Archit Potharazu: "Is it What the Reader Reads of the Writer Writes: The Difference between Sci-Fi and Fantasy"

Is it What the Reader Reads or the Writer Writes: The Difference between Sci-Fi and Fantasy

By

Archit Potharazu

            It is widely agreed that SF can be broken into two categories: science-fiction and fantasy. Unfortunately, it is also widely agreed that distinction between the two is incredibly unclear. Various fans of the genre have posited different ideas, but none seem to be applicable to every single SF story.

The other day, I saw someone refer to Star Wars as a fantasy story on Reddit. Of course, the inner Star Wars geek in me immediately freaked out. Star Wars fits perfectly in the classic notion of a sci-fi world; it is filled with inventions like the hyperdrive and the lightsaber that are inspired by (somewhat) realistic scientific advances. Star Wars seeks to explain its technological advances, so it has to be science-fiction, right?

How can a world with such detailed explanations be regarded as fantasy? (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber)

            However, the case for Star Wars as fantasy seems equally legitimate. The Force remains largely unexplained (at least in the original trilogy; the prequel trilogy doesn’t count). In fact, a lot of things might seem fantastical: lightsaber crystals, twin-ion engine spaceships (TIE fighters), etc.

Star Wars is not the only piece of SF that seems to fall into both fantasy and science fiction. I actually believe that the blurry line between the two realms encompasses a much larger range than we SF readers believe. Let’s take Asimov’s “Reason” from I, Robot – a tale firmly entrenched in the land of science-fiction (or so it seems) – and look specifically at Asimov’s positronic brain. To the average SF reader that believes “Reason” to be science-fiction, the positronic brain is a technological advance that humanity could possibly make. But what happens to the positronic brain when I describe it another way. If I defined it as a unit that bestows consciousness upon inanimate material, then the positronic brain comes across as much less technological and much more fantastical. In the end, what is the difference between the fantastic and advanced technology anyways? (To read “Reason” and other Asimov stories, you can find I, Robot on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/I-Robot-Isaac-Asimov/dp/055338256X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418708778&sr=8-1&keywords=isaac+asimov+i+robot).

Here’s what I see as the key to differentiating between science-fiction and fantasy. If the title didn’t already give it away, I believe that the power to define an SF text as science-fiction or fantasy lies in the reader, not the author. The tale shifts to fantasy or science-fiction based on how the reader reads. In order to illustrate this let’s return to Star Wars. When I read Star Wars, there are various ways I can react to the information given to me. If I yearn to learn about how a lightsaber works, how I can use this technology to build my own lightsaber, and so on, then the movie becomes science-fiction. However, if I take lightsaber crystals to be some inexplicable objects with qualities not bound by known science, the same movie suddenly becomes fantasy. Every single reader, and even the author, has a different view on an SF text.

This notion of interpreting the text seems very similar to the one Philip Martin proposes in “Fantasy and Belief,” where he says that the nature of the SF work is determined by the questions the reader answers. The key distinction is that for Martin, the authors implant the questions whereas for me, the readers make up and answer the questions themselves. (You can read Martin yourself here http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Fantasy-Literature-Thoughts-Enchantment/dp/1933987049). The latter method allows for much more freedom in deciding if a work is science-fiction or fantasy, and I firmly believe that this level of subjectivity lies at the core of the line between these two lands.