Science fantasy

For the magazine of the same name, see Science Fantasy (magazine).

Science fantasy is a mixed genre of story which contains some science fiction and some fantasy elements. Both genres, especially fantasy, are themselves poorly defined; science fantasy is therefore even more elusive of definition.

Correspondence to scientific knowledge

One definition offered by Rod Serling is that "science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible." The meaning is that science fiction describes unlikely things that might take place in the real world under certain conditions, while science fantasy gives a veneer of realism to things that simply couldn't happen in the real world under any circumstances.

One problem with this definition is that it depends, not so much upon what the real world actually is like (human knowledge of what is possible being at best an approximation) but upon local and temporary conceptions of what the real world is like. According to this definition, H.G. Wells's The World Set Free was "science fantasy" in 1913, because it described a technology not known to be possible at the time, but by the 1930s, when atomic fission could be contemplated, it had become science fiction. On the other side of the coin, under this definition, much early "science fiction" like Jules Verne's, intended to be plausible extrapolations of existing technologies when written, might now be considered "science fantasy" on the basis of its impossibility: the cannon that launched the Columbiad in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon is now known to be certainly unfeasible in theory as well as fact. However, it is presented with the utmost (pseudo-)scientific seriousness: there is nothing fantastic about the cannon at all.

Another problem is that using this definition, a good deal more than half of all stories published as "science fiction" would ultimately be classifiable as science fantasy, for employing little more than handwaving for scientifically implausible features such as faster-than-light travel, time travel, and paranormal powers like telepathy.

Constituent genres

For many users of the term, however, the current state of knowledge about the world is irrelevant. For them, "science fantasy" is either a science fiction story (however understood) that has drifted far enough from reality to "feel" like a fantasy, or a fantasy story that is attempting to be science fiction. While these are in theory classifiable as different approaches, and thus different genres (fantastic science fiction vs. scientific fantasy), the end products are sometimes indistinguishable.

Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" indicates why this is so: a writer can write a fantasy using magic of various sorts, and yet turn the story into science fiction by positing some highly advanced technology, or as-yet-unknown but ultimately thoroughly provable science, as an explanation for how the magic can occur. Another writer can describe a future world where technologies are so advanced to be invisible, and the effects produced would be classified as magical if they were only described as such. A world might include magic which only some people (or only the reader) know to be in fact technological effects.

There is therefore nothing intrinsic about the effects described in a given story that will tell you whether it is science fiction or fantasy. The classification of an effect as "fantastic" or "science fictional" is a matter of convention. Hyperspace, time machines and scientists are conventions of science fiction; flying carpets, magical amulets and wizards are tropes of fantasy. This is an accident of the historical development of the genre. In some cases they have overlapped: teleportation by matter-transmitter-beam is science fiction, teleportation by incantation is fantasy. A hand-held cloaking device that confers invisibility is science fiction; a hand-held Ring of Power that confers invisibility is fantasy. Mind-to-mind communication can be "psionics", or it can be an ancient elvish art. What matters is not the effect itself (generally scientifically impossible, though not always believed to be so by the authors) but the wider universe it is intended to evoke. If it is one of space travel and proton-pistols, it gets classified as "science fiction", and the appropriate terms (cloaking device, matter-transmitter) are used; if it is one of castles, sailing ships and swords, it gets classified as "fantasy", and we instead speak of magic rings and travel by enchantment.

Drawing the line between science fiction and fantasy is not made any clearer by the fact that both of them can use invented worlds, non-human intelligent creatures (sometimes, in sf as well as fantasy, based on myth: consider C. L. Moore's Shambleau and Yvala), and amazing monsters. It is, to a large extent, authorial fiat that tells us that C.S. Lewis' Narnia books are set in a fantasy world rather than on another planet, or that Anne McCaffrey's early Pern books are extraterrestrial, and that her "dragons" are not actually dragons.

Even archaism, one of the strongest conventional marks of fantasy, is not an infallible distinguishing characteristic: an archaic world of edged weapons and battlemented fortresses could simply be another planet that has slid back into barbarism, or has never emerged from it. Some of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books represent just such a world, complete with technology-indistinguishable-from-magic. (It is this, as much as the "dragons", that causes sloppy readers to mis-classify McCaffrey's Pern series as fantasy, in spite of the clear science-fictional setting established from the first paragraphs of the first book.)

Historical View

The label first came into wide use after many science fantasy stories were published in the pulp magazines, such as Robert A. Heinlein's "Magic, Inc.", L. Ron Hubbard's Slaves of Sleep. Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp produced the Harold Shea series. All were relatively rationalistic stories published in John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Unknown Magazine. These were a deliberate attempt to apply the techniques and attitudes of Science Fiction to traditional fantasy and legendary subjects. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction published, among other things, all but the last of the Operation series, by Poul Anderson.

Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore published novels in Startling Stories, alone and together, which were also very good and far more romantic. These were closely related to the work that they and others were doing for outlets like Weird Tales, such as Moore's Northwest Smith stories cited above.

Ace Books published a number of books as Science Fantasy during the 1950's and '60s. Many of them, such as Leigh Brackett's Mars stories, are still regarded as such. Others, such as Robert E. Howard's Conan the Conqueror (published as an Ace Double with Brackett's Sword of Rhiannon) or Andre Norton's Witch World books, are now considered outright fantasy. Mercedes Lackey has discussed this period in her recent introduction to an omnibus edition of the first three Witch World books. In the U.S. at that time, these were almost the only stories which used that label.

Early science fiction book publisher Gnome Press published Conan the Conqueror in hardback in 1950 with the book clearly labeled 'science fantasy' on the dustjacket.

