What is it called when a "fantasy" story has no non-human or para-normal aspects?

[MillieDynamite]

Why don't you write, and we'll all take turns telling you what is or isn't?

In other words, if a story is set in an unnamed place and time that feels a lot like the Roman Empire mixed in with medieval times, but is otherwise completely recognizably human and this-world, is it still called Fantasy?

@StillStunned, maybe it's just called "Swords?" You, know. What's it called if there's no "Sorcery?" Is that your personal terminology, or is "Swords and Sorcery" a thing?

Edit: Mildly related trivia... How come such stories work in a swords-only setting? They don't work if there are guns in some imaginary world.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Why don't you write, and we'll all take turns telling you what is or isn't?

If I write a story about someone who writes a story that makes the Hall of Fame, is that fantasy or wish fulfillment?

 

[RetroFan]

If it purposely creates a world that has never existed, it's some form of fantasy. The paranormal is not required.

Guns could work in the right setting. Basically any time before firearms were created. Artificers in Ancient Egypt, for example. There are people who believe they were using electricity, and using some kind of sound-based levitation to build the pyramids. LOL

Drop a bronze age civilization in Neanderthal times, and you have yourself a fantasy.

Would Bridgerton fit into this genre? It's apparently set in Regency times, but hardly qualifies as romantic, historical fiction written about the era. Sure, anyone creating historical fiction from any era may take small liberties, but Bridgerton seems to be more fantasy than factual.

The epic movie released last year by Francis Ford Coppola - Megalopolis - which cost an absolute bomb and then bombed at the box office might also qualify, as it is about if modern day New York City is like Ancient Rome.
Yeah, I don't get it either.

 

[AG31]

I haven't read a lot of fantasy, and even less science fiction, but there was a great series by Julian May The Pliocene Exile.

I saw this over in the Ten Great Books thread, and rather than introduce a new diversion, I'll ask this here. How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

 

[AG31]

I never even knew some authors of classical Fantasy or SciFi existed before they were mentioned by AH people.

I saw this over in the Ten Great Books thread, and rather than introduce a new diversion, I'll ask this here. How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

 

[StillStunned]

I saw this over in the Ten Great Books thread, and rather than introduce a new diversion, I'll ask this here. How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

It's one of those "I know it when I see it" things, I reckon. There's a large grey area between the genres, or where they overlap.

Star Wars is sci-fi, for example, even though the Jedi are clearly wizards and the Force is magic. Hiero's Journey is fantasy, even though it's set in the distant future with some machines, because of the psionic powers, talking animals and largely low level of technology. Dragonriders of Pern is fantasy, even though there's a scientific explanation for the dragons and the Thread and even though they end up finding spaceships. Foundation is sci-fi, even with Hari Seldon functioning basically as an oracle.

Just try to avoid getting caught between two nerds who disagree. Actually, that's probably pretty solid advice regardless of the question.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Science fiction is when Karl Urban has short hair and fantasy is when he has long hair.

Personally I think there's a lot of utility in the 'science fiction is possible if improbable or implausible; fantasy is impossible' distinction. It's not perfect, obviously. And it codes some things differently -- I disagree with StillStunned about Star Wars, for example. I think it's science fantasy (or just fantasy, if you don't recognize sci-fantasy as a genre), because it's basically a story about boys with magic.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I saw this over in the Ten Great Books thread, and rather than introduce a new diversion, I'll ask this here. How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

There are cases where it's easy to tell but there is also a lot of gray area.
Basically, if the setting is in some made-up world, usually medieval by the looks of it, with elves, dragons, magic, etc. you know you are dealing with fantasy. If the setting is in future Earth, with spaceships, other planets and systems, aliens, technology, etc, you know you are dealing with sci-fi. Those are easy cases.
Then there are cases where things overlap, where there are spaceships and technology, and aliens, but there is also magic and mysticism, and maybe even fantasy races. The prevalence of either defines where the story belongs more, I suppose, but it would probably be accurate to say that such stories are a mix of fantasy and sci-fi.

