[bksvol-discuss] Categories again
- From: "Kim Friedman" <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 16:53:15 -0800
Hi, I don't know who suggested that alternate history novels shouldn't be
put in the science fiction category. I can understand why the sender might
think this; however, I'd say the alternate probability universe story's
primary duty is to deal with the "what-if" question; i.e., what if the south
had won the Civil War. Or what if society were split along gender lines
after a disaster? What would the societies be like and how would men and
women react? There was a series of books by Suzy McKee Charnas which dealt
with this as well as Sherri Tepper's book The Gate to Women's Country. And
where would you put Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series? You have
apparently human entities that live for thousands of years before
life-stretching medical technology or nanotech possited by authors. So I
would say that sf does deal with extrapolated reality based on possible or
impossible future or present-day tech, it doesn't always perform in that
way. Robert Sawyer's Hominid series deals with revival of what were
Neanderthal humans which we can't do now. Although I grant you that
Alternate Probability Universe stories may sound fantastic if you think
there's such a thing as a multiverse and if one could actually do a kind of
time travel, I wouldn't class this as fantasy because there is the
possibility of a technology which may allow for that. Where would you place
H. G. Wells' Time Machine? Would you call that sf or fantasy? I think of it
as a kind of morality tale in the sf category because Wells is imagining
what a far future society would be like given the society of his day. Harry
Turtledove has stories where humans encounter saber-toothed tigers and
hominids which they call sims. To me, this is alternate probability stories
in the science fiction category. If you see something like The Case of the
Toxic Spell Dump by the same author, that's definitely fantasy because the
protagonist is living in a magic-works universe. Besides, what do you make
of Arthor C. Clarke's remark that future technology would appear to be like
magic to people in the past? Where would you place Gene Wolfe's series Book
of the New Sun and Book of the Long Sun? Regards, Kim Friedman.
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