Science Fiction

19700 readers

2 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

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

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Right, there are lots of examples that have the trappings of one genre but are the other at heart. I feel that way about the Shadow of the Leviathan series. It seems like people are taking magic potions to make genetic changes, but they've found these sea creatures that have properties that can be distilled to make genetic changes, and it's handled in a way that feels more like chemistry than magic.

[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

Cool! You know, if you get down to it; any fantasy book is sci-fi if you try to explain how the magic works. Mostly I think it would be attempting to satisfy the First Law of Thermodynamics, like it does in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.