Originally published at Thus Sayeth the Lord…. You can comment here or there.

Orson Scott Card noted (by quoting someone else) that the difference between science fiction and fantasy literature is that fantasy stories have trees; science fiction stories have rivets.

David Brin has criticized fantasy as being derivative, and backward-looking, as well as hinging far too much on birthright– that is, a hero, through no merit of his own, obtains Great Power and Great Responsibility.

Ray Bradbury said the following:

Science-fiction is the law-abiding citizen of imaginative literature, obeying the rules, be they physical, social, or psychological, keeping regular hours, eating punctual meals; predictable, certain, sure.

Fantasy, on the other hand, is criminal. Each fantasy assaults and breaks a particular law; the crime being hidden by the author’s felicitous thought and style which cover the body before blood is seen.

Science-fiction works hand-in-glove with the universe.

Fantasy cracks it down the middle, turns it wrong-side-out, dissolves it to invisibility, walks men through its walls, and fetches incredible circuses to town with sea-serpent, medusa, and chimera displacing zebra, ape, and armadillo.

Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off. (From the Introduction to The Circus of Dr. Lao)

Bradbury’s quote rings a chord with me, as I mainly write fantasy-based stories. Brin’s does as well, increasingly: I dislike the anti-egalitarianism that’s often prevalent in the Blessed-Childe-Savior stories in fantasy.

I wonder if the ‘rebellious’ nature of fantasy (in all its varieties) could be what sparks distrust among conservative (that is, not exclusively Christian, but…er…traditional) people? It is important in science fiction to quantify laws governing the setting; it is important in fantasy as well, but I’m not sure that the explanation for magic need be so…explicit.