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My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

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Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#171

Post by themadturk »

vidarh wrote: post #121
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

There's a lot of overlap of varying degree of trickiness that makes it more of a spectrum than a clear binary, and so it often makes sense to treat them as a such. In particular, SF plots often mix in significant fantasy themes to the point that they are sometimes a majority of the book. Banks' Inversions is a Culture novel (SF) that intentionally reads as fantasy if you don't know the Culture setting, while leaving…

I'd argue that the setting doesn't make "A Fire On The Deep" anything close to a fantasy. The Tines are a non-human species at a certain stage of development that's similar to humanity's medieval period. There's no more fantasy there than Michael Crichton's "Timeline."

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#172

Post by themadturk »

auntienomen wrote: post #9
bwb wrote: post #2

Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)

Little, Big by John Crowley. Also everything else he's written.

"Little, Big" is one of what I consider my "foundational" books. I've never been able to get into any of his other stuff.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#173

Post by themadturk »

stoneman24 wrote: post #45
I-M-S wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted Chiang is often regarded as the best sci-fi author of our times.

Wouldn’t say best but he is certainly world class for his short stories. While the film “Arrival” was excellent, it was based on his short story “Story of your life” which was even better.

"The Story Of Your Life" is a real mind-bender.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

MrFantastic wrote: post #174
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

What if I told that all fiction books were fantasy?

Then I would say that you are engaging in equivocation, using a definition of "fantasy" different than the one applicable as a genre label in discussing genre labels.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#176

Post by krapp »

jhbadger wrote: post #168
krapp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that's a subjective difference in opinion, not an objective difference in type. Many people like "hard" sci-fi but not "soft" sci-fi, but that doesn't make them fundamentally distinct genres. By the numbers, Star Wars is far more grounded as science fiction that Star Trek, but people will insist the former is at best merely "science fantasy." It's really all just vibes.

Of course Star Trek has its implausible moments (planets where everyone acts like Romans, or 1920s gangsters, and the like), but the Star Wars "Force" is literally magic, and the heroes are fighting an Emperor who is very little different from someone like Sauron. The only reason why it is isn't considered fantasy are the space ships.

>but the Star Wars "Force" is literally magic

Sure, the Jedi are "magic." But that's one magic element in a universe that's otherwise grounded in science fiction elements. Aliens. Spaceships. Robots. I'll see you the Jedi and raise you Trelane, the Q, the Douwd, the Traveller and a dozen other aliens that are no less "magic." Or in the case of the Q, far more magic than the Jedi.

The Jedi are telepaths (which Trek also has) and telekinetics (which Trek also has) and can predict the future (which exists in Trek.)

And they connect to a mystical all-encompassing energy force... which, ok. Trek doesn't have that. Oh wait they do, it's called "subspace."

And the entire Trek universe runs on fantastical nonsense. None of the physics is actual physics, it's subspace and technobabble. The galaxy is surrounded by a mystical barrier and God lives in the middle of it. There are wild magic fields in space that can do literally anything, and one has a face. You can travel back in time if you go around the sun fast enough like Superman. If Star Trek is science fiction, where is the science?

To say one is fantasy and the other isn't is simply a matter of taste.

>and the heroes are fighting an Emperor who is very little different from someone like Sauron

If your complaint is that Star Trek doesn't feature a single, universal villain... fair, but that isn't a fantasy only thing, science fiction has plenty of Big Bad Evil Guys. If it's that Star Wars' villains are just broad caricatures MF the Klingons are literally Space Mongols. Romulans are Space Romans. Cardassians are Space Nazis. Ferengi are Space Jews. The Borg Queen is basically Sexy Sauron.

You could take the spaceships away from Star Trek and map many Star Trek races to a common fantasy race archetype. Vulcans are elves, Romulans are Dark Elves, Klingons are Orcs, Ferengi are Dwarves or Goblins, Cardassians are snake people from the desert and the Borg are insect people.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#177

Post by macartain »

sherr wrote: post #157
triMichael wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really aren't all that different from each other. One is imaginary things that might one day be possible, and the other is imaginary things that won't ever be possible. And even then, that can swap between the genres. Scifi often contains FTL tech, which from what we know is almost certainly impossible so it's actually more like fantastical magic. Meanwhile, fantasy can have hard rules for its magic, in which ca…

I agree to an extent but they are usefully kept somewhat separate. The introduction to the great "Encyclopedia of Fantasy" put this well. Re: Fantasy : "Its roots go much deeper into history, and its concerns are more archetypal" [1] There can be a lot of cross-over of course. Right now, "fantasy" (perhaps of the "romantic" variety) seems to be a juggernaut and is taking over. [1] https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/intro…

Checks out - for a while there, the future seemed appealing.. right now, I would guess most folks would prefer to escape into the past.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#178

Post by edanm »

sceptic123 wrote: post #136
edanm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Haven't read Tau Zero.) I agree, and sometimes the line is drawn between SF being "things that are theoretically possible" vs. Fantasy where things are impossible. But then you have things like Egan's Clockwork Trilogy, which is "what if the laws of physics actually worked a bit differently in this specific way" but which I assume anyone would consider SF. As opposed to Brandon Sanderson's books, which could be desc…

I think some books can cross the threshold and be both, but the majority fall into one or the other category pretty easily. That would seem to apply to the linked authors' books from a cursory glance. What would you say is the reason for categorising works differently? Can you see differences there or do you also think it's mostly marketing?

There are clear differences, I don't disagree, I just think the difference isn't "rooted in real physics" vs "rooted in imaginary physics". The difference is more a matter of tone and general setting. Space? It's scifi. Medieval culture? Fantasy.

An author once wrote an intro to some short story. The story is part of a much larger futuristic scifi universe in which people have developed telepathy and other things through genetic means. And the specific short story was the first one he wanted to publish, and it was about a specific planet in that world, in which the whole story is basically a telepath coming into town and interacting with the population.

And the publisher returned the note that this wasn't scifi, it was fantasy. Because of course he did - stripped of the broader futuristic setting that the story takes place in, it's just a story of a wizard coming into town. Never mind that there are solid science fiction explanations for the "magic" - you don't get that in the short story.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#179

Post by MomsAVoxell »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #50

A E Van Vogt can hardly be called unheard of, the null A series is quite a cult classic. But yeah, the Space Beagle is not his most well-known work. It always surprises me (although it shouldn't) how many underrated gems there are still in the world. And new ones are produced every day. E.G: I still think QTMN will deserve a place as a classic sci-fi author among the great ones, for "there is no antimemetics division…

City Of the Lost Children is an absolute classic, good point.

However, I think there’s something to be said - sci-fi people of the 70’s all knew AE Van Vogt. This list was, for me delightful, because it reminded me of books I once owned, long ago, indeed many in this list .. back when books were how you encountered these materials. Real books were how we read, back then.

The need to know things has been radically compartmentalized by the mega-computer we’ve allowed to take over our planet, meanwhile, apropos cruel mistresses ..

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