Considering the Difference Between Science Fiction and Fantasy

Every Science Fiction and/or Fantasy writer has a version.

[Cover artwork: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818]

Proposal

What separates fantasy from science fiction?

There are too many places to start from, so for this post I will try to take an outside-in approach and use the widest categorization people use for science fiction and fantasy.

Short Prelude: Categories Within Each Genre

Science fiction and fantasy each have two established categories that all of their works should fall under. This section is mostly to give some context on the range of science fiction and fantasy being covered.

Science fiction can be separated into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ science fiction.

Hard science fiction deals with “hard” or physical sciences such as physics and biology. Soft science fiction deals with “soft” or social sciences such as politics and psychology.

There is also a little frustration with these terms because “hard” and “soft” also indicate a second categorization. In hard science fiction, the science is integral to the plot. The science is also accurate to Earth’s (at least at the time of its publishing). In soft science fiction, the science or discovery is not crucial. Soft science fiction might focus more closely instead on relationships, emotions, and societies.

Fantasy can be separated into ‘high’ and ‘low’ fantasy.

Eric Falden

wrote a great post that defined the the two and I recommend checking it out. “High” fantasy deals with a world completely separate from Earth’s reality. “Low” fantasy deals with a story where Earth is in some way relevant.

Beyond those four main categories, sub-genres and descriptions are free game.

Is it Possible for the Line to be Completely Distinct?

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, “It Doesn’t Have to Be the Way It Is,” she mentions that both science and fantasy are based “profoundly on the admission of uncertainty, the welcoming acceptance of unanswered questions” (Le Guin, No Time to Spare 84).

In another essay, “A War Without End,” she adds:

Fantasy and science fiction in their very conception offer alternatives to the reader’s present, actual world…

before going on with:

Yet, as if it feared its own troubling powers, much science fiction and fantasy is timid and reactionary in its social invention, fantasy clinging to feudalism, science fiction to military and imperial hierarchy…in a world so morally simplified, if a slave is not Spartacus, he is nobody. This is merciless and unrealistic. (Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind 218-219)

In other words, fantasy and science fiction carry similar general purposes, promises, and pitfalls.

The difference between the two gets further muddled when Robert Silverberg, editor for the first Fantasy Hall of Fame collection in 1983, mentioned during his introduction to the book:

I would not care to get entangled in any extensive effort to draw definitional boundaries between science fiction and fantasy…even the best definition is likely to break down into illogicality and inconsistency under close examination. The furthest I will venture is to say that science fiction is that branch of fantasy which generally deals in extrapolations of the consequences of technological development, and which attempts to stick fairly rigorously to known or theoretically possible scientific concepts. Fantasy is a much broader field of fiction that is less firmly bound to the tyranny of fact, and for the purposes of any given story is permitted to assume nearly any idea as plausible, though it is desirable for the author to elicit a suspension of disbelief through the plausible development of a basically unlikely notion. (Silverberg 10)

If science fiction is a branch of fantasy, as Silverberg claims, then trying to completely differentiate the two becomes useless. There’s an inherent connection between them.

But there is clearly also a point that separates one from the other, or we wouldn’t be having an ongoing discussion on the topic since the 1930s. Even if the boundary won’t be as in-depth as some might like, it can be helpful—or at least gratifying—to know by what criteria one genre begins to slide over into the other.

But first, some examples to discredit common stereotype distinctions. It’s easier to reason out what the difference is not before considering what the difference could be.

What the Difference is Not

The difference isn’t time-sensitive, where fantasy falls back on the past and science fiction falls towards the future. There are modern fantasies and future fantasies, and steampunk at its purest is retroactive science fiction.

The difference isn’t thematic, where fantasy is more optimistic and science fiction more pessimistic. Optimism is a common theme among science fiction’s Golden Age, and fantasy shares its roots in the gothic.

The difference isn’t in location, where fantasy involves magical land creatures and science fiction has space creatures. Fantasy and science fiction sometimes don’t involve creatures at all.

Perhaps most confusingly, the difference isn’t technological, where fantasy includes magic and science fiction includes invented devices.

Science lends towards invention and fantasy towards magic—and even if some offerings of each genre don’t contain these elements, it’s certainly become shorthand. As useful of a quick differentiator it can be, it fails when put to the test as an actual boundary-maker.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is awash with technology. The key players in the story use scientific research and reasoning to carry out their goals, and interact with what was then cutting-edge science and technology to combat the creature, but that doesn’t make Dracula a science fiction.

Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde involves a complete transformation via potion, which one might easily claim as magic in any other scenario, but the novella is rightly considered as science fiction. The entire story revolves around the exploration and consequences of one scientific supposition, even if the science itself is barely explained.

Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Doolittle series involves a doctor who learned to converse with animals—not through magic, but through dedicated observation of their behavior. His breakthroughs came through experimentation and research. Doctor Doolittle is additionally keen on writing and researching his scientific findings as he progresses in his adventures, and yet the series could be considered a fantasy. Why? The findings are all based on information that breaks Earth’s rules. Doctor Doolittle rips out the lining of his hat to scribble down a groundbreaking scientific explanation, but he does so while traveling through the ocean inside of the shell of a giant pink snail. The fantasy is treated scientifically, but it is fantasy nonetheless. The science is important to Doctor Doolittle but not to the story; a scientist can exist in a fantasy without the scales of genre tipping over.

Technology may not be the key differentiator, but it can be helpful to observe when pointing out what differences between genres are consistent. Just from these three examples, the one science fiction not only includes but centers around the scientific experiment and its consequences, and the fantasies are more concerned with its characters and quests.

What the Difference Could Be

I would like to focus on each genre’s treatment of its main character and, by relation, the main structure or plot.

Fantasy often relies on the idea of the hero. A reader may enter a fantasy book with the notion that the protagonist is a hero or is not a hero, and the author often relies on the assumption. The protagonist adheres to some higher standard, even if it is the protagonist’s own set of ideals, which allows heroism to be judged by. Fantasy may lean towards clarifying that the hero isn’t in charge of the kingdom, or that the protagonist isn’t always a hero. Still, when the hero succeeds, he reaches for something universal, something that the reader can compare against throughout any time and setting. The fantasy allows the reader to consider what kind of person a character’s ideals could make. If you are one of those inclined to think that every book reflects some message onto the reader, the fantasy might reflect, “What kind of people do you respect? And what sort of ideals are yours?”

Science fiction, on the other hand, may retort: “Since when do we have heroes?” A protagonist may be heroic, but never more than one might expect a daring human in specific circumstances to be. In fact, the specific circumstances sometimes matter much more than the character. Science fiction often goes to the stars, but rather than alienating its readers from Earth, it gives opportunities for readers to see a foil to simple human action. It asks “what if?” to the reader, hoping the reader will have a response to “what now?”

Fantasy addresses the wider aspects and ideals of humanity, and science fiction addresses how those aspects play out in an everyday setting. Science fiction considers and explains a distinct possibility, either to showcase its outcome or the consequence of the people who interact with it. Fantasy often falls into the idea of the quest, where many events occur in order to showcase a theme or what a person is made of. Fantasy has general plots and specific characters while science fiction carries out specific plots with general characters. Fantasy errs towards the timeless while science fiction is ever changing its environment. Fantasy is inward-reaching; science fiction is outward-reaching.

And this is all speaking very narrowly, of course, but it allows for some poking into the issue of what makes the two different.

When King Arthur reaches for the stars with his idea of Camelot, he reaches for a commonly desired and—dare say it—non-unique ideal. But take Arthur out of Camelot, and you lose Camelot. His unwavering belief and love for his kingdom, his desire to set his kingdom to a higher standard, and his authority as a king who had greatness thrust upon him builds the legend. Likewise, his desire to will away his issues and his love for Guinevere are crucial to Camelot’s downfall. The medieval legend claims that Arthur may come again. It doesn’t give Camelot the same courtesy.

When the Time Traveller recounts his adventures in H.G. Well’s The Time Machine, he describes the civilization’s customs and then speculates what must have happened between his time and theirs to make it change so greatly. His name, like the narrator’s, is never given. His sole identifying feature is his occupation, which allows him to recount his observations with authority. The narrator may not know what to make of the Time Traveller’s speculations, but the reader is meant to take the Time Traveller’s actions into account, consider his reliability, and consider the implications of his story.

In fantasy, transporting from the beginning of the quest to the end of the quest would render the mission useless. The journey is as equally important as the destination, or more so, because the journey will help prove the character’s qualities that the destination is supposed to affirm. In science fiction, the destination is the destination, unless the physical journey is meant to be the destination, in which the story isn’t about the journey at all but the mechanics that make the journey work or fail.

These descriptions virtually describe the same thing, but if you consider these scenarios being played out in everyday life, they are also clearly different.

The Other Distinction

Secondly, in a much more physical sense, science fiction involves science based on Earth’s own reality. If a new “science” system contends or adds to the current known laws in a contradictory way, fantasy is the more likely culprit. For example, Star Wars’ existence of the Force makes it a fantasy. I wrote more about this distinction, and the questionable in-between/combination genre, “science fantasy,” in a previous post.

This other distinction is only relevant in stories with alternate systems such as magic, but it can be a helpful distinguisher for stories set in space.

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That’s about it for this post. Let me know if you agree or disagree—I know this is a pretty big topic with lots of discourse, but I wanted to give my own run at it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you have a different distinction?

Bibliography

Le Guin, Ursula K. No Time to Spare. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2004. 

Silverberg, Robert, and Martin H. Greenberg, comp. The Fantasy Hall of Fame. Arbor House, 1983.

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