[…] and never really thought much of them mostly because they were just that: fantasy. And you know how I feel about fantasy. Don’t get me wrong: Zelazny writes very well, and the series departs quite a bit from the […]

[…] you have read this blog for a while, you probably know my opinion of Fantasy genre. For the most part I find the genre to be frequently shallow, sloppy and ironically unimaginative. […]

[…] the other hand, I don’t read many fantasy books because the genre is a little bit stagnant. I wrote about this many times before. SF genre tends to force writers to invent new interesting settings all the time […]

For original, easy to read, and brilliant fantasy you should try any book by Diana Wynne Jones.
She uses lot of different mythology as an inspiration sometimes, or just her imagination and all of her books are different. She does not use stereotypes, even if she happens to write about wizards, they are different and great.
Some of her books are more for children but still nice to read for adults.
She wrote the book Howl’s Moving Castle—it’s quite different from Miyazaki’s adaptation—and it’s really fun to read.

Many, many months after the comments above were written, I find myself contemplating the question at the heart of this article.

I voted for Sci-Fi – and I base my decision on the merits of both genres.

Certainly, in the inception of both genres, they were interchangeable. Today, they have evolved more recognizable characteristics: swords and dragons (and maybe elves and goblins) for fantasy; spaceships and lasers (and maybe scientists and space armor) for sci-fi.

However, as most comments here have stated, good sci-fi requires forethought: it is subject to almost as thorough a review as scientific papers are. Fantasy can get by with less thought, and still be considerably good. (Again, I speak as someone who has enjoyed works from both genres).

For others, it is the swelling emotional scenery of fantasy that draws them. But for me, it is the thought that makes sci-fi more appealing. I don’t want to daydream about distant heroes, or accept that magic – which is almost godlike – is an acceptable explanation for some things, and not others. I want to think about causal relationships, and fit that in the context of where humans will be, sometime in the future.

In conclusion, both genres have their place. As they deal with different things, it is really unfair to compare them. And while both are entertaining, only one of them is relevant to me today.

I voted fantasy, by the way, because in theory, fantasy is more imaginative. It takes more imagination to create a world where the laws of that universe are fundamentally different from the laws of our own. Besides, if you’re going to write about something that’s as unlikely as time travel or shapeshifting aliens, what’s the point in coming up with a pseudo scientific explanation? I’ve more sf and the sf authors tend to be more creative and original but fantasy is unretrained by scientific rules, like someone else said, it means unlimited imagination. I’m a strict materialist/atheist but I truly believe that imagination is more important than knowledge.

Also, Star Wars is both science fiction (because of the advanced technology, androids etc. ) and fantasy (the ‘force’, prophecies of a chosen one, seeing Anakin, Yoda and Obi Wan as ghosts at the end etc. ).

I’ve always read sci-fi but I’m coming around to fantasy, the world’s oldest genre of story telling.

I agree that alot of fantasy is unimaginative (ironically) but as for ‘magic did it’, fantasy readers are looking for an emotional response, not a physics lesson. How the impossible is possible in fantasy is secondary to the fun that comes with imagining what it would be like to live in such a world.

[…] had the Science Fiction vs Fantasy debate just last week, and this is a great example of a work that escapes this classification. You could […]

I prefer fantasy – the heroes tend to be more hands-on, and assistance tends to be further away. Sci-fi is more inventive, but I find fantasy more flavoursome. Possibly because all the details are kinda filled in, whereas with space stuff you get yet another weird alien race with apostrophes in their name that fill in whatever stock role is required. And as someone else said, Sci-fi’s version of “a wizard did it” is the “precursors”.

Truly the worst of either genre I’ve read is EE Doc Smith’s The Galaxy Primes. Page 1, first interstellar rocket blasts off, the crew are all sexy prime cuts of humanity. Page 2, they’ve found humans on another planet and land to talk to them. This astounding event happens – ‘omg! humanity elsewhere!’ – and what is on the chief’s mind as they land? “Don’t have sex with the natives – if they’re not as powerful as us we don’t want to risk them getting a leg up to our level”. Page 2. Small pages, at that.

Interestingly I’ve just been playing Space Siege, the dungeon-crawl-in-space sequel to Dungeon Siege (neither involve sieging). It’s very similar in playstyle to Dungeon Siege, but… it’s crap. Fucking awful. It’s interesting as to why the same gameplay with a different setting suffers, and I think it’s because we expect more story with sci-fi. In the fantasy one, kill bad guys, get gold for upgrades, rinse repeat. In the space one, your ship has been taken over by aliens and you’re one of the few survivors. Instead of money, you pick up salvage parts… which can come from the organic aliens… or computer terminals and furniture of your own ship that you blow up. WTF?

Similarly in the fantasy edition, a winding cave is plausible with a bit of suspension of disbelief, but with the spaceship you’re constantly thinking “what kind of nuff-nuff would design a ship this way?” Space Siege also suffers from very bland characterisation and character development (oo! 30-point ability = 5% more damage with some weapons! hold me back!), so if it were skinned for fantasy it’d be slightly worse than the original, but it’s interesting to see that so much of the Diablo-style ‘dungeon crawl’ feel just doesn’t work on a spaceship (blowing up your own computer terminals for ‘money’, eesh)

I’m definitely a SF-fan but since a friend of mine is far more into Fantasy than me we keep a lively share-n-trade going…
Now he presented me with a book written by Alexey Pehov – Shadow Prowler.
It appears to be the first part of a series but so far I’ve had fun with it.
There are mages (they messed the world up with their magic which creates the background) and elves (they aren’t pretty, they are ugly as the night and close relatives to Orcs!) and dwarves and gnomes (they hate each other. The ones produce swords and armor, the others build cannons which make swords and armor… kinda useless).
Up till now it seems to be a refreshing take on Fantasy that avoids many of the cliches. Which leads me believe that russian authors do better…