Why Sci-Fi?

[Onix]

Why are people labeling fantasy books as Sci-Fi? The "Sy Fy" channel changed their name so they could sell fantasy (so yay for noticing the importance of language, boo for science fiction loosing a champion).

I understand that there are mashups a plenty out there, and all you have to do it look at Star Wars for one. But the first book they list is a plain Swords and Sorcery book. No tech, no science. If it were the last book on the list, it would have annoyed me a little but I would probably let it pass. Putting it center stage is aggravating.

[Evil Scientist]

"Sy Fy" was decided upon because it can be used as a trademark. Sci-fi is a general term and cannot be used as a brand. But that's not the point -- most people cannot tell the difference between sci-fi and other types of fiction (e.g. fantasy)... Star Wars, in my opinion, is not even a mash up, it's straight-ahead fantasy.

Nevertheless, the list has some books I'd read Also, only the title of the article mentions sci-fi. In the text the author is talking about sci-fi AND fantasy.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

My personal understanding of the division is that science fiction tries to look at the ramifications, fantasy does not. Isaac Asimov's "I Robot" collection is the archetype of SF in my mind; If we have sentient robots, what sort of safeguards do we implement, and how do we diagnose problems with them? Meanwhile, "The Lord of the Rings" doesn't consider how flying servants would change the nature of medieval warfare and reconnaissance. (Albeit, that isn't the focus of the story, but that sort of mapping capacity would be a big deal)

However, a lot of writers or reviewers don't make this so clear. You can of course have a setting where the hyperdrive is just a quick way of getting from planet of adventure A to planet of adventure B - without any discussion of how said FTL travel would affect the structure of governments. Or you can have four foot tall vikings and magic, but a serious attempt to reason out what sort of society they would build and how they'd react to a new industrial revolution. Most modern movies, or TV shows go the simple route "the teleporter experiment brought in demons - how do we kill them?" than look at the theological implications of hell being a real place that you visit when using space jumps, which in turn means the genral public's perceptions is also skewed.

This is before we have low vs high fantasy or hard vs soft SF. (How much magic or psionics you allow in part.)

In some places, the lines are blurred, in others we lack to right terms. We have science fiction and science fantasy, but what is reasoned out fantasy?

[Onix]

[trodgers]

I'm not sure where to draw the line exactly, but in thinking over the genre for my writing, I settled on sci-fi before discovering transgressive fiction. I'm not sure why a swords and sorceror entity would be considered sci-fi unless it's something like Thundar the Barbarian (but that includes obvious tech like battery-operated swords, airplanes, etc.).