Subgenres of science fantasy

Dying Earth

Main article: Dying Earth subgenre

Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories are sometimes classed as science fantasy because the cosmology used is not compatible with that conventionally accepted by science fiction. Other stories in the Dying Earth subgenre such as M. John Harrison's Viriconium novels or Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun are usually classed as science fantasy.

Planetary romance

Main article: Planetary romance

The planetary romance, a story set primarily or wholly on a single planet and illustrating its scenery, native peoples (if any) and cultures, offers considerable scope for science fantasy, in the sense of fantasy rationalized by reference to science-fictional conventions.

David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, published in 1920 is one of the earliest examples of the type, although it differs from most of them in not assuming a science-fictional background of interplanetary or interstellar travel; it is rather a philosophical romance, which uses an alien planet as a background for exploring philosophical themes. C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938) is an example of the same type of story, though in its case the preoccupations are theological. In both cases the magical elements are barely rationalized, and in Lewis' case stand in stark contrast to the pseudo-scientific machinery that frames the story.

C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories fall squarely into the fantasy/horror camp, but utilize a space opera-like frame and various pseudo-scientific rationalization: god or monster as powerful alien for instance.

Some of Leigh Brackett's stories set on Mars and Venus might be regarded as science fantasy, especially those which occur in distant and barbarous parts of the planets, such as People of the Talisman and The Moon that Vanished. Other stories set on the same worlds contain far more science fictional tropes. All of Brackett's stories imply that a rational, scientific explanation for such things as mind-transmission and the ability to create visible illusions is available somewhere, but the explanations are generally assumed rather than attempted.

Frank Herbert's Dune novels are also classed by some as science fantasy, probably because his Arrakis dispenses with many (but not all) of the technological ornaments that conventionally mark a story as "science fiction"; however, his scientifically impossible concepts (like prescience and genetic memory) were staples in mainstream science fiction for many years.

Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels are more obviously science fantasy, the former largely because of its choice of the fantasy icon of the dragon at the center of the stories, the latter because a form of rationalized magic is a dominant theme. Both share the concept of long-ago lost Earth expeditions that had peopled their respective planets, and over time had regressed to a quasi-medieval state of life. However, some readers, and the author herself, consider the Pern novels science fiction as the dragons are bio-engineered, not naturally occurring.

Some examples of this type of science fantasy deliberately blur the already vague distinction between science fictional paranormal powers and magic; for instance, Poul Anderson's The Queen of Air and Darkness, in which aliens use psionic powers of illusion to imitate earthly myths of fairies -- who are themselves traditionally regarded as magical illusionists.

SF Otherworlds

Some science fantasies use fantasy worlds with the thinnest veneer of science fictional trappings, only distinguishable with difficulty from standard fantasy. An early example of this type is Eric Rucker Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, nominally set on the planet Mercury, but a Mercury that is indistinguishable in any way from a fantasy Earth.

In Andre Norton's Witch World series, the fantasy world is excused as a parallel universe. There are a few inessential science fictional elements in the earlier stories of this series, which are absent from the later novels.

Terry Brooks' Shannara books represent the fantasy world as the far future of a lost technological civilization (thus sharing some features with the Dying Earth subgenre).

Space opera

Main article: Space opera

Space opera is not normally thought of as science fantasy, but some examples of space opera invoke vaguely explained, or completely unexplained paranormal powers which approximate magic closely enough for some to regard them as part of the genre. These include E. E. Smith's Lensman series, and George Lucas' Star Wars franchise. Magic plays a major role in Outlaw Star anime series.

Sword and planet

Main article: Sword and planet

Many works by Edgar Rice Burroughs fall into this category, as well as those of his imitators such as Otis Adelbert Kline, Kenneth Bulmer, Lin Carter, and John Norman. They are largely classed as "science fantasy" because of the presence of swords and, usually, an archaic aristocratic social system; Burroughs' own novels are, however, skeptical in spirit and almost free of any non-rationalized "fantastic" element.

Magic Science

Main article: Magic Science

A "magic science" story is a story where magic has replaced or become synonymous with technology. An excellent example would be the magitechnology of the Tales of Symphonia game, as well as the Eberron Campaign Setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. These stories usually combine archaic elements such as swords and other low-tech weaponry with high-tech elements such as flying vehicles or power generators. The Final Fantasy series can also be considered in the genre of magic science, as there are many advances in technology (i.e. hi-tech airships, advanced armour and weapon technology, enormous technological cities) as well as the use of magic. Yet another Magic Science series is Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony. The Incarnations of Immortality takes place in a reality where magic and science co-exist. In addition, many classical personalities (such as Death, Fate, Time and others) are anthropomorphised and function as major characters.

Other subgenres

Science fantasy is sometimes used to refer to a fantasy story in which the fantastic elements are presented as compatible with real-world science, in contrast to fantasies in which the fantastic only needs to have its own internal logic. Classic examples are Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, in which petrification means danger because turning carbon to silicon results in a radioactive isotope, and his Operation Chaos, where werewolves and other lycanthrope are the same size in human and animal form, owing to conservation of mass.

An example of science fantasy in television is the cartoon Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, which combined alien fiction, sword and sorcery, magic, technology and the superhero genre - all of them rolled into one coherent vision. Another example is the worlds depicted in the Masters of the Universe franchise.

Science Fantasy is also a popular subject for role-playing games, of both pen-and-paper and computer varieties. Examples include the Rifts and Fading Suns and Shadowrun and Dragonstar role-playing games, a number of Final fantasy games, and the Warhammer 40,000 wargame.