Science Fiction

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Lemmy World Rules

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Question: should this be a fantasy-free zone? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world

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I read a lot of both SF and fantasy. Most communities I've dealt with have commingled the genres, in part because the line between them can be blurry. Is this community supposed to be strictly SF, or are discussions of fantasy also okay?

I was going to post my mini review of Days of Shattered Faith, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but it's clearly fantasy (though Tchaikovsky writes quite a lot of SF), so I thought I should ask.

Edit: it seems like I've had pretty good response to the question, and the vast majority would prefer to be more inclusive rather than draw a line. I'll go ahead and continue posting both, though note that so far a moderator hasn't weighed I in, and that could change things.

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[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Probably intended to be funny, but in my usual style I'll answer seriously. If you were to write a story about, say, an herb that's found that cures cancer, that would be legitimate SF to me. It might not be hard SF if there's no explanation of how it cures cancer, but it's enough to say there's a compound in the plant that does it, because that's how medicine works.

The thing about homeopathic medicine that makes it non-science is that, for much of it, there's zero scientific evidence that it works. But in the confines of a story, if the author says it works, them it works.