 

[Britva415]

How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

Maybe. Not just the presence, though - if it "might as well be magic," then it might as well be fantasy. What defines science fiction is the way the plot follows from the narrative postulation of a specific technology or discovery. It is speculation about "what if" we were this technologically advanced or if we were that scientifically clueful about the universe. Sometimes it includes speculative stuff which turns out to be unscientific, but that's not the same as just writing a story where the technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I saw this over in the Ten Great Books thread, and rather than introduce a new diversion, I'll ask this here. How do you distinguish between science fiction and fantasy? Just the presence of as yet uninvented technology in the former?

Obligatory Clarke: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

A lot of ink has been spilled on this question, and the lines can get very blurry. Genres are a concept people made up as a way of categorising stories and marketing them, and not all stories fit neatly into that categorisation. I don't know that it's possible to give a good "bright line" definition of where the boundary lies between the two, and indeed some of the more interesting stories are the ones that sit in the murky zone of uncertainty, but here are a couple of things relevant to categorisation.

Explanations

Fantasy tends to present "special effects" that are defined in terms of what they do, not how they do it. Lord of the Rings tells us that the One Ring is a focus for Sauron's power, it can make the wearer invisible, and dropping it in Mount Doom will break Sauron's power, but it tells us nothing about how it makes the wearer invisible or just how Sauron's power depends on it. Why do vampires crave blood? It's a magical curse. How do dragons breathe fire? They just do.



Sci-fi often attempts to give at least a partial explanation of these things in terms of real-world science. Why do sanguivores crave blood? They don't How do the Firebeasts of Phlogiston-4 breathe flame? They extract fluorine from the exotic minerals of their planet and store it in big sacs to be expelled as a weapon. The more rigorous those explanations are and the more consistent with real-world scientific knowledge, the further we are into "hard sci-fi" territory. When they're extremely superficial, when the vibe is more "I don't care how any of this works, just give me cool zap-guns", we're in fantasy or space opera territory.

Egalitarianism vs. Chosen Ones

One of the principles of science is that the world works by the same rules for everybody. If you can build a laser sword by following a certain set of instructions, then I (given the necessary resources) can also build a laser sword by following the same steps.

Because of this, SF settings tend to reflect the implications of the technology that exists. If it's possible to copy a person's mind and create a new person, or save that backup and resurrect them when they die, then that radically changes society - even if the technology is only available to the super-rich - and the world-building reflects that.

They may not be remotely egalitarian in terms of their politics - plenty of fascism/tyranny/etc. in SF - but even the tyrants have to deal with the fact that the oppressed masses are capable of using a laser sword or a ray-gun should they get their hands on it and read the manual.

Fantasy, OTOH, often relies on dynasties and Chosen Ones. Aragorn can cure victims of the Black Breath using athelas, because he's the King of Gondor; you can't, even if you copy everything he does.

Related, fantasy often treats magic as an exception to the normal order of things, something that mostly happens around the protagonists without greatly reshaping society. It often ends up as a sort of "pseudo-medieval Europe, except magic exists" thing, even when the magic that exists should prevent it from looking anything like medieval Europe. (A Song of Ice and Fire being my standard example here: a society that's subject to unpredictable decades-long winters should look VERY different to ours, but it's basically Wars of the Roses with dragons.)

 

[YmaOHyd]

Related, fantasy often treats magic as an exception to the normal order of things, something that mostly happens around the protagonists without greatly reshaping society. It often ends up as a sort of "pseudo-medieval Europe, except magic exists" thing, even when the magic that exists should prevent it from looking anything like medieval Europe. (A Song of Ice and Fire being my standard example here: a society that's subject to unpredictable decades-long winters should look VERY different to ours, but it's basically Wars of the Roses with dragons.)

The in-universe explanation for this is often best summed up (as many things are) by lines from Terry Pratchett.

Time travel was only a kind of magic, after all. That's why it always went wrong.

