The pain of being a science fantasy author

[Scaletalon]

EDIT: When I was making this post I was referring to how on most webnovel sites you can only choose fantasy or Sci-fi as a main genre so I was referring to how most of the time you have to choose which main genre to pick.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

 

[Paul__Michaels]

 

[aToTeT]

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It’s the same button.

If it feels like it straddles the line between the optics of both genre: do both.

If you’re explaining how everything works and are lacking in the word ‘magic’: I’d lean sci fi.

If you’re content to let the world speak for itself, and aren’t too bothered by the intricacies of science-babble: I’d lean fantasy.

Not that there’s really much of a difference at all: it’s just optics on the set dressing really.

The closest real
difference is probably in the difference of ‘how the toaster makes toast, so as to prove that it is indeed possible for the toaster to toast’ vs ‘the toaster toasts, QED cinnamon toast is for cereal’.

Which is to say: those who don’t do both are the superciliously silly sorts :)

 

[Ananias5]

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My story is a hybrid of both.

 

[HypnoticNovels]

The hardest part is trying to get the underlying science right I practically spend more time researching than actually writing

 

[John_Owl]

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as a fantasy author, aren't the fundamental differences basically just boiled down to "does cool thing happen due to long complex words, or does cool thing happen due to magic, which is also explained using long, complex words?" other than that, they're just reskinned. like in star wars, the force is explain scientifically, but in the end, it is still JUST magic.

 

[l8rose]

Do both. Make Space Orcs.

 

[beast_regards]

Why not both?

 

[3guanoff]

You can do both. Check out Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

 

[Clo]

I chose to go for both. Real-world is a Sci-Fi setting, but they're playing a Fantasy VR MMO.

So really why not both / porque no los dos?

 

[AuroraAvengarde]

Do both. Make Space Orcs.

Like 40k! ?

 

[fantasyretreat]

My story is a hybrid of both science and magic. I try to research as much as possible but I don't go in-depth on science.

No need to bore my readers about how a pair of flying boots that can take sacred artists to altitudes, 5000 feet above the traditional flying artifact, was made. They need not now the intricacies of how a computation gem can harmonize the wielders essence (mana) with a modern day weapon like a gun.

Dark One [A Progression Fantasy]

Dark One is set in the kingdom of Vorthe, a land that has earned its peace and stability as a result of the efforts and sacrifices of past heroes. But alas, calamity draws near! A being of unearthly hunger for chaos and destruction, which leaves ghost cities in its wake —...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[Deleted member 167438]

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[Rhaps]

The best way for Sci fi and Fantasy to co-exist is making Magic or Magecraft a branch of science.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

Science fiction vs fantasy it can actually be both.

Fantasy is more of an archetype, good vs evil, dark versus light, it themes more on two opposing forces fighting each other. Can also be in a fictional setting with lots of technology.

Think Star Wars. It’s more fantasy than science fiction.

Science fiction as a genre is more about discussing the implications of new technology or discoveries. What kind of new civilization is there? What are the moral dilemmas, who is against who? The focus is less an individual or force, and more on discovery, there might be conflict but it’s not an overarching theme where there is a main bad guy.

Think Star Trek.

 

[Elmir_Arch-Ham_of_Omega]

They're both 100% the same. It's all just up to you on what sort of cosmetics you prefer.

Magic is science we don't want to be explained, Science is magic we don't bother to explain. Both expect everyone else to just accept that it works.

99.99% of people today have no idea exactly how a computer or phone works, which is why when they malfunction most just toss them to the repair guy and I won't be surprised if they don't even understand half of what's going on and just rely on stuff that works 90% of the time i.e. "plug it here and that usually fixes it, or swap that part with a new one." For all we know they're tossing out the baby with the bathwater but who cares? It's all working again.

Same thing can apply to magic. Just look at those dime-a-dozen discount Hogwarts stories where everyone's regurgitating the same "this is on the only way to do bibbity-bobbity-boo" and then have an aneurysm because the the MC rednecks the whole thing and everyone jizzes their pants at his "avant-garde" chantless spellcraft.

Some think that magic hacking other magic is lame or lazy writing. But sci-fi viruses that turn every robot and human into a horde of killing machines is "plausible and cool".
There's ECM defenses that turn homing missiles into Parkinson-guided ones. People think nukes are lame, but when a kamehameha erases a mountain it's "peak kino".

Do both, there's objectively no difference. It's fiction.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Like 40k! ?

Those are Orks... :D

I tend to blur the lines between them (then again, my main inspiration tends to be either horror via H. P. Lovecraft and his "disciples" or super-heroes, which already both blur the lines).
Even when I ran AD&D/D&D games, I blurred the lines (had a time travel adventure where the PCs discovered, essentially, Dinobots in the past, and discovered a future that had less magic AND lower tech than they were used to, for example), and I spent several years doing stuff for the Star Wars universe, which is a blending of Eastern Mysticism and the "we don't need to explain it, it just IS!" 'science' of the classic serials like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.

A comment above said "Think Star Trek" - but Star Trek is almost straight hard sci fi, at least with the scientific theories of the 60s at the core (many of which, like the Organians, the Q-Continuum and a some other nigh-omnipotent beings are now thought to be more fantasy than "likely evolution"); a more blurred example of the lines would be Doctor Who - the series was MEANT to be pure science fiction, and kind of stayed that way throughout most of the First Doctor's run (the "Celestial Toymaker" kind of blurred things a bit), and through much of the second Doctor's era (one of his best, "The Mind Robbers" intentionally and even, at a few points, self-awarely blurred the lines between myth, fiction and science fiction, taking it much closer to fantasy than before; it wouldn't be until some of the weirder Third Doctor stories that it moved closer to Science Fantasy, and it still managed to stay "closer" to Science Fiction until The Fourth Doctor's "Key to Time" saga; by the end of the series with the Seventh Doctor's "Survival" it was more Science Fantasy than Science Fiction; the TV movie/debut of the 8th Doctor put it back a little closer to Science Fiction, but then it lay fallow for over a decade, and has pretty much NEVER been Science Fiction, just pure Science Fantasy every since the reboot with the Ninth Doctor).

 

[Scaletalon]

It’s the same button.

If it feels like it straddles the line between the optics of both genre: do both.

If you’re explaining how everything works and are lacking in the word ‘magic’: I’d lean sci fi.

If you’re content to let the world speak for itself, and aren’t too bothered by the intricacies of science-babble: I’d lean fantasy.

Not that there’s really much of a difference at all: it’s just optics on the set dressing really.

The closest real
difference is probably in the difference of ‘how the toaster makes toast, so as to prove that it is indeed possible for the toaster to toast’ vs ‘the toaster toasts, QED cinnamon toast is for cereal’.

Which is to say: those who don’t do both are the superciliously silly sorts :)

Oh yeah sorry about that. When I was making this I meant that on most webnovel sites you can only choose Sci fi or fantasy as a main genre and there is often no science fantasy option so you have to decide on which one to pick as a main genre.

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Oh boy. Everybody misunderstood the post.I was referring to how most webnovel sites only let you choose Sci fi or fantasy as s main genre and often don't have a hybrid and then you are made to choose either another genre or either Sci fi fantasy. I probably should have made it more clear.

 

[Tegeli]

Oh boy. Everybody misunderstood the post.I was referring to how most webnovel sites only let you choose Sci fi or fantasy as s main genre and often don't have a hybrid and then you are made to choose either another genre or either Sci fi fantasy. I probably should have made it more clear.

Good that I noticed this before going on a futile rant just to reiterate what everyone else was saying. Anyhow, just pick the one that you yourself feel fits the implied aesthetic of the story better. The part of the audience which vehemently insists on consuming only "sci-fi" or "fantasy" likely isn't cognisant enough to actually read (save for those weird nerds who desire speculative engineering manuals).