Monday 7 February 2011

Fantasy Fans and Science Fiction Fans: Who Are Dumber?

Quite an elucidating article, and some rather hilarious comments. I particularly reccommend reading the comments of Steve Davidson, who offers this as his explanation as to why he openly criticizes fantasy and fantasy fans:

Why diss Fantasy? Honestly? …because it’s increasing dominance on the book shelves is a clear indicator that wish-fulfillment and living in dreamland has won the war over intelligence and reason and every time I see the word I’m reminded of how doomed we are and how increasingly fast the end is coming.

Speaking as a guy who loves his Bester, Asimov, Haldeman, Ellison, Stapledon, Matheson, Ballard, Wyndham, Wells and Verne, I can't laugh heartily enough at such a moronic generalization.  Because, as we all know, science fiction is completely bereft of wish fulfillment and living in dreamlands, and fantasy is similarly free of intelligence and reason.  Apparently.

Here’s an analogy: fantasy is the couch potato watching exercise programs on cable tv. SF is Arnold Schwazenegger pumping iron and turning himself into the terminator.

So SF is all about building up muscles that are purely for show? Great analogy, doofus.  Actually, that's a perfect analogy for certain types of SF fans: puffed up on their own self importance and sense of superiority over that escapist nonsense, much like Arnold's muscular hypertrophy distended his thews into massive dimensions, yet didn't actually make him any stronger for all that.

Weirdly enough, I spend my formative years reading both fantasy and SF.  Then I spent my teen years reading nothing but science fiction, eschewing fantasy entirely.  Now I read both, but tend to read more fantasy.  Does that mean I've gotten dumber with age?  Probably, according to this chap.

14 comments:

  1. Is the point of the analogy that SF will make you smarter than reading fantasy? Or that it will lead to a career in James Cameron films? Or--oh, why am I trying to make sense of it?

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  2. "it’s increasing dominance on the book shelves is a clear indicator that wish-fulfillment and living in dreamland has won the war over intelligence and reason and every time I see the word I’m reminded of how doomed we are and how increasingly fast the end is coming."

    If a guy wants to sound intelligent, he probably shouldn't write something with obvious grammatical errors?

    People like this are a big reason why science fiction is getting its butt kicked by fantasy, because instead of looking at declining sales and shelf space and thinking of modifying their approaches, they dig in their heels and start going on about how the readership IS JUST TOO DUMB!!! to appreciate their great work.

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  3. Remember the days when we were all just geeks? Fantasy, science fiction, it didn't matter what you read, you were still a nerd and would get beat-up or derided mercilessly because of that.

    Kids these days don't know when they got it good.

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  4. I commented there and, like you, posted my comment to my own page. Thanks for leading me over there.

    My opinion is that readers and authors are not smarter in one genre or the next, but that science fiction lends itself to academics more so than fantasy.

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  5. Hmm, I always thought Howard's maybe-history was pretty damn clever myself. Moreso than any SF story that has inter-species reproduction, anyways.

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  6. I've always felt that Sci-Fi falls for many of the same things that Fantasy does. Star Trek is just as Idealistic and even Naive as the Shire..

    Though Star Trek has Elves and Orcs in space... so err maybe its not "real sci-fi"

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  7. Somewhere in my varied reading, I heard the simplistic analogy that Fantasy was moral, and Science Fiction was ethical. Now, while we can all come up with dozens of exceptions to that rule, I like the inherent categorization, because it makes the case that fantasy works out of a different tool box, and to a different end, than science fiction. Not any better or worse, but merely different. Both are capable of answering a common question, even, but they would do it in very different ways.

    All the same--you'll always have people who love english and history, but hate math and science, and vice versa.

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  8. Mark, thats a great post.

    I'm one of those people who loved English and History and hate Math.. though I liked the Earth Sciences like Geology and Geography.. but Didn't really care for the rest. They simply overlapped with my love of History.

    I also agree about the Moral vs Ethical thing, and that could in fact be why so many modern Fantasy novels with their very loose or non existent Morals bother me so much.. its removing something I take for granted in the genre.

    I had some one try to explain to me once that Morals are subjective, and Ethics absolute.. I'm very much in the opposite camp.. I just hold everyone else to the same standards I hold myself too.

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  9. Wow. On Steve Davidson: this is exactly the sort of crap I wrote about in "Spacesuit, Blaster & Science(!)". Science fiction's relationship with the modernist project strikes again, with the usual unspoken frustration of how badly the modernist project has failed by lashing out at "irrational" fantasy.

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  10. "Less filling!"

    "Tastes great!"

