McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Derivative Plots?
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: The Angel Yeratel on May 12, 2008, 11:24:48 PM ---Well, really, it's Akira Kurosawa's samurai movies rewritten with lightsabres.
--- End quote ---
That's how they started out, but the story evolved quite a bit. From the Making of book.
Hasufin:
I think the question of what is Science Fiction versus what is Fantasy can at best only be answered vaguely. I think one problem is the perceived hierarchy between the two - anything can be considered fantasy, but there are "standards" for science fiction.
In general, for something to be "Hard" SF, it must not contain elements which are not directly supportable using current science. Science Fiction in general only contains elements which do not contradict current science, but may contain elements which are not necessarily supported by science.
Fantasy does not answer to science at all, and may contain elements which contradict science.
Many stories contain a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, but where they cross the line from being "SF with fantasy elements" and become "Fantasy with SF elements" is up to the reader.
Regardless of whether a work is SF or Fantasy, the work should still be self-consistent.
Suilan:
If the definition of a science fiction novel is that it must not contradict science, then I believe I've never read one in my life :D
Fantasy contradicts science a lot less, since it doesn't talk about it much at all. ;)
BTW, I write Fantasy, do you have any idea the kind of research the author has to do to get all the flora et fauna, geography, climates, the medicine, mathmatics, and history right? That's all science (even the last, because a huge part of it concerns the history of technology).
Personally, I can't stand/read any kind of fantasy where the heroes march through some dragon-infested high plateau under a hot merciless sun where there isn't enough water to wet their parched lips and not even a shrub to take shade, and then the author says: they lived on berries and mushrooms.
Imho, the modern reader (unlike the readers of say Jules Verne or Asimov or . . .) expects more realism and scientific correctness both in Fantasy AND in Science Fiction.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Suilan on May 14, 2008, 08:14:39 AM ---If the definition of a science fiction novel is that it must not contradict science, then I believe I've never read one in my life :D
Fantasy contradicts science a lot less, since it doesn't talk about it much at all. ;)
Imho, the modern reader (unlike the readers of say Jules Verne or Asimov or . . .) expects more realism and scientific correctness both in Fantasy AND in Science Fiction.
--- End quote ---
My favorite example, and the Only series I think qualifies as not contradicting science is Tom Swift, the original ones. Science Fiction in the 1900 about an inventor: Tom Swift and his Motor Cycle, Tom Swift and his Electric Train, Tom Swift and his Moving Pictures. Its why I believe in Science; science fiction is just science Not Yet.
That really has no real bearing on the discussion of the sf/fantasy dichotomy and where the line falls, but I thought it was a relevant example
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Suilan on May 14, 2008, 08:14:39 AM ---BTW, I write Fantasy, do you have any idea the kind of research the author has to do to get all the flora et fauna, geography, climates, the medicine, mathmatics, and history right? That's all science (even the last, because a huge part of it concerns the history of technology).
--- End quote ---
If you are bothering to do that, you're way ahead of an awful lot of published fantasy writers.
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