That's why there were postmen, with real feet. That's why the clacks was a string of expensive towers. Come to that, it was why farmers grew crops and fishermen trawled nets. Oh, you could do it all by magic, you certainly could. You could wave a wand and get twinkly stars and a fresh-baked loaf. You could make fish jump out of the sea already cooked. And then, somewhere, magic would present its bill, which was always more than you could afford.

That's why it was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards -- not "not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool could fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The in-universe explanation for this is often best summed up (as many things are) by lines from Terry Pratchett.

Yep, "magic is too dangerous to use often" is one of the big ones. Not that it ever stopped people from using tech...

I guess another angle to this is that fantasy settings often involve some kind of diminution of magic over time: "the elves made this stuff but they're all gone now". Sci-fi, when it doesn't go apocalyptic, usually involves an increasing power arc: yesterday the Moon, today Mars, tomorrow the stars, etc.

 

[AG31]

Obligatory Clarke: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

A lot of ink has been spilled on this question, and the lines can get very blurry. Genres are a concept people made up as a way of categorising stories and marketing them, and not all stories fit neatly into that categorisation. I don't know that it's possible to give a good "bright line" definition of where the boundary lies between the two, and indeed some of the more interesting stories are the ones that sit in the murky zone of uncertainty, but here are a couple of things relevant to categorisation.

Explanations

Fantasy tends to present "special effects" that are defined in terms of what they do, not how they do it. Lord of the Rings tells us that the One Ring is a focus for Sauron's power, it can make the wearer invisible, and dropping it in Mount Doom will break Sauron's power, but it tells us nothing about how it makes the wearer invisible or just how Sauron's power depends on it. Why do vampires crave blood? It's a magical curse. How do dragons breathe fire? They just do.

View attachment 2517645

Sci-fi often attempts to give at least a partial explanation of these things in terms of real-world science. Why do sanguivores crave blood? They don't How do the Firebeasts of Phlogiston-4 breathe flame? They extract fluorine from the exotic minerals of their planet and store it in big sacs to be expelled as a weapon. The more rigorous those explanations are and the more consistent with real-world scientific knowledge, the further we are into "hard sci-fi" territory. When they're extremely superficial, when the vibe is more "I don't care how any of this works, just give me cool zap-guns", we're in fantasy or space opera territory.

Egalitarianism vs. Chosen Ones

One of the principles of science is that the world works by the same rules for everybody. If you can build a laser sword by following a certain set of instructions, then I (given the necessary resources) can also build a laser sword by following the same steps.

Because of this, SF settings tend to reflect the implications of the technology that exists. If it's possible to copy a person's mind and create a new person, or save that backup and resurrect them when they die, then that radically changes society - even if the technology is only available to the super-rich - and the world-building reflects that.

They may not be remotely egalitarian in terms of their politics - plenty of fascism/tyranny/etc. in SF - but even the tyrants have to deal with the fact that the oppressed masses are capable of using a laser sword or a ray-gun should they get their hands on it and read the manual.

Fantasy, OTOH, often relies on dynasties and Chosen Ones. Aragorn can cure victims of the Black Breath using athelas, because he's the King of Gondor; you can't, even if you copy everything he does.

Related, fantasy often treats magic as an exception to the normal order of things, something that mostly happens around the protagonists without greatly reshaping society. It often ends up as a sort of "pseudo-medieval Europe, except magic exists" thing, even when the magic that exists should prevent it from looking anything like medieval Europe. (A Song of Ice and Fire being my standard example here: a society that's subject to unpredictable decades-long winters should look VERY different to ours, but it's basically Wars of the Roses with dragons.)

Excellent! Especially the observation about physical laws applying to all characters.
Thanks!

 

[Britva415]

I like the corollary about magic being indistinguishable from technology.

This is a hallmark of " 'science' fiction" which simply handwaves the "science" part and just postulates powers and forces with no effort at all to connect dots from contemporary scientific plausibility and development, to futuristic applications and "what-if's" about overcoming present technological roadblocks.

I believe that proper SF at least lampshades the fact that it's not presently realistic while drawing a picture of how maybe it could be someday, and that without those two elements, it might as well be fantasy (magic indistinguishable from technology). Or "space opera" or "starpunk" or something.

 

[AG31]

lampshades the fact

What does "lampshade" mean?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Any current technology developed in the past 100 years would be magic to anyone two hundred years ago.

I like the corollary about magic being indistinguishable from technology.

This is a hallmark of " 'science' fiction" which simply handwaves the "science" part and just postulates powers and forces with no effort at all to connect dots from contemporary scientific plausibility and development, to futuristic applications and "what-if's" about overcoming present technological roadblocks.

I believe that proper SF at least lampshades the fact that it's not presently realistic while drawing a picture of how maybe it could be someday, and that without those two elements, it might as well be fantasy (magic indistinguishable from technology). Or "space opera" or "starpunk" or something.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I like the corollary about magic being indistinguishable from technology.

This is a hallmark of " 'science' fiction" which simply handwaves the "science" part and just postulates powers and forces with no effort at all to connect dots from contemporary scientific plausibility and development, to futuristic applications and "what-if's" about overcoming present technological roadblocks.

I believe that proper SF at least lampshades the fact that it's not presently realistic while drawing a picture of how maybe it could be someday, and that without those two elements, it might as well be fantasy (magic indistinguishable from technology). Or "space opera" or "starpunk" or something.

For me, one of the other SF/F distinguishers is how far the story works through the implications of the "magic" it introduces. For instance, Charles Stross' "Merchant Princes" series involves people who can travel between parallel versions of Earth via some kind of inherited mental power, carrying a small amount of stuff with them - something that would generally be filed under "portal fantasy".

But he then gets very much into the details of "how would this change the world"? If you can hop into Earth-2 from Tijuana, walk a few miles north, and then hop back to Earth-1, you have a way to smuggle objects across the US border, and on the other-way trips you can bring high-tech valuables like medicines to a lower-tech world, and he puts a lot of effort into "what would people do with this power and what societies would form around it?" To me, that's where it starts feeling more SF.

There's also Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" series, which is primarily magical but has a scientifically-minded protagonist. Having learned that magic burns out nearby electronics, he starts working on ways to use that effect to measure the power of magical effects. Set up a network of cheap mobile phones programmed to ping base every so often, and when one of them stops, you know something magical has happened nearby; the larger the radius, the more powerful. Overall the series still fits better as "urban fantasy" than SF, but that kind of exploration feels much more science-y than "spells work by waving a wand and speaking Latin".

 

[YmaOHyd]

What does "lampshade" mean?

Lampshading is the practice of deliberately calling attention to a plot hole or something implausible, telling the audience that they're right to notice it but that it's not a big deal.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What does "lampshade" mean?

Lampshading is the practice of deliberately calling attention to a plot hole or something implausible, telling the audience that they're right to notice it but that it's not a big deal.

Relevant link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging

For instance, when a TV show has to replace the actor playing a particular character, mentioning "by the way Bob had plastic surgery on holidays and now looks a bit different" - as opposed to just saying nothing and expecting the audience to accept the switch.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Another common example is a character saying something like 'this only happens on TV/in the movies/in stories/on stage'; whichever is appropriate to the medium.

 

[Nynah]

Science fiction is when Karl Urban has short hair and fantasy is when he has long hair.

The one exception to this rule is The Chronicles of Riddick, where he inexplicably has both.

 

[YmaOHyd]

The one exception to this rule is The Chronicles of Riddick, where he inexplicably has both.

Science fantasy. Checkmate.

 

[Britva415]

What does "lampshade" mean?

Short for “hang a lampshade on it.”

 

[Bramblethorn]

This felt appropriate here:

 

[Britva415]

Short for “hang a lampshade on it.”

It occurs to me that "lampshading" is kind of an opposite to "handwaving."