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lauraanne_gilmanMorning? Again? Already? *shuffles over to get the cafFiend stoked up and working*
A random dip into the LJ-verse gives us![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frankwu discussing "Wall-E," wherein he says:
The thing about fantasy and science fiction is that in fantasy stuff just happens - there are rules, but we never really know why the sword has the ability to sing, or how chanting particular words and sowing dragon's teeth into the ground raises up armies of living skeletons - but in science fiction, it's important to say HOW something happens.
Um. Am I alone I thinking that Frank, smart guy tho he is, is showing more his own bias than the reality of the fantasy genre? That a lot of fantasy is as well-grounded in the HOW of magic [not just the rules but who gets what abilities and why] as a lot of SF [since SF does not automatically and only mean Hard SF], is about the HOW of science? Because by his specific standards, the Cosa Nostradamus universe is one of SF, not fantasy. And while I'm all about ignoring genre limitations...
Or maybe I am writing SF. I mean, electricity? Bio-chemical reactions to magic-use? Magic-hackers? Artificially-created species and...hrm. And sentient curses, vengeful ghosts, loan-sharking dragons in the Appalachians, dryads and piskies in Central Park, and a bansidhe living in a stuffed horse?
Right. What the hell am I writing, anyway?*
Discuss. I'll be back later.
*first person to say "science fantasy" gets kicked in the shins. That's a cop-out, IMO, and you might as well admit that it's all speculative fiction and the 'rules' of each genre are bullshit. Which is actually what I think, but shhhh, this is about your arguments, not mine....
A random dip into the LJ-verse gives us
frankwu discussing "Wall-E," wherein he says:The thing about fantasy and science fiction is that in fantasy stuff just happens - there are rules, but we never really know why the sword has the ability to sing, or how chanting particular words and sowing dragon's teeth into the ground raises up armies of living skeletons - but in science fiction, it's important to say HOW something happens.
Um. Am I alone I thinking that Frank, smart guy tho he is, is showing more his own bias than the reality of the fantasy genre? That a lot of fantasy is as well-grounded in the HOW of magic [not just the rules but who gets what abilities and why] as a lot of SF [since SF does not automatically and only mean Hard SF], is about the HOW of science? Because by his specific standards, the Cosa Nostradamus universe is one of SF, not fantasy. And while I'm all about ignoring genre limitations...
Or maybe I am writing SF. I mean, electricity? Bio-chemical reactions to magic-use? Magic-hackers? Artificially-created species and...hrm. And sentient curses, vengeful ghosts, loan-sharking dragons in the Appalachians, dryads and piskies in Central Park, and a bansidhe living in a stuffed horse?
Right. What the hell am I writing, anyway?*
Discuss. I'll be back later.
*first person to say "science fantasy" gets kicked in the shins. That's a cop-out, IMO, and you might as well admit that it's all speculative fiction and the 'rules' of each genre are bullshit. Which is actually what I think, but shhhh, this is about your arguments, not mine....
