I don't know about A Wrinkle in Time. I have never read it. The Dragon Riders of Pern, however, strike me as solidly science fiction. Even though dragons are a fantasy trophe the dragons in the Pern novels are explained to be real animals on another planet that just happen to look like the dragons from folklore and so have been named dragons. They are assumed within the context of the story to be manifestations of reality and so are their teleportation powers. Nevertheless, as I pointed out, there are, of course, overlaps in genres. Any genre can have stories in it that contain elements of other genres. I used the spy novel as an example. Most every spy novel I ever read has elements of romance in it. So what? You can still tell the difference and if the elements are so blended that you really cannot tell which genre the book is in then it is in both. That does not change the fact that spy novels and romance novels are two distinct genres and it does not change the fact that fantasy and science fiction are two distinct genres. You would certainly not say that westerns and detective stories are the same genre just because you read a detective novel in which the detective rides a horse.
On 12/24/2014 7:19 AM, Ann Parsons wrote:
Hi Roger,I wish that they would create a category for Fantasy as well. However, I would caution you. There are some books which straddle the two genres handily. I am thinking particularly of L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time and also Anne McCaffrey's dragon books. These books are based in science but they have fantastic elements that blur the line between the genres.With that said, I believe that Bookshare has made a mistake in classifying fantasy and science fiction together. I think the category list needs expansion anyway. to include thrillers as well as folk tales.Ann P. Original message:Let me reply to myself to air one of my gripes. Again, Little Red Riding Hood is, of course, a fantasy, but in Bookshare in order to classify it as a fantasy it is necessary to classify it in the category fantasy and science fiction. By no means is Little Red Riding Hood science fiction. It does not even come close. It is about as far away from science fiction as a piece of fiction can get. Oh, how I wish Bookshare would split the science fiction and fantasy categories. Oh, how I wish that everyone in the world who comes up with categories for books would stop lumping science fiction and fantasy together. They are about as far apart as any two genres of fiction can get. They are as far apart as alchemy and chemistry. They are the difference between astrology and astronomy.
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