[bksvol-discuss] Re: Fairy tales versus Fantasy
- From: Cindy Rosenthal <grandcyn77@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:45:09 -0800
You're right; when I researched verne to find the dates of his books I
found that at the time the were categorized as adventure stories. smile
On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 12:28 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> When I said that Gernsback was the inventor I meant within the concept of
> genre as defined by the pulp magazines. Prior to the pulps there were
> certainly different kinds of fiction, but they were regarded differently
> than they were after the pulps came along. The pulp magazines were a kind
> of television before television came about. They offered up stories for
> sheer entertainment and they realized that different readers liked
> different kinds of entertainment. Some of the pulps were dedicated to
> romance stories and others to detective stories while others were devoted
> to westerns and so forth. Science fiction was a late comer. It appeared in
> 1928 and the whole idea of it was a gimmick. Hugo Gernsback just got the
> idea that fiction written to entertain would be a nifty way to get people
> interested in science and in his own special interest of electrical
> invention. The stories of Jules Verne were actually called scientific
> romances when they were published, but the term was descriptive rather than
> categorical. As far as categorization went they were just categorized as
> novels. It is only retrospectively that they can be categorized as science
> fiction. That is, if they had been published after the genre category of
> science fiction had been started by Hugo Gernsback they would have been
> called science fiction. So, in a sense, Jules Verne or maybe even someone
> earlier started science fiction, but they didn't know it and had no
> intention of doing so. It was Hugo Gernsback who intentionally and with
> forethought started the genre as a genre. And for that matter, it was the
> publishers and editors of all the other pulp magazines who started the
> other genres too. There are still fiction magazines around and some of them
> specialize too, but the pulps, as they were known in their heyday, are no
> longer around. Since their demise, though, some other genres have been
> added, but those additions were built on the concept of genre as developed
> by the pulps. There were no pulp magazines, for example, devoted to the
> techno-thriller, but that is generally recognized as a separate genre now.
> I can also see a possible genre coming up too. The alternate history novel
> is generally classified as science fiction, but it does not quite fit the
> definition of science fiction I offered. That is, it does not unless
> something like time travel or multiple universes are introduced. Without
> such fantastic suppositions as those an alternate history novel does not
> have a fantastic supposition, per se. It is just an historical novel or a
> contemporary novel in which it is supposed that something in history
> happened a different way than the historical record shows it to have
> happened and the long range consequences of that different event are the
> backdrop for the story. I think I would be in favor of splitting those
> kinds of stories from science fiction and giving them a separate genre.
> On 12/29/2014 2:56 PM, Cindy Rosenthal wrote:
>
> appreciate your clear description of the distinction between fantasy
> and science fiction but I beg to differ with you about the "inventor" of
> science fiction. gernsback; however, I see, when I went back to see how to
> spell his name, that you do mention Jules Verne whose" From earth to Moon"
> was published in 1865, and *journey to the Center of the Earth* in 1864,
> and 2000, Leagues Under the Sea was published in 1870. What he imagined,
> i.e., submarines and a trip to the moon, came true; His *Trip to the Moon*
> remembered the title being *Voyage to the Moon* but couldn't find it
> under that title) even began exactly where the Apollo Missions set out,
> i.e., from the site (again my memory fails me) in Florida.
> Cindy
>
> On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 8:48 AM, Madeleine Linares <
> Madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> We feel your pain! The collection development staff and myself are
>> definitely in agreement that we need more categories and better ones. We’ve
>> been pushing for this to happen, but since we have limited resources it has
>> not yet happened. I wish I could promise you that it would be fixed soon,
>> but I can’t. I can promise that we know about it and have raised the issue
>> several times. Sorry I don’t have any better information about this right
>> now. If I learn of any progress on this I’ll let you all know.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Madeleine
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
>> bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Roger Loran Bailey
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 24, 2014 12:20 PM
>> *To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> *Subject:* [bksvol-discuss] Re: Fairy tales versus Fantasy
>>
>>
>>
>> A long time ago we got a note from someone at Bookshare on list that the
>> science fiction and fantasy categories would be split. I don't remember who
>> that was, possibly the Bookshare librarian. However, it was a long time ago
>> and there has been no sign of that category being split.
>> Now, as long as I am on that topic let me go into one of my favorite
>> rants when it comes to literary discussion, that is, the difference between
>> science fiction and fantasy.
>> Let me first explain what science fiction and fantasy have in common.
>> They are both speculative fiction. As speculative fiction each story
>> implicitly asks the question, what if? The word if is then followed by a
>> fantastic supposition and the story itself is at least one answer to the
>> question, By fantastic supposition I mean an event, a being or some kind of
>> scenario that is outside the experience of anyone who has ever lived. That
>> is, it just has not ever happened, at least not yet.
>> Now the difference. The word science is not in science fiction for
>> nothing. Science is the study of reality. That means that in science
>> fiction the fantastic supposition is assumed within the context of the
>> story to be a manifestation of reality. When Hugo Gernsback invented the
>> genre he invented it as a gimmick. His actual purpose was to promote
>> science and specifically, as he put it, electrical invention. That was in
>> 1928 and true to his vision most of the science fiction he started
>> publishing was very gadget oriented. He thought that entertaining stories
>> was a good way to get people interested in science and gadgets. Science
>> fiction has come a long way since then, but it still makes the assumption
>> that within the context of the story the fantastic supposition is a
>> manifestation of reality even if it is extremely unlikely or even utterly
>> impossible.
