The following is an actual transcript between myself (Scott M. Roberts) and Eric James Stone, one of the other assistant editors at InterGalactic Medicine Show:
graveroberts: None of the InterGalactic Award winners were fantasy.
eviljerkfacestone: LOL
graveroberts: What?
eviljerkfacestone: watching kittens on youtube. One just fell in a blender
graveroberts: You are sick.
eviljerkfacestone: there are no dragons in real life.
graveroberts: Once again: what?
eviljerkfacestone: Trinity County, CA has dragons. dragons == fantasy.
eviljerfacestone: LOLOLOLOLOL! ROFLMAO! in the toilet! Round and round!
graveroberts: You are sick.
Sifting through this macabre and disturbing conversation, I gleaned this: some individuals believe that including creatures typically viewed as fantasy creatures (werewolves, vampires, dragons, trolls, editors with a soul, etc.) necessarily transforms the story to fantasy.
I’m afraid I disagree.
For me, a fantasy—even a contemporary fantasy—necessarily relies on some sort of mystery, or miraculous impossibility, underpinning its setting. The dragons in Trinity County, CA are not mystical; they’re examined, controlled, and catalogued like bugs in an entomologist’s office.
Which is not to say it isn’t a good story; genre aside, it’s a GREAT story. Let’s get that out of the way right now: the genre a story is in—or not in—doesn’t matter in the least to its quality. I’m comfortable with genre bending. Bend away, my writerly amigos! But don’t ask me to call your Astro-Zeppelin Galactic Ranger series, with Tolkienesque elves and Martinesque undead anything but a fantasy. Despite its being set 22,000 years in the future, in space.
Here are some great genre-bending stories:
The Dragons of Spring-place, Robert Reed
Monster Hunters International (series), Larry Correia
The Dragon Age (series), James Maxey
--Scott M. Roberts
Asst. Editor, InterGalactic Medicine Show
2 comments:
Typical. You distort the transcript for your own nefarious purposes. I wasn't watching a YouTube video of a kitten falling into a blender. I was posting a video of a baby seal falling into a cement mixer.
And, of course, your analysis is completely wrong, unless you consider stories in which magic spells are examined, controlled, and catalogued to be science fiction instead of fantasy.
If the existence of dragons is explained through some sort of scientific explanation (genetic engineering or whatnot, like it is in Maxey's Dragon Age series) then it's science fiction. But the existence of Trinity County's dragons is not explained, they just are. And the ability of some breeds to breathe fire is not explained, even if it is catalogued. There's your mystery or miraculous impossibility right there.
In a discussion several years ago, I explained one difference between science fiction and fantasy with this example: "So if you want your protagonist to encounter an enormous firebreathing flying dragon on a world with gravity and atmosphere similar to Earth's, in fantasy worldbuilding you just say, 'Here there be dragons.' In science fiction worldbuilding, you have to account for how such massive creatures can fly, and what metabolic process allows them to breathe fire."
I say Trinity County falls on the side of saying "Here there be dragons" without explaining the scientific basis for what they do.
Would you consider Naomi Novik's Temeraire series to be science fiction, just because the dragons in it are thoroughly examined, controlled, and catalogued?
Eric:
I think I would not classify a story that strictly identifies magical processes a fantasy. Case in point: the recent Sorcerer's Apprentice film. In addition to being an utterly terrible piece of cinematography (2 out of 3 baby seals exposed to a viewing of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' exploded within the first half hour; the third now thinks it's Joan Rivers-- look it up on YouTube, you heartless monster), it also touts itself as a fantasy. It even uses some of the tropes of fantasy-- Merlin, sorcery, Morganna, constructs-- but the mechanism of the mysticism is explained. For me, that kills the mystery, and the fantasy of it.
Star Wars was never so much science fiction, for me, as it was when poor young Ewan Macgregor babbled on about midichlorians; previous to that, the series could be safely ensconced as a fantasy-- or if we're splitting hairs, a science fantasy.
I don't think science fiction always requires an explicit identification of the setting to be science fiction; I'm willing to entertain some wiggle room.
I haven't read the Termeraire series, alas-- do you recommend it?
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