From: 32BSFJC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (TERRY D. BARKLEY)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Date: 21 Nov 92 19:37:58 GMT
 <1ek3b4INNja8@gap.caltech.edu>
Organization: Central Michigan University

Brenda (roder@cobalt.caltech.edu) says:

> So, a writer who uses FTL ... travel should be considered fantasy?  OTOH,
>should psi abilities fall under science fiction or fantasy? (Etc., etc.)

     Until proven otherwise (beyond doubt), FTL travel and psi abilites are
still within the realm of possibility.  Just because the technology is
currently beyond our capabilities does not make something "Fantasy."  Once
again, it is the intent of the author that helps to point out the differences
between Sci-Fi and Fantasy.  If the author writes something with a sense of
maybe someday this could happen, that is Science Fiction.  There is always a
rational air about Science Fiction, whether what the author suggests is
possible tomorrow or centuries in the future.  Fantasy, on the other hand,
always has a mystical air about it, and never tries to look to the future.  The
author never tries to suggest that any of this is possible, in fact, some
fantasists go out of their way to create more and more fantasical places and
artifacts and events (the more irrational the better).  Donaldson knew what he
was doing when he suggested throughout the six Covenent novels that this could
all be just a dream.  There is no attempt to rationalize what is happening in
fantasy.
     Science Fiction is aptly named for it is founded in science and rational-
ity.  Fantasy, as is put forward by psychologists and literary critics,
operates on a far more visceral level.  There can never be, in true acceptance
of the terms we use to describe genre fiction, a pure mixing of the two genres.
If a Science Fiction story suddenly used  irrational images, such as magic, it
would be simply a Fantasy set in the future, just as the transformation of
humans into rhinoceroses in Ionesco's"Rhinoceros"makes it a Fantasy despite its
setting in a modern day city.
     Because Fantasy is used for specific purposes and has its own conventions
and vast amounts of texts, dating from the beginning of the written word, it
must be considered as its own entity.  In college we study Elizabethan drama,
the Nineteenth Century romance novel, Old English poetry, and many other sub-
sections of literature because their impact on the written word was and is
significant.  Fantasy also has been significant and therefore deserves seperate
study.  There is a reason Camus used Fantasy ("The Myth of Sisyphus") and not
Science Fiction to descibe Existentialism. Rec.arts.fantasy would be a good
forum for those who wish to speak as acamedians about both modern and past
Fantasy, both for meaning and quality.  And for those afraid it would lower
into a fanzine, what keeps other groups from falling into such a trap?
Pressure from serious contributers shall help keep the area relatively clear of
such tripe.  Look at NETNEWS ETIQUETTE for rules of conduct.



Terry D. Barkley                              "Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Graduate Student in English                    Into a village,
Central Michigan University                    Are twenty men crossing twenty
<32BSFJC@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>                                          bridges,
                                               Into twenty villages...."
                                                           Wallace Stevens
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