Do you like both Sci-Fi AND Fantasy genres?

ixoy

Not a poll about the forum ('course you like that) but I'm wondering how many people enjoy both the sci-fi and fantasy genres? They're nearly always put together in book shops (except Hodges Figgis in Jervis St. S.C. to my knowledge) but they can often attract different audiences.

Science fiction has many roots in, well, science (varying depending on the sub-genre) whereas fantasy stretches the speculative bubble far more and instead often builds up its own system of rules based on an author's mindset (e.g. magic systems). There's cases where the two bleed over into each other of course and sometimes the division is a bit arbitrary but for the sake of discussion I'd be talking about fantasy being in a pre-Industrial milieu set on a world unconnected to Earth with technology not being a prime driver in their society.

Many people I know would only subscribe to one of the two and wouldn't read or watch offerings by the other. I'm a fan of both and try and (roughly) divide my reading equally although fantasy probably wins out purely on the fact that fantasy writers write more, there's probably more of them, and they are more prone to producing epic series and page counts. I find they both offer different things - fantasy producing greater escapisms and sci-fi producing more thoughtful concepts and questions.

What about everyone else - do you dip your toes into both genres? Favour one over the other? Only one - and is there a reason why not the other? Do you think shops should recognise the distinction and separate out the two more?

oxygen_old

Nah, for me there fairly mutually exclusive.

Personally I like reading hard sci-fi, where everything has working theoretical tech behind it. Sometimes, Ill be reading fantasy, and "then he pulled out his wand and Shazam", and Im like "he what?".

I think soft scifi lends itself to fantasy more than hard scifi. For example, Star Wars is kinda fantasy(until recently, they never offered any explanation of the force, hence magic), while Star Trek has all theoretical tech behind it.

eVeNtInE

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Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

same as eventine here, I'll read sci fi if it's a scifi/fantasy mix but other than that... I have tried, but I just can't bring myself to care.


On the other hand, I hate fantasy on television but think it's the perfect medium for sci fi.

Trojan

I started out on sf very early and didn't start on fantasy until later. Now I read them both, love both.

A good sf would probably be my preference, but I've read all the classics so I generally rely on new authors producing good stuff (and Banks, Reynolds and especially Hamilton are delivering). I've only gotten into fantasy so there's still a lot of must reads that I haven't got around to yet.

Edit: Piers Anthony's Adept series is a nice mix btw, topic just reminded me of it, quite apt.

nyarlothothep

never really liked fantasy but went through a big Tolkien phase when I was 15-17, read all the books, the unfinished tales and The Silmarillion, played Baldurs Gate up to 9 hours whenever I had the time and was fascinated by fantasy art, alan lees work in particular. Then I just lost interest and went back to sci fi, tried getting started on the chronicles of thomas covenant after reading the gap series but it never caught on. Also went to the LOTR films but I didn't really like them that much.

Nevyn

Both, was reading lord of the rings and a wrinkle in time at the same time the summer I was 11. I am more forgiving of fanasty if the charcheters are good then I am of scifi and find that really good hard scifi is becoming harder to find.

trout

I'm a fan of both; though I am less tolerant of repetitive fantasy now.

Big fan of hard science fiction, David Brin & Charles Sheffield especially; I'm fussier about fantasy, my favourite book is the criminally under-rated Barry Hugharts Bridge of Birds, I like Feist and Janny Wurtz too, particularly the Empire series.

Sometimes it's hard for me to seperate the genres ... is Orson Scott Card's Ender series fantasy or science fiction ? The series seemed to start out as science-fiction, and ended up as (pretty poor) fantasy, by way of hard science and a little space opera.

pwd

I like both. When I was a kid I read sci-fi almot exclusively - particularly asimov and clarke. I didn't have much interest in fantasy at all, though I did like the Hobbit and to a lesser extent tLotR. When I was a teenager I read Waylander by David Gemmel and then all his other stuff, and that made me take an interest in fantasy. I maintained my liking of sci-fi too though. Recently I've read fantasy books by Robin Hobb and Stephen Eriksson, and sci fi by Philip K Dick.

johnnyskeleton

What about Tad William's Otherland? That's both. Kinda.

I like any book that is a good read. It kinda annoys me that people will read the iliad but look down their noses at the lord of the rings.

