Okay, there have been signs of life among the comments, but I’m still quoting this newsgroup post from August 13, 2005. Note that I said I’d let it stew overnight before pursuing it; well, I never did pursue it. Apparently it didn’t look as interesting the next morning.
So over in “Strange Days,” we’ve been discussing the relative merits of SF and fantasy — which I don’t think is a very good idea, but thinking about genres has just triggered an insight of sorts.
Why are SF and fantasy so often grouped together? Well, partly it’s for historical reasons — fantasy hid in the SF mags for the middle decades of the 20th century, and many authors wrote and write both because of that shared history. I think that it’s partly, though, because both are genres defined by setting.
SF is set in our universe, as altered by new science or technology.
Fantasy is set in a universe other than our own. (It may look just like our own with magic added, but it isn’t, since we have no capability for magic here.)
Compare this with genres defined by plot, such as mystery or romance; you can set a mystery anywhere, but it involves someone solving a crime by evaluating the available evidence; likewise, a romance can be set anywhere, so long as it follows two people as they fall in love and overcome whatever obstacles there may be to consummating that love.
And horror is a genre defined by mood — in fact, Douglas Winter famously said that horror is a mood, not a genre at all.
This has me thinking that we really ought to sort out genres into categories according to whether they’re defined by setting, plot, mood, or some other story element.
It is, however, late, and I have a busy day planned for tomorrow, so I’m going to let this stew overnight rather than pursuing it right now.
>> SF is set in our universe, as altered by new science or technology. Fantasy is set in a universe other than our own. (It may look just like our own with magic added, but it isn’t, since we have no capability for magic here.) >>
Not sure I’d agree, partly because the people doing the lumping together probably hadn’t strongly considered the idea that fantasy is technically set in a world other than our own, so it probably didn’t enter into their decision.
And partly because most fiction is set in worlds other than our own, for various niggly reasons. There is no Cabot Cove, Maine, in our world. The USAF, in STEVE CANYON, tests various techniques that were never actually created or tested by the USAF (and some that were tested, but in rather different ways). Etc. Etc.
And then, SF and fantasy aren’t lumped in with Westerns, another genre defined in a large way by setting. And SF and fantasy are often lumped in with horror, which overlaps with them comfortably.
I think the lumping-in stems less from whether the story’s perceived as set in our world or not and more that they’re genres of the fantastic, or the impossible (or, in SF terms, the currently-impossible). Cabot Cove is nonexistent but within the realm of possibility (setting aside the rarely-remarked-on murder stats) and the USAF does things like the things we see them do in STEVE CANYON.
But there are no alien monoliths (that we know of), and while we might discover them or invent warp drive in time, they’re speculative, where Cabot Cove is merely an imaginary version of something we know exists.
Oh, I don’t think the people doing the lumping together had strongly considered anything. I think it was pretty much thoughtless.
Westerns and Regencies are also defined by setting, yes.
Anyway, remember that I said above I never did pursue this line of thought, because there are obvious problems with it. I still thought it might be of interest.
Somewhere a polyamorist is stewing because you defined romances as only between two people.
I have never encountered a polyamorous romance novel, but maybe I’m just ignorant. (I’m not counting With A Single Spell.)