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Categories of speculative fiction?
Apr. 11th, 2015 10:31 am"Science fiction" has undergone a renaissance in the past 50 years or so, expanding to include a range of subject areas not previously anticipated and even encroaching on "serious" literature. To differentiate it from less substantial fare on TV and in the movies (often derided as "sci-fi"*), many now prefer the term "speculative fiction". That's my preferred term, because the heart and soul of this genre lies in speculating about "what if... happened?"
* Which I originally typed (amusingly) as "sic-fi".
One thing we speculators love to do is debate the boundaries that define our genre and its many subgenres. Thus, most large conventions have at least one panel discussion specifically devoted to this topic, and some have panel discussions with different topics that devolve or get sidetracked into such discussions. Really, it all amounts to a certain amount of splitting of hairs, which is fun but ultimately pointless. The consensus usually ends up being that it's all a huge grey area, and that there are no firm boundaries.
That being said, it's worth pointing out a misunderstanding that often arises in such debates and that thereby leads everyone astray: the dichotomy between science fiction and fantasy. The basic notion often proposed is that *science* fiction must not have impossible elements, whereas fantasy must have at least one impossible element (usually some form of magic). Here, I'll define "impossible" as meaning at best implausible and most likely nonsense based on our current state of knowledge. The alert reader will note that this definition is somewhat round-heeled, since how one defines the possible predefines which subgenre something falls into, and everyone's definition will have different edge cases.
But the problem with the "impossible" criterion is that it's not really relevant: a bog-standard medieval fantasy that includes no magic and that is based on a reasonable grasp of what real medieval life was like contains no impossible elements, yet it's clearly not "science fiction": there's not much in the way of science, and what there is probably isn't a defining feature of the story. Arthur Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is also very relevant here. Only 50 years ago, things we now take for granted, such as most modern computer technologies and genomics (not to mention metabolomics and the microbiome) would have failed the "impossible" test because they would have been at best implausible subjects.
Thus, a humble proposal: that we eliminate the science fiction vs. fantasy dualism and focus on the defining characteristics of the story. As a good first cut, I'd note that stories may be speculative (deliberately exploring a "what if?"), literary (insert your preferred definition or slander here), or "just a story, dammit!" A good second cut would be based on the defining element that lies at the heart of the story: science, magic, magic defined in scientific terms, and historical versus future, among other useful tags. This would lead to a relatively simple and clear taxonomy with categories such as "historical scientific speculation" (what if nobody had proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system?) or "future medieval just a story dammit" (Henry David Thoreau MCLXII abandons his comfy far-future arcology to live in the woods, accompanied by several peasant volunteers, where they hew wood with axes and tote buckets of water).
It's perhaps less reductionist than some approaches, but it has the virtue of clearly identifying the heart of the story rather than relying on tired old pigeonholes like "science fiction" and "fantasy".
* Which I originally typed (amusingly) as "sic-fi".
One thing we speculators love to do is debate the boundaries that define our genre and its many subgenres. Thus, most large conventions have at least one panel discussion specifically devoted to this topic, and some have panel discussions with different topics that devolve or get sidetracked into such discussions. Really, it all amounts to a certain amount of splitting of hairs, which is fun but ultimately pointless. The consensus usually ends up being that it's all a huge grey area, and that there are no firm boundaries.
That being said, it's worth pointing out a misunderstanding that often arises in such debates and that thereby leads everyone astray: the dichotomy between science fiction and fantasy. The basic notion often proposed is that *science* fiction must not have impossible elements, whereas fantasy must have at least one impossible element (usually some form of magic). Here, I'll define "impossible" as meaning at best implausible and most likely nonsense based on our current state of knowledge. The alert reader will note that this definition is somewhat round-heeled, since how one defines the possible predefines which subgenre something falls into, and everyone's definition will have different edge cases.
But the problem with the "impossible" criterion is that it's not really relevant: a bog-standard medieval fantasy that includes no magic and that is based on a reasonable grasp of what real medieval life was like contains no impossible elements, yet it's clearly not "science fiction": there's not much in the way of science, and what there is probably isn't a defining feature of the story. Arthur Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is also very relevant here. Only 50 years ago, things we now take for granted, such as most modern computer technologies and genomics (not to mention metabolomics and the microbiome) would have failed the "impossible" test because they would have been at best implausible subjects.
Thus, a humble proposal: that we eliminate the science fiction vs. fantasy dualism and focus on the defining characteristics of the story. As a good first cut, I'd note that stories may be speculative (deliberately exploring a "what if?"), literary (insert your preferred definition or slander here), or "just a story, dammit!" A good second cut would be based on the defining element that lies at the heart of the story: science, magic, magic defined in scientific terms, and historical versus future, among other useful tags. This would lead to a relatively simple and clear taxonomy with categories such as "historical scientific speculation" (what if nobody had proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system?) or "future medieval just a story dammit" (Henry David Thoreau MCLXII abandons his comfy far-future arcology to live in the woods, accompanied by several peasant volunteers, where they hew wood with axes and tote buckets of water).
It's perhaps less reductionist than some approaches, but it has the virtue of clearly identifying the heart of the story rather than relying on tired old pigeonholes like "science fiction" and "fantasy".