    Tex
    (whatever)

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  11. Is the point of the analogy that SF will make you smarter than reading fantasy? Or that it will lead to a career in James Cameron films? Or--oh, why am I trying to make sense of it?

    The best part is, this chap seems to omit the very important fact that Arnold's big break wasn't in a science fiction film, but in a fantasy film. Coincidence? I think not.

    People like this are a big reason why science fiction is getting its butt kicked by fantasy, because instead of looking at declining sales and shelf space and thinking of modifying their approaches, they dig in their heels and start going on about how the readership IS JUST TOO DUMB!!! to appreciate their great work.

    I dunno, some fantasy fans I've encountered...

    Remember the days when we were all just geeks? Fantasy, science fiction, it didn't matter what you read, you were still a nerd and would get beat-up or derided mercilessly because of that.

    Kids these days don't know when they got it good.


    Too true, too true.

    My opinion is that readers and authors are not smarter in one genre or the next, but that science fiction lends itself to academics more so than fantasy.

    Hmm, interesting consideration, and I think possible. Certainly there seems to be more "accepted" SF in academia than fantasy, as evidenced by the many dystopian novels. Because, as any fule no, 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, Farenheit 451 and The Handmaid's Tale and others aren't really science fiction, no siree bob.

    Hmm, I always thought Howard's maybe-history was pretty damn clever myself. Moreso than any SF story that has inter-species reproduction, anyways.

    Ho-ho. Interspecies reproduction is weird, but at least Trek managed to find a way to (awkwardly) explain it in its quirky technobabblish manner.

    I've always felt that Sci-Fi falls for many of the same things that Fantasy does. Star Trek is just as Idealistic and even Naive as the Shire..

    Though Star Trek has Elves and Orcs in space... so err maybe its not "real sci-fi"


    The problem with Trek is you have dozens of authors working on a show. Sometimes you got great, high-concept SF from Gene Coon, Art Wallace or D.C. Fontana, not to mention awesome guest episodes by established SF writers like Spinrad, Ellison, Sturgeon. And other times you got... "Spock's Brain," "The Way to Eden," and other silly things.

    At it's best, Trek is in the best tradition of science fiction: at its worst, it's run-of-the-mill TV sci-fi.

    Somewhere in my varied reading, I heard the simplistic analogy that Fantasy was moral, and Science Fiction was ethical. Now, while we can all come up with dozens of exceptions to that rule, I like the inherent categorization, because it makes the case that fantasy works out of a different tool box, and to a different end, than science fiction. Not any better or worse, but merely different. Both are capable of answering a common question, even, but they would do it in very different ways.

    All the same--you'll always have people who love english and history, but hate math and science, and vice versa.


    Good point.

    Wow. On Steve Davidson: this is exactly the sort of crap I wrote about in "Spacesuit, Blaster & Science(!)". Science fiction's relationship with the modernist project strikes again, with the usual unspoken frustration of how badly the modernist project has failed by lashing out at "irrational" fantasy.

    The funniest thing is, how rational is it for them to resort to such tactics? Not very scientific of them, I must say.

    "Less filling!"

    "Tastes great!"

    Tex
    (whatever)


    I'm at a loss here.

    *googles*

    Oooooh. Well, I'm a "less filling" guy, IYKWIM.

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  12. I have my own theories about what Science Fiction can do to save itself. Maybe someone in this blog will listen; I haven't gotten much open-minded feedback on this up to now.

    http://bhousley.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/the-incredible-shrinking-genre/#comment-3760

    Asimov helped pioneer Science Fiction, and I have read comments from him that seem to imply that he would not like the direction science fiction has taken in recent years. Recently, Stargate Universe was cancelled and some viewer comments seemed to sound like it went away because it had become "Twilight in Space". I think that hits close to the heart of the problem. The writers of Stargate SG1 seemed to try very hard to keep their show family-friendly, a goal which SGU seemed to totally abandon and viola! Cancelled!

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  13. Very interesting argument, Bill. I agree that SF seems to be in something of a rut right now, while fantasy's seeing a resurgence, and I especially agree that it isn't terminal. No genre truly dies, in my opinion. I'll have to think about this for a while.

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  14. Well.. if you take into account that there are genre like "Steampunk" I think the whole discussion is moot. Most successful sci-fi settings have a good blur of "Science" and "Fantasy". Be it Mass Effect, Star Trek, Stargate, Babylon 5, Star Wars.

    In the end it doesn't come down to math or history, but to a taste in style. Just like which music you like doesn't determine what kind of human being you are...

    People in general just love to categorize things and even more so, to categorize themselves. It gives them a sense of security and if they first categorize themselves and then raise that category above others, also a false sense of superiority.

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