Grant Williams: "That Which Divides Fantasy and Science"

That Which Divides Fantasy and Science 

By

Grant Williams

            Science fiction and fantasy both create worlds that aim to entrance their readers in a world separate and alien from that which they are used to whether in design or law. Categorizing that which composes the backbone of fantasy literature and science fiction literature is essential in determining how to identify which is most strongly portrayed in a novel. While both have overlapping features such as blurring the borders of reality and fiction using imaginative materials and concepts, their difference lies in the methods of their adaptation.

            Defining the alternativeness of science fiction compared to fantasy is made simple through James Gunn’s quote in The Road to Science Fiction:

“Science fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distance places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often civilization or the race itself is in danger.”

Where science fiction focuses on the larger aspect of the journey of the characters along with the implications on a wider scope, fantasy follows the specifics of the journey along with more personal internal conflicts. The perils encountered endanger separate ranges of characters with fantasy being more likely to threaten the livelihood of those centered on the main characters, and science fiction more likely to impend doom upon the main characters’ society.

            Two examples of where the focus of the story lies based upon the twisting of the “rational” are Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. DADES? provides a plotline based upon a society altered by the invention and introduction of androids almost non-differentiable from humans and the problems this creates. This novel separates itself from the fantasy counterpart of Neverwhere which takes emphasis upon the main character and his expedition throughout two alternate personalities of London, London Above and London Below. Both Dick and Gaiman create their novels within the range that maximizes their subject’s strengths and avoids its weaknesses. 

Characterization of the subjects of science fiction and fantasy is easily defined and identified using Philip Martin’s Toward a Definition of Science Fiction. “Science Fiction pushes science to its limit – and sometimes twists it to the edge of reason- to create new futures or otherworlds. Yet those imaginary worlds are connected by a line of reasoning, however tenuous, back to our known laws of science.” Science fiction creates a world that is no matter how farfetched a creation is retraceable to the idea of the rational that we now hold. Fantasy takes no hindrance by what we hold rational and chooses to allow imagination to alter our perceptions of belief and create as creative and entertaining a story as possible.

The conflicts involving the characters of a science fiction work are nearly altogether disregarded by fantasy, which Martin says creates questions such as, “If we lived in a very different world, how would we behave as individuals or in groups?” Fantasy alters a question such as this in a way that doesn’t coax someone to find the reasoning behind an event or struggle rather than to find the solution to it. The thinking that fantasy implies is not one focused on that of reason but one with a prominence on belief, “...fantasy looks inward, not to rules of social or personal behavior but into our beliefs…wonder and wishes overcome knowledge and explanation.” Both fantasy and science fiction are prone to view and recognize the internal conflicts faced through struggle, yet science fiction holds tendencies to connect to society whereas fantasy replaces that with going further into the individual and the web of human thought. Defining what classifies as science fiction and fantasy alters the perspective of the reader prior to reading the material, and can change how the novel as a whole is accepted.