn’t need to divide the books by genre. But I think the generalizations you’re making are too general to be of much use.
“I don’t think you’ve been looking very hard.”
I don’t, I said so in my post.
If you think I’m knocking fantasy, I’m not, I still stand by what I said though as it is a very subjective experience this life of mine :)
I will however reject the point that Pinochio and Bladerunner are similar other than the “inanimate object attains (Or doesn’t, depending on your reading), humanity” bit, they still do not tell the same story.
I’ll offer up a hedge though: Maybe they do, but I learn different things form each story, so maybe preference has a lot to do with what you bring with you. I can assure you that understanding does, at least.
I generally prefer fantasy because I love the metaphor in it and because I love imagination and myth combined. But I find the question pretty tough to start with. I have an entire blog dedicated to ‘speculative fiction.’ I prefer that term because today both sci fi and fantasy often overlap, and often with other things like historical fiction (Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth or anything steampunk as an eg) and horror (Neil Gaiman as an eg). One of my favourite series is the Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody which manages to be an epic fantasy and a dystopian sci fi series at the same time. And The unfinished Ruins of Ambrai series by Melanie Rawn is the same.
I just find that the genres have become very fluid and to seperate them becomes superficial with my reading choices because so often the two blend together in what I read.
I don’t particularly enjoy hard science fiction mainly because often I find the technology takes over the characters or the characters are one dimensional. That may well be what I am reading however. In fantasy, there are many rip off’s of Tolkien but in the 90s to now a lot of really cool new stuff has come out. Particularly in Australia, where I am, there has been a bit of a golden age of fantasy in terms of local authors doing innovative things with the genre.
I usually choose what would be considered by most to be sci fi, at this particular stage of life, simply because no one has improved upon the Trilogy in my opinion. That being said, I think most of the sci fi I choose qualifies as some ones fantasy, it just features elements of science. For instance, I give you 2 of my favorite books, Glory Road and Santiago. I think both are fantasies with science/technology thrown in. The Lost Fleet, another of my favorites, is bristling with hardware, yet the notion of fleets in space must remain fantasy as well til we at least make it to a neighboring planet, don’t you think?
The British Library exhibition on the two genres had the following Rod Sterling quote.
“Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.”
I liked it, it seemed to explain why I prefer SF to fantasy, it has the tangibility of possibility with also the thrill of something unlikely.
That said, I prefer my SF or fantasy to be a small element bleeding into the real world rather than a whole new one. It was the problem I had with Tolkien, it’s so easy for a hobbit to have a huge life changing adventure, they just need to walk out of The Shire.
Oh – quick hijak, if no-one objects? It occurs to me that there’s a bunch of sci-fi readers in one place, here, and one of you might be able to help!
I’m looking for a series of books. I read half of them back in about 1995-6. I remember very little about them (it was a long time ago!) except that I think the series was written by a woman, and it was about a family (or group of people) and a sentient ship (or orbiting computer? Something like that) that was guiding them in some way, I think to escape their planet, or find a new one?
Most people say ‘Oh, you mean Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang?‘ and I can confirm that indeed I do not mean that.
Oh, indeed. When he was trying to get away from the “rayguns and aliens” image that the pulps had given the term “science fiction…
I like the kind of science fiction that actually proposes or illustrates cultural differences — deep cultural differences — that might happen as a result of technological change. Sometimes these works can have a bit of fantasy there. Frequently, there is not much detail on the actual technology. However, just like “[t]he past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”, {fyi: That is in my top ten first lines of a novel. Despite it not being SF/F, I highly recommend The Go-Between. End of Tangent.} the Future is equally foreign and there is no guide book. I have always been horrified by works with all the bright-and-shiny technology and ‘new’ capabilities but then there was the same-old-same-old wrt gender, class (except when there’s some kind of imposition of a political system after a disaster that forceably eradicates classes…like a tabula rasa, like the survivors wouldn’t have had any memories of the ‘before’) and job descriptions. Robert Heinlein, I’m looking right at you. Ditto Michael Moorcock.
So, bearing that in mind, Ursula LeGuin was the only SF writer of my youth to still get me to spend my money on her. I think the first book I read of hers was The Lathe of Heaven. Second was Left Hand of Darkness. Both I have reread multiple times at least once a decade since. Then, I started reading Gibson. His recent books are not SF, but the early cyberpunk also proposed societal changes and, in a way, showed how the technology doesn’t really change the people.
More recently, my other SF/F favs are writers who would probably be considered more fantasy, but they bring up the questions I think about more: Nalo Hopkinson (READ Skin Folk!), Sherri S. Tepper, and Octavia Butler (RIP).
Of course I love Pratchett and Gaiman, but they are for fun and the thinking I do is more theological, not societal.
Do you prefer science fiction or fantasy? No. I prefer a good story regardless of the way it’s classified.
Interesting question… I honestly don’t read much fiction in general anymore, as I prefer nonfiction, but when I do read fiction I usually read fantasy. I have read sci fi in the past, but I think the basic reason that I can’t get into sci fi is because the extensive technological descriptions and the pessimistic dystopias of the sci fi genre often overshadow the characters and the connection between people for me. Because fantasies are primarily set in the “past” or in worlds in which technology is not the driving force, it seems like there is more room for there to be true connection between characters and more character development in that format. Both fantasy and sci fi are ‘fantastical’ in that they are genres about things that don’t currently exist in this world. Because fantasy is something that can be created to be whatever it wants using ‘magic’ it still has some of the same elements of sci fi, in that there are things that exist in the fantasy worlds that don’t (and can’t) ever exist in this world, but the focus is more on adventure and the dynamics between people, whereas, with sci fi, it has always been my understanding that there is this element of “Oh isn’t this technology cool? Let’s focus on the technology and explaining how this one sci fi element works for ten pages to help keep the continuity of the story going” which just loses me because it’s not interesting enough to hold my attention. Furthermore… And maybe it’s just the sci fi that I have read (some of the classics- Asimov, Bradbury), but it’s just so dystopian that I lose interest. If the point of technology is to better humanity (which, theoretically it is) then why is every world always so damned depressing? Again, because I haven’t read A LOT of sci fi, I’m sure this isn’t true of the genre all the way around, but that’s simply been my experience of it.
Anyhoo… I think this is kind of like asking who here are optimists vs. pessimists or thinkers vs. feelers (myers briggs type). I generally see even current technology as something that gets in the way of true connection between people, though it does assist with communicating with people you might not otherwise have communicated with. It substitutes in an artificial feeling of connection in some ways and creates a way you might not have connected with others in some ways. Furthermore, technology itself is almost always about ‘bigger and better,’ so the focus is taken away from the people that it is supposed to assist and placed on non-living elements that hold no true value. The fantasy genre strips this stuff away to some extent. While I’m not saying I would want to live in that world (because let’s be honest, I rather like my electricity and my internet and my car…) I don’t think I would rather live in the sci fi worlds that are presented either… And if those are the worlds we are headed towards with all of our technology (worlds with greater technology but not greater humanity-compassion, empathy, etc) then I’d rather just read the book that is completely and utterly ‘fantastical’ (ie fantasy novel).