At
the last stop-over into the realms of Sci-Fi we thought about the difference
between science fact and science fiction. We – I, really, considered that
science fiction, no matter how it is sub-classified by the various genre police
departments, is fantasy.
You
can argue that, if you wish. You
can say that fantasy is dragons and fair maidens being bound up and ravished by
evil-doers.
You
might say that fantasy is a series of vampire stories or a tale of the
relationship between lycanthropes and vampires – if there were to be one.
Science
fiction, on the other hand, is deep space and powerful spaceships thrusting out
into the new frontier and limitless adventure.
Anne
McCaffrey, bless her imaginative late soul, wrote a fantasy story about
dragons. These were the chronicles
of the Dragon Riders of Pern in various stages.
I
say ‘various stages’ because Anne McCaffrey did a very clever thing. The story
started very simply. It told a tale of the dragon riders and how they came to
get their dragons and why they needed them against the ‘Thread’.
With
each subsequent book we learnt more about life on the planet ‘Pern’. The social
ordefr came into sharper focus so that, eventually, we knew what they were
doing and why. Except for the
Southern Continent.
The
south was always a mysterious zone but, even that, eventually bubbled to the
surface so that the story of their (humans) arrival on Pern became clear. It
also became clear how the different Weyrs and Dragonholds came into being.
It
also became clear that Ann McCaffrey was actually writing Science Fiction.
How
clever. How magnificent.
So
you see how the lines become blurred?
Fantasy
is anything that doesn’t currently exist being imagined and turned into reality
on the page.
Maybe
we can imagine that things that once existed return to plague us in the way of
‘Jurassic Park’. Would that be fantasy or sci-fi?
I
remember some time ago having a (written, of course) discussion with another
author called Janie Bill about ‘genre’ and how I hate the stereotyping it
promotes.
She
was, of course, quite right in her assertion that it helps people find the
subject matter in a book that they are looking for and enjoy on a regular
basis.
I
still don’t have to like it.
I
like to think of my novel as being sci-fi even ‘though there are no spaceships –
well, very few, in it. My publisher says it is more fantasy. I countered with, “It’s a who-dunnit!”
That
got a laugh! Rats.
But
it is, in reality, a sci-fi, fantasy, sexy, who-done-it that is violent and
adventurous with a dash of humour. What more could anybody want?
