What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction and their common features. What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction?

If you ask the first person you meet about this, he will most likely answer that this is not important to him, the main thing is that the plot is interesting. If you ask this question to specialists of a narrow profile, it will cause great amount emotions and the erupted debate over the right of this or that definition to be correct, and this question will generally be considered incorrect.

But for wide range readers and viewers, science fiction and fantasy are fascinating literary genres in the spirit of an unusual, unrealistic, but surprisingly interesting concept. To figure out whether it is possible and necessary to compare them, let’s start in order.

Fantasy – translated from Greek, means the art of imagination. The emergence of fantasy as a literary movement began in the 19th century with the growth of scientific and technological progress and is associated with the names of Herbert Wells and Jules Verne. In Russia, the first science fiction writers were Alexander Veltman, Vladimir Odoevsky, Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, and only later the world learned the names of the Strugatsky brothers, Ivan Efremov, Alexander Green, Alexander Belyaev. The close connection with science separated science fiction from fiction and attracted people in one way or another connected with scientific knowledge: scientists, students, people of technical professions. That is, initially fantasy implied precisely science fiction, trying to logically explain the basic ideas about man, his world and the theoretical possibilities of his abilities in the future. That is, the main thing in this definition is the future.

Since the mid-20th century, the concept of “science fiction” has significantly expanded the scope of its definition. In the 70-80s of the twentieth century, science fiction itself underwent a number of changes that brought it closer to the general literary stream, simplifying the scientific framework and previously defined rules. Gradually, the familiar concept of “fiction” began to mean the works of authors related to mysticism, “horror” (horror literature), fantasy (magical, magical fiction), etc. That is, fantasy as literary direction, if comparison can be made, it is with science fiction, and not with science fiction in general.

Fantasy presupposes free imagination (apparently from this words and happened), not suggesting any explanation. This is a type of fantasy literature that allows for everything irrational, supernatural - sorcerers, Gods, wizards, etc.

Initially, fantasy presupposes an unknown, unidentified and inaccessible to our consciousness past, in which all the usual laws of physics, mathematics, logic, etc. are violated. For example, magic that denies the laws of gravity, conservation of energy, and any cause-and-effect relationships. Although there are versions that magic is a very well thought out and calculated area of cognition, it must be noted that it is paranormal cognition. In other words, fantasy is where magic is, science fiction is where physics is.

According to A. Sapkowski, fantasy is a genre or subgenre of science fiction, the founders of which are Howard, Lewis, Tolkien, Moorcock, Norton, Le Guin. He calls the main source of fantasy not fairy tale from our childhood (which is called folk epic), and the legends about King Arthur, which have very few analogues of this level. It was this archetype that became the prototype of most works of the fantasy genre, which is based on the confrontation between Good and Evil, Progress and Destruction and the Forces behind it. But this one too characteristic feature fantasy, as a genre at the beginning of its development, is lost when compared with science fiction, because the struggle between light and dark is the basis of the literary concept of almost any work. As one of the critics noted, fantasy is something that we guess from the very first lines of a book or the first minutes of a film, but to explain and give an accurate and specific definition can not.

In science fiction, there are several dozen genres from children's fantasy, magical realism, utopia and dystopia, “soft” science fiction to cyberpunk, space fiction, techno-fantasy, apocalypse and post-apocalypse.

As you can see, fantasy is part of the world of science fiction. But! IN beginning of XXI century, it was these two concepts that merged, mixed and dissolved. If initially, science fiction is robots, starships, aliens, and fantasy is magicians, gnomes, swords and fairy tale characters, then works where scientific discoveries are made by fantasy heroes and vice versa, where the surroundings of one direction are superimposed on another and often the most competent critic are not able to determine where to classify this or that film or literary creation, are becoming increasingly widespread.

This trend of synergy is characteristic of the entire scientific and non-scientific world. The era has come when a synthesis of knowledge is needed in all areas. The science acknowledges paranormal phenomena and comments on biblical interpretation. Literary movements– this is just a reflection of reality. The merging of the concepts of scientific and non-scientific is dictated by an overabundance information flows, which merge with each other, creating new emotional sensations.

All children love fairy tales. And even more so for adult children. Only their fairy tales are scarier and more interesting. Here you won’t be surprised by the Frog Princess, and cunning writers have come up with a genre that helps you escape from reality into fairy world quite “adult” scale. World of fantasy. This genre is perhaps one of the oldest genres of literature, because ancient greek myths and legends also belong to fantasy genre. In addition, fiction is very diverse, including many varieties, including science fiction and fantasy. The similarity of the names and the fact that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries science fiction gained enormous popularity led to the fact that when we talk about fantasy, we mean science fiction, and we do not distinguish fantasy as a separate genre. Let's try to draw a line between two genres of fiction: science and fantasy.

Definition

There are a huge number of definitions of both science fiction and fantasy. Let's look at the most common ones.
Verbatim Science fiction translated as "scientific fiction". It can be defined as a type of fantastic literature and art, which is based on a scientific assumption, supplemented by the author’s imagination. These fantasies can develop not only on the basis of technological realities, but also historical, cultural, spatiotemporal, etc. Science fiction does not concern only magic and sorcery.
But fantasy fills this gap. And at the heart of this genre is a free flight of imagination, not limited by scientific frameworks. Fantasy is a type of science fiction, which is based on the flight of imagination of the author, not limited by boundaries. scientific progress or regression. The fantasy world develops through mystical elements, as well as magic and sorcery. Translated from English as fantasy.

Emergence

Again, many people think that science fiction only appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this is not true. As written above, fiction includes myths and legends different nations. Fantasy literature developed during the Renaissance utopian works), and throughout the Middle Ages (romantic fiction). But science fiction as a genre appeared thanks to scientific and technological progress nineteenth century. The pioneers of the genre were Jules Verne, in the USSR - A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev.
But the founding father of fantasy is considered to be J. R. R. Tolkien with his famous Bilbo Baggins (“The Hobbit, or There and Back Again”). Then the idea of good (and not so good) gnomes, elves and goblins was picked up by other writers. But the peak of fantasy popularity came in the nineties of the twentieth century. To this day, fantasy is the most popular look fiction, which has supplanted science fiction.
Some works seem to stand at the intersection of these genres, for example, the work of Ursula Le Guin. Her works are classified either as fantasy or science fiction. This is exactly the case when one genre smoothly flows into another

Subgenres

There aren't many subgenres of science fiction. We will simply list the main and typical representatives of this subgenre: technological fiction (R. Heinlein), cyber fiction (A. Clark), sociological (Orwell). Each of these subgenres experienced a peak in popularity during a particular decade of the twentieth century. But in the last few decades, science fiction literature has been replaced by the fantasy genre in all its manifestations.
There are a huge number of fantasy genres. Moreover, with the development of the Internet and computer games, this genre has carved out another niche for itself. The most common subgenres are magical, mystical and scientific.
Fantasy is also closely intertwined with other literary genres, giving rise to a science fiction detective story or a science fiction action movie.

TheDifference.ru found the following differences between science fiction and fantasy:

Science fiction is based on scientific facts, fantasy is based on magic.
Science fiction literally translates as scientific fiction, and fantasy as fantasy.
Science fiction became the foundation for the emergence of both genres. Science fiction appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and developed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. Fantasy appeared in the middle of the century.
Science fiction is currently experiencing better times, but fantasy, on the contrary, is developing, giving rise to more and more new genres.

Since its inception, the fantasy genre has raised a lot of questions, disputes and misunderstandings. Can stories about elves and dwarves in a fictional world be considered fantasy? Fantasy as a literary genre has existed for more than a hundred years - but no one has really understood this issue yet.

Before diving into the topic, one more obvious fact should be stated: the differences between fantasy and science fiction will be considered, and not from fantasy in general. Simply because fantasy is part of science fiction, one of the fantastic genres.

What is fantasy?

To begin with, we should define fiction as a genre of literature. Although, it can be called a genre only for the sake of simplicity of presentation of the material, because literary scholars consistently “throw” the old woman from genres to methods and back again.

So, fantasy (from Greek " phantastike" - the art of imagining) is a kind of host literary genres, which are distinguished by a special, logically incompatible with everyday reality, picture of the world. Wherein fantasy worlds may be part of the world of the Earth, come into contact with it - or may not relate to it in any way. The latter can often be attributed to works of the fantasy genre.

Fantasy and SF: Definitions

Science fiction and fantasy are two of the oldest fantasy genres. To be more precise, science fiction predates fantasy by about a century. As soon as " younger sister"was born at the beginning of the 20th century, they immediately began to compare it with the older one. And most of these comparisons were not flattering. Why? Because people of the 20th century, like people of the 21st century, most often think too rationally. And fantasy is irrationality embodied. And now - in more detail.

is the author’s fiction, supplemented by the power of imagination, based on real scientific knowledge and facts. The fantasy of the author of science fiction works can be based not only on the achievements of technical disciplines or natural sciences, but also facts of history, space-time realities, and so on. Most often, in works of SF, or science fiction, the theme of magic, magic, and irrational miracle is not revealed.

This gap is successfully filled by works of the fantasy genre. The flight of fancy of authors working in this genre is not limited by anything. Absolutely nothing. After all, where did the word “fantasy” come from? Everything is very simple: this is a copy of the English “fantasy” - fantasy. Most often, fantasy worlds are not affected by the progress or regression of science. Because magical worlds live by their own magical laws. Magic works in them, and miracles happen literally at every step. Figuratively speaking.

The appearance and essence of “opponents”

Fantastic themes can be traced in the art of all nations of the planet without exception at all times. After all, what distinguishes a creator more than the ability to imagine? In some cases, even myths and legends are classified as fantastic genres, which is extremely incorrect from the point of view of literary criticism.

But science fiction appeared precisely on the wave of scientific progress of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Science fiction writers, who stood at the origins of the genre, quite often predicted major and not so big inventions and turns in the development of science and technology in the future. So, for example, Jules Verne described a submarine when they had not even begun to be developed, Isaac Asimov wrote a lot about artificial intelligence, and Andrei Belyaev’s heroes were placed on an orbital station. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of similar examples.

Fantasy, which emerged from the desire of one Oxford professor by last name Tolkien to create a new mythology for Great Britain, does not make assumptions about the future. That is why for a hundred years it has been referred to as “entertaining reading”, “fake literature”.

Fantasy novels often take place in completely imaginary worlds that live according to irrational magical laws. Heroes can belong to a mythical (elves, gnomes, goblins, giants) or fictional race (hobbits, orcs). Some characters possess magic or powers of an inexplicable nature, which they actively use to solve their problems or save the world.

The founder of the fantasy genre is most often called J. R. R. Tolkien and his works “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Silmarillion”. Among famous contemporaries– authors of “fake” books, it is worth mentioning Ursula le Guin, Andre Norton, Nick Perumov, Terry Goodkind, George Martin, Robert Asprin and many others.

List of differences

Below will be given the maximum detailed list features that can be used to determine whether the work in question belongs to the genre of science fiction or fantasy.

Attention! The general trend of interpenetration of genres has given rise to such interesting creations as science fantasy and other mixed genres. They randomly combine the features of the “parent” genres.

So what are the differences between science fiction and fantasy?

Science fiction works are based on real scientific facts. The basis of a fantasy work is mythology, magic, irrational miracles.
The fantasy genre appeared later than the science fiction genre. SF gave rise to the rapid progress of the late 19th and 20th centuries, and fantasy gave rise to a surge in mythological thinking of the 20th century.
A characteristic feature of science fiction works is a fantastic assumption (what the world would be like if something happened, if something were invented). The alternative or completely fictitious reality of fantasy is in no way connected with objective reality. The authors of fantasy works do not explain the laws of the worlds they created, in which working magic and developed non-human civilizations and mythical races are recognized as the norm.
Today, science fiction is in crisis; it has been partially assimilated, giving rise to science fiction action, space opera and other “soft” genres. Fantasy, on the contrary, is developing rapidly, giving rise to more and more new branches and many interesting works.
The main conflict of SF is the confrontation between social norms and the love of freedom of the protagonist. In fantasy works, the main confrontation is between the forces of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Bringing new masterpieces to light. IN Lately Books dedicated to fictional worlds are especially popular among readers, so there was a need to find a clear explanation of how science fiction differs from fantasy. Although these two genres are similar, there are still some very significant differences.

Science fiction takes a mostly scientific approach and takes place in a world that differs from the modern world in terms of historical, physical, or technological reality. Such works use machines or devices that did not yet exist at the time the book was written. What is the difference between science fiction and fantasy? The fact that the ideas of writers in the future are reflected in technological progress.

What also distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is the anomalous properties of the world from the point of view of physics. We perceive time as moving only in one direction, but writers have suggested that it can move in a circle, repeating the same events over and over again, or returning to the past. This cannot be called a complete fiction, because various anomalies are found in our world. And what the best minds humanity has not yet found an explanation for this, does not mean that this cannot happen. What distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is that the creator of the work is trying to expand the accepted framework of perception of the world, to conduct a thought experiment. Often in such books you can read about extraterrestrial civilizations, this moment This is an unconfirmed fact, but it cannot be denied.

What makes fantasy different from science fiction is the presence of magic, fictional worlds and races. In such works, the heroes use unusual powers, magic wands, secret knowledge, magical abilities, various artifacts. Among the races, the most common are elves, goblins, orcs, gnomes, brownies, and hobbits. Among modern writers In the fantasy genre, it is worth highlighting JK Rowling with her world-wide famous novels about Harry Potter, John Tolkien with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.

Works of this genre can be considered entertaining because the events described in them will never happen in reality. The action usually takes place in a fictional world, on another planet, the writer does not indicate the exact location of the magical country, or it is hidden from view ordinary people, as it happens in Rowling's novels. The science fiction and fantasy library is an interesting collection of books. Many writers combine these two genres, creating interesting works worthy of reading.

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All children love fairy tales. And even more so for adult children. Only their fairy tales are scarier and more interesting. Here you won’t be surprised by the Frog Princess, and cunning writers have come up with a genre that helps you be carried away from reality into a fairy-tale world of a completely “adult” scale. World of fantasy. This genre is perhaps one of the oldest genres of literature, because ancient Greek myths and legends also belong to the fantastic genre. In addition, fiction is very diverse, including many varieties, including science fiction and fantasy. The similarity of the names and the fact that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries science fiction gained enormous popularity led to the fact that when we talk about fantasy, we mean science fiction, and we do not distinguish fantasy as a separate genre. Let's try to draw a line between two genres of fiction: science and fantasy.

Definition

There are a huge number of definitions of both science fiction and fantasy. Let's look at the most common ones.

Verbatim Science fiction translated as "scientific fiction". It can be defined as a type of fantastic literature and art, which is based on a scientific assumption, supplemented by the author’s imagination. These fantasies can develop not only on the basis of technological realities, but also historical, cultural, spatiotemporal, etc. Science fiction is not just about magic and magic.

Still from the science fiction film “The Head of Professor Dowell”

But fantasy fills this gap. And at the heart of this genre is a free flight of imagination, not limited by scientific frameworks. Fantasy is a type of science fiction, which is based on the flight of imagination of the author, not limited by the framework of scientific progress or regression. The fantasy world develops through mystical elements, as well as magic and sorcery. Translated from English as fantasy.

Harry Potter. Fantasy

Emergence

Again, many people think that science fiction only appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this is not true. As was written above, fantasy includes myths and legends of different nations. Fantastic literature developed both during the Renaissance (utopian works) and throughout the Middle Ages (romantic fiction). But science fiction, as a genre, appeared thanks to the scientific and technological progress of the nineteenth century. The pioneers of the genre were Jules Verne, in the USSR - A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev.

But the founding father of fantasy is considered to be J. R. R. Tolkien with his famous Bilbo Baggins (“The Hobbit, or There and Back Again”). Then the idea of good (and not so good) gnomes, elves and goblins was picked up by other writers. But the peak of fantasy popularity came in the nineties of the twentieth century. To this day, fantasy is the most popular type of fiction, having supplanted science fiction.

Some works seem to stand at the intersection of these genres, for example, the work of Ursula Le Guin. Her works are classified either as fantasy or science fiction. This is exactly the case when one genre smoothly flows into another

Subgenres

There are a huge number of fantasy genres. Moreover, with the development of the Internet and computer games, this genre has carved out another niche for itself. The most common subgenres are magical, mystical and scientific.

Fantasy is also closely