>> Fantasy has been around a lot longer than science fiction. In fact, it
>> predates science fiction by thousands of years. In fantasy the fantastic
>> supposition is assumed within the context of the story to be a
>> manifestation of the supernatural. That is, it is magic or some other kind
>> of hocus pocus. As I understand it the two genres started to be lumped
>> together just after the American publication of Lord of the Rings.
>> Ballantine published that and it was a hit. That led Ballantine to consider
>> starting an adult fantasy imprint and they did. However, it was a risk.
>> Just because Lord of the Rings was so popular there was no guarantee that
>> other fantasy for adults would be popular and so there was some reticence
>> about how much to invest in the new adult fantasy imprint. Well, they
>> already had a science fiction imprint and the editor was one Lin Carter.
>> Lin Carter was given the additional job of fantasy editor. Then there was
>> the problem of where to get the fantasy. Even though fantasy had been
>> around thousands of years before science fiction was even invented fantasy
>> for adults was very rare in the United States. There was plenty of it for
>> children, but not much for adults. Since Lin Carter had a working
>> relationship with so many science fiction writers he started recruiting
>> science fiction writers to write the stuff. That explains why science
>> fiction writers are also fantasy writers so frequently. And then the
>> fantasy started being lumped together with the science fiction. Obviously
>> Balantine's gamble was successful because if you go into a bookstore
>> nowadays you will see that a lot more shelf space is taken up with fantasy
>> than science fiction, but they are still very unfortunately still being
>> lumped together.
>> The difference is profound though. Again, the difference is that within
>> the context of the story the fantastic supposition is assumed to be a
>> manifestation of the supernatural in fantasy and it is assumed to be a
>> manifestation of reality in science fiction. Any two or more genres of
>> fiction can overlap and that includes science fiction and fantasy, but the
>> genres are still distinct enough from one another that most anyone can tell
>> which is being read while reading them. As long as there is a distinction
>> between genres, though, science fiction and fantasy have to be about as far
>> apart as any two genres of fiction can be. Again, it is the difference
>> between reality and the supernatural; it is the difference between
>> chemistry and alchemy; it is the difference between astronomy and
>> astrology. I would dearly love to see this lumping of them together
>> stopped.
>> Genre fiction itself came about in the late nineteenth century with the
>> pulp magazines. Some magazines published detective stories. Other magazines
>> published westerns and so forth. Each magazine had certain requirements for
>> its authors and each author knew which magazines to submit a story to
>> without being summarily rejected and, knowing what kind of story each
>> magazine published, the reader would know which magazine to buy to get the
>> kind of story that he or she wanted. Then in 1928 science fiction was added
>> as an additional genre. The usefulness of genre to the reader has led to
>> the concept of genre being retained and even some new genres being added
>> since the pulps disappeared, but the concept is still useful. If you like
>> to read a certain kind of story then it is well to know what genre it will
>> be in before reading it. Before the advent of the pulps fiction was not
>> divided into genres even if some stories have been retrospectively
>> classified into certain genres like the writings of H.G. Wells and Jules
>> Verne have been classified as science fiction even if they were not
>> considered to be genre fiction at the time of their publication. If we were
>> to go back to that time of unclassified fiction then I suppose it wouldn't
>> matter, but as long as it does matter what genre a story is in then it
>> matters that fantasy and science fiction not be lumped together. By lumping
>> them together the usefulness of genre is degraded. I prefer science fiction
>> and so it is annoying to me that when I browse a list of books of science
>> fiction I keep finding fantasy mixed in with it and I would suppose that
>> the person who prefers fantasy would feel the same way about science
>> fiction being mixed in with their fantasy. Then worse, there is always the
>> possibility of picking up a book that was listed under science fiction and
>> while reading it finding out that it is fantasy. At least I like fantasy
>> too even if I prefer science fiction, but the lumping of them together
>> still gets in the way of selecting the book one wants to read.
>>
>> On 12/24/2014 10:44 AM, Kim Friedman wrote:
>>
>> Hi, I don’t see Bookshare changing its categories list any time soon do
>> you? Regards, Kim Friedman.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [
>> mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> <bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>] *On Behalf Of *Sue Stevens
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 24, 2014 4:52 AM
>> *To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> *Subject:* [bksvol-discuss] Re: Fairy tales versus Fantasy
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Judy,
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes, I would consider it as fantasy, but the problem on Bookshare is that
>> they class fantasy with science fiction, and I wouldn’t consider fairy
>> tales science fiction. So I would probably leave that classification off.
>> Bookshare needs to update and expand the categories.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sue S.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Judy s. <cherryjam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 23, 2014 8:27 PM
>>
>> *To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> *Subject:* [bksvol-discuss] Fairy tales versus Fantasy
>>
>>
>>
>> Any thoughts about how to classify a book as to type if it is a child's
>> fairy tale? It's obviously a children's book, and it's literature and
>> fiction, but would you consider a fairy tale, like Little Red Riding Hood,
>> a fantasy novel as well?
>>
>> --
>>
>> Judy s.
>> Follow me on Twitter at QuackersNCheese
>> <https://twitter.com/QuackersNCheese>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
Other related posts:
