I started this post with a foun­da­tion — an approach to what brought me to the ques­tion: Sci­ence Fic­tion vs. Fan­tasy — what makes me pick one? But then I thought; ‘fuck it, I can’t be both­ered to waf­fle on indul­gently about why I asked myself this deep, almost exis­ten­tial ques­tion’ (sar­casm), and so lets just get on with it shall we..?

So, some love the dragon, love the knight, love the wiz­ard and every gob­lin, orc and mag­i­cal crys­tal in-between. Why? I’m not deny­ing they are cool lit­tle inven­tions for the fan­tas­ti­cal story, but what makes them more approach­able — or rather, pli­able — than their futuristic/alternative sci-fi brethren?

On that note, what makes sci­ence fic­tion so engag­ing? Where one could indulge and explain the heroic deeds of their pro­tag­o­nist; be it a Sir, a ras­cal… a farm boy with a mys­te­ri­ous her­itage (here’s look­ing at you, Cir), another could opt for the mer­ce­nary, the space sol­dier or the mutated super-human farm boy with a mys­te­ri­ous her­itage.

Indeed, for every heavy-weight in either cor­ner there is an equal and oppor­tune basis in the other: The space ship vs. the dragon, the laser vs. the sword and shield, the buxom, vul­ner­a­ble princess vs. the buxom, strong female sol­dier with some­thing to prove… well don’t the clichés just go on and on.

So what makes me pick one over the other? I’ve tried both, and to be hon­est the one I had the most suc­cess with in the past was a fan­tasy novel. I man­aged to reach a good few chap­ters before I felt it becom­ing a tired cliché. The lan­guage, the style of the per­son­al­i­ties, the names of loca­tions, the very charge my hero was con­duct­ing. It all became a lit­tle too famil­iar, and by that I don’t mean I had read it some­where spe­cific — it was orig­i­nal — but it didn’t feel like me, it didn’t feel… true. It was like wear­ing a glove that, although fit­ting, had some­one else’s name on the tag.

Sci­ence Fic­tion though, I thor­oughly enjoy play­ing with. I enjoy space bat­tles — though not as much as one would expect, I enjoy the… alien aspect, if that’s the way to put it. Not the green scaly kind, or the Fox Mul­der, ‘Greys’, but the idea of turn­ing humankind into some­thing else, some­thing alto­gether more, yes… ‘alien’. Another way I imag­ine I can explain what I mean is the gen­eral fact that we are who we are, we know our neigh­bour, we know what’s down the street etc. With sci­ence fic­tion, I enjoy the idea of rip­ping all of that famil­iar­ity away and pro­ject­ing what could hap­pen to us — good, or bad.

Another thing that works for me is humour. I like to rack out a line that deliv­ers some light, comic relief (no clowns, please) whilst also main­tain­ing a sem­blance of matu­rity. I find that, within a sci­ence fic­tion ori­en­tated con­text, I can do that eas­ier and still feel com­fort­able. When I try it with fan­tasy, I feel like I’m mak­ing an old-hat joke that’s been done; some­thing about what a wiz­ard keeps under his robes… there’s no answer to that. What, his ‘magic staff’? I told you I can’t do it.

I touched on char­ac­ter and I touched on rea­son­ing, or rather the pro­jec­tion of what I’m attempt­ing to inves­ti­gate, but what about set­ting? That’s another one isn’t it..? The idea of a post-apocalyptic world, or a high-tech civil­i­sa­tion, or some­thing in-between is much more approach­able for me. Those hold intri­cate foun­da­tions for my imag­i­na­tive machi­na­tions (tongue twister any­one?). Even on one of the most basic of lev­els; the sex­ual one, I find sci­ence fic­tion more entic­ing. The addi­tion of a femme-fatale clad in a sil­ver space­suit, or run­ning around with bright red hair and a sleazy demeanour is much more intox­i­cat­ing to my vision than one wrapped up in a dead ani­mal car­cass or wear­ing a fancy, mag­i­cal tiara atop a bed of cas­cad­ing blonde curls.

Per­son­ally, I’m not sure what pushes me more towards one than the other. Sure I have my rea­sons, but they are based of of exam­ples and tri­als and errors. Before that though, who knows? Maybe I just hap­pened to watch more space operas in lands far, far away than I did middle-earth dilemmas.