Equally, it annoys me that some people will read 1984, a brave new world etc and love them, but then say they hate science fiction.

It's easy to dismiss a great book such as the Forever War (which is partly a satire on vietnam) because it has space ships on the front cover.

The problem with both genres is that they are defined in popular perception as immature and badly written. This is probably true for the most part (e.g. Wheel of Time) but some are great books and I'd hate to think that something passed me by because I'm not into that genre, in the way that I'd hate to think that because I don't normally read detective books that I would never have read Raymond Chandler.

mcgovern

I'd read both, but much prefer sci-fi and only go to Fantasy for a break every now and then. Most of the fantasy books just seem to be writing by numbers, and I hate the way they spend 5 pages describing every area the character finds him/herself, leave something for our imagination will you!

Nevyn

Don't start me on how many pages were spent on ce'nedra's fecking wedding dres, it's a DRESS.

Johnny Storm

Sci-Fi for me.

Morgase

I like both but I seem to have ended up buying and reading more fantasy books than sci-fi ones, and watch more sci-fi films and tv shows than fantasy ones.

ixoy

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

What about Tad William's Otherland? That's both. Kinda.

True - I'd push it more towards the fantastical side of sci-fi that 'Star Wars' inhabits so it's a fine read for those who aren't big into sci-fi. It's also a damn good series that should reach a wider audience..

It's easy to dismiss a great book such as the Forever War (which is partly a satire on vietnam) because it has space ships on the front cover.

Exactly. Science fiction can be about great stonking battles - but it can also be used to explore such questions as a long, uneccesary war (as in 'Forever War') or philosophical questions about what it is to be human (Philip K. Dick). But many people can't get past the idea of "but it's in space".

The problem with both genres is that they are defined in popular perception as immature and badly written. This is probably true for the most part (e.g. Wheel of Time) but some are great books and I'd hate to think that something passed me by because I'm not into that genre, in the way that I'd hate to think that because I don't normally read detective books that I would never have read Raymond Chandler.

Nail on head here - many people think the idea of such explorations is childish if it's not grounded in the real world. There's a link between reading sci-fi (in particular) and wondering if you like to wear pointy ears to your Trek convention. That's one of the reasons the two genres are probably lumped together - they're in the "for the weirdos" section.

As to the quality of writing - it does vary a lot. There's lots of trash out there and the fantasy genre in particular lends itself to "by the numbers". It's hard to wean out the chaff at times. Science fiction, full of ideas, is often penned by those who can't actually write that well and can tend to have weak characterisation. None the less they're still some excellent books in there, as worthy as anything that hits the Best Seller's list.

For those who only put a foot in one genre - what puts you off the other?

Dades

Some of my fav books of all time are fantasy, but SF is the top dog.

I prefer at least the pretense that the stuff written about in SF is technologically possible. Magic stuff has to be damn well written (RR Martin, Pullman) before I'll give it the thumbs up.

nyarlothothep

mcgovern wrote: »

I'd read both, but much prefer sci-fi and only go to Fantasy for a break every now and then. Most of the fantasy books just seem to be writing by numbers, and I hate the way they spend 5 pages describing every area the character finds him/herself, leave something for our imagination will you!

Thats a big one for me, I always find myself zoning out when reading descriptive passages.

johnnyskeleton

One other thing is that I like SF/F which reflects on it's era e.g. Lord of the Rings, Philip K. Dick, HG Wells. They often say as much about the then present (which is now an era of historic interest) than they do about whatever projected future/past/alternate they are based in. So for example, you will never quite capture the madness of the McCarthy era in a real world fiction quite like you will in a philip k dick book.

Sarky

I'll happily read both, but I find fantasy more "readable" in general. I tend to prefer the scifi that, say, spends less time on explaining the workings behind a particle beam weapon and more time on how describing people shoot things with it, although if it's well-written I have no trouble digesting a hard scifi book that poses great philosophical questions and shoot-outs don't happen every 5 minutes.

I generally find it harder to suspend disbelief for scifi than I do for fantasy. I have the feeling that if scifi wants to be scientific about things then they should stick to their own rules, and with fantasy that's rarely a problem.

*shrug*
A good book is a good book.