Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Whats considered Science Fiction?

This is topic Whats considered Science Fiction? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by WolfofWar (Member # 3156) on :

What do publishers define as Sci-Fi? Does it have to be in space? Does it have to have a scientific sounding or functioning system in its story? For example, Is Star Wars not Sci-Fi because it really has nothing to do with anything scientific?

What is really defined as sci-fi?

Posted by Johnmac1953 (Member # 3118) on :

I think the gendre(?) has outgrown the description given it many years ago...I think originally it was just space and science.
Nowadays it has outgrown the tag, I recall a lot of confusion about what the difference was between Sci-fi and Fantasy in the early days! These two have now evolved into separate entity's which has made life easier!
Best Wishes
John Mc...

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I still like Ben Bova's definition, which parallels Analog's definition. A science fiction story has some aspect of science or technology so integral to the plot that it is impossible to remove without destroying the story.

I've seen some people (John Scalzi specifically) use this as a definition for hard SF, and he goes on to include things like Star Wars in science fiction, where I would categorize it as science fantasy.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

it has a spaceship on the cover

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

I would tend to argue that it should be called techno-fantasy, since the only "theory" that matters to the plot is "the Force", and the various fantastic technologies (hyperspace, Death Star, droids, etc.) that play essential roles aren't explained at all.

But if you accept those technologies as speculative "science", then Star Wars does qualify as SF. An important point, early SF tended to speculate on what "science" might eventually bring to pass, not on any actual theories (there are some important exceptions).

"Hard" SF is a relative term. A very "hard" SF story might still be softer than another SF story. I don't assign a border between the two, but rather by the principles that govern them. "Hard" SF is the kind of thing that contains detailed and plausible technology/engineering, while "soft" SF has little or no justification for the technology explored other than saying "it's science". However, simply making the claim that something is made possible by "science" does allow a story to treat the essential question that motivated much early SF, "Supposing we can, does that mean we should?"

In other words, "science fiction" is a story in which "science", whether accurate or even plausible to actual engineers, appears as an important dramatic element. This definition isn't universal, since what one person regards as "science" would be called "fantasy" by another (and vice versa). I don't regard anything in Star Wars as being remotely connected with actual science...but it is connected with the popular view of what science may achieve.

Or more simply, if you call it "science fiction", then you mean that you think it is fiction about science

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

I have a question about a specific instance: Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern appeared to be fantasy on the surface, but as Dragonsdawn showed, there was a definite science fiction root to her world. Because I read them all at one time, I just considered the entire series to be sci fi, but I wonder how she marketed the first book when looking for a publisher?

Along that line, my novel has a similar situation. In the events of the novel, very little occurs that wouldn't happen in a fantasy setting, though I have grounded it in plausible science as much as possible and there is no magic. My world, like Pern, was settled by colonists, and does have science fiction roots, including genetic manipulation.

When I am looking for an agent or publisher, should I tell them I'm sending a fantasy manuscript, or sci fi, or a science fantasy?

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

Interesting question. It sounds as if you're talking about something along the lines of Robert Silverberg's Majipoor stories, which are ostensibly science fiction (planet settled by human and alien races) but operate effectively as fantasy. Silverberg is generally known as an SF author (as was McCaffrey, I think, when she started the now-interminable Pern saga), and thus they are generally classed as SF books despite being science-light. For an author who isn't established, it's much more questionable whether you could get away with that. On the other hand, the majority of publishers cover both genres, and the majority of bookstores put them together on the shelves, so you may not have to worry about it at all - let your publisher, or the critics, decide what genre it is...

Posted by Minister (Member # 2213) on :

When hunting an agent, I'd suggest looking for one who handles both, and in your letter mention the similarities between your universe and McCaffrey's. If he likes the story enough, he'll figure out how to market it.

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

Science fiction is writing about anything in the future.
One could write a science fiction story about what is going to happen tomorrow, but by the time it was written, accepted by a publisher, printed, distributed, and read by the reader, they would have long known how far off you really were.
The farther ahead you write, the easier it is to be accurate or less chance to be found wrong.

Once one get beyond a certain amount of time, one can do anything you want as long as it is plausible. If you can figure out a scientific reason for something, including magic, then it is science fiction.

Then of course, there are the "what if" type stories such as "what if aliens appeared in times square, or What if an asteroid hit three mile island. Again, if you can find a scientific excuse for something, you can do it, including a scientist in a dying universe creates a portal which allows the denizens, which we picture as evil, to enter our world and we have to use new found magic to defeat them.

Hard Science Fiction is where you take an invention, a technology, a social pattern and extend it to the logical conclusion.

Soft science fiction is where the science fiction is the scaffold around which your useful idiot gets into trouble.

Science fantasy, like Star Wars, uses science fiction as a backdrop, and usually involves magic and other things we might see in fantasy stories.

As to what editors are after, they might have a bit different definition.

Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :

For me, it's science fiction if the laws of the universe within which the story takes place are presumed to be the same as the laws of the real universe. (I'm distinguishing SF from fantasy here, not from mundane fiction. If I wanted to to that, I'd still hold to this criterion, but I'd have to add a messy bunch of other possibilities as well, like: it takes place in the future OR in the present but with some new scientific advance OR etc.) All the explaining that you need to justify something seemingly impossible is to say "They figured out how to do that."

To me, Star Wars is not science fiction because it posits the Force, which we have no reason to think is a real feature of the universe. But if you want to argue that we just haven't discovered it yet . . . well, okay. Be that way. I won't fuss.

As for Pern: "Weyr Search" the independently-published first portion of the first novel, began with a description of the Pern colonists having been abandoned and reverting to a more primitive status, as well as of the "wandering" planet that the system had captured in recent millenia and the mycchorizoid nature of thread. Despite that, and the repetition of that information in a prologue in every book afterwards, the books read and felt like fantasy, and if you find the original Ballantine paperbacks and look, they say "fantasy" on the spine, not "science fiction."

For publishing categories? If it has trees, it's fantasy. It it has machines, it's sf.

Posted by AaronAndy (Member # 2763) on :

OSC, if I remember correctly, spends a good part of a chapter on this topic in his "How to write Science Fiction and Fantacy" book. He basically says that Speculative Fiction (scifi and fantacy together) is any story that takes place in a universe different from the one in which we live, including almost all future stories, alternate past stories, and stories which involve major plot elements that are different from the real world.

However, even that definition doesn't quite cut it, since a story about a woman elected President of the US would actually qualify as sf under it, even thought it most certainly wouldn't be considered such (unless there were other elements in the story to justify that classification). That's probably where the "science" thing comes in; the difference has to be somehow scientific or technological somehow.

Trying to determine what is sci-fi and what is fantacy is futile in many cases, since a single story can easily have elements of both.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

quote:
I would tend to argue that (Star Wars) should be called techno-fantasy

I categorize Star Trek as science fantasy also. It has to do with Larry Niven's bolognium. One piece is almost required for SF. Two a good writer can get away with. Three takes a grand master to pull off. Four, you're in science fantasy.

Posted by Mynstryl (Member # 3251) on :

Well, I was going to post a comment and start putting in my two cents, but everybody else already said everything I would have said. From what I've heard, if it deals with science, it's sci-fi; if it deals with magic, it's fantasy--which doesn't really help much.

I have a lot of trouble with the whole sci-fi/fantasy destinction myself. My problem is that my story should probably be classified sci-fi over fantasy because it deals with science, but it isn't weird enough for a sci-fi publisher; it's more fantasy. :::sighs::: I've already reworked the thing three--no, four times, so I don't really want to do it again just to please a publisher.

Orson Scott Card's Sci-fi and Fantasy book is on my list of books about writing that I need to buy. Now if only I had money. :-)