The fictional genres of science-fiction and fantasy have very different types of generic landscapes or settings. Science-fiction is usually set in the depths of space, possibly across many planets and maybe galaxies, with vessels flying between the worlds. Fantasy, by contrast, is usually set on a single world, possibly across many countries and maybe continents, with characters trekking or riding between settlements.
Science-fiction, even if it is not set in an idea of our own future, is seen to be futuristic because of how advanced the technology is. Fantasy, even if it is not set in any real history, is seen to be like past ages, with simplicity serving as an adjective for much of the imagined world.
I think that the futuristic hopping between planets found in typical science-fiction tales is telling of our own laziness. It paints the imagined landscape of a world as very plain, very black and white: there are planets and suns, and there is the empty space between them. There is nothing interesting about the empty space between worlds, and nothing challenging about it either as long as you have the technology to travel across it's distances in a decent enough time, and of course, our culture assumes that in the future humanity will have progressed so far that this will be the case.
The ideal of traveling through hyperspace or at warp speed reveals some wishful thinking. The pace and complexity of getting through a single day in real life can seem to be full of too many small but annoyingly necessary tasks. So it shouldn't be too surprising that we can enjoy sitting down and engaging with a story where a button is pressed that causes the heroes to be flown straight to their final destination. Stories set in the vast universe are mostly focused on what happens at the main locations, with little attention given to traveling between them, because a landscape of vacuum should never cause any problems. In space, no-one can hear you ask for directions.
Fantasy, by contrast, will often see a group of heroes setting off on foot on a long quest across fields, rivers, mountains and more. Fantasy landscapes are hugely detailed, containing many colours and textures of terrain. The final destination gives our characters a hope or a determination to climb the steep slopes and press onwards through snowy valleys, but these parts of the journey are real physical obstacles that must be overcome, so the focus is not only on the noble aim of the quest but also on the difficulties encountered on the journey.
The gradual and steady progress of a journey across a fantastical world is easier for us to empathize with. The moments in life where we feel (in most cases, I imagine falsely) that we have reached a main or important destination are rare. We are more likely to regard a day as a day between many others where routine must be followed again, things must be maintained again, and we make that small amount of progress towards larger goals, again. Stories set in a world with dragons and trolls mostly focus on the journey taken to the main location, with each problem revealing to us a bit more of the determination and patience of those on the quest.
So out of the two, would you agree that a fantasy novel will be more likely to speak to the heart than a science-fiction one? Lasers and alien technologies are good enough ingredients for entertainment, but I think that on a tiring day I would be more likely to take inspiration to fight the weariness of routine from a group who are singing songs together as they hike across hills towards a fabled treasure.
Read a Fantasy Short Story...
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Interesting!! Funny, as I've just finished reading a "Guards! Guards!", so its quite easy to note the aspect of being able to relate well to challenges and situations that present themselves in a fantasy novel.
ReplyDeleteOverall I think it depends on the author of the books in question. Each genre, while having their differences in style can still with their characters and situations enable themselves to relate well to people and real life. Fantasy has the option of caricaturing to more explicitly express similar traits with the world, and yet again some science fiction books start off with the backdrop of our own world as it is, or a world just like ours in a very similar timeframe (H.G Wells did this often to sensationalise the potential of future scientific achievements). Adding humour also brings whatever alien concepts in a novel down to a more human level (as you can't have alien humour, well, not of the kind one likes to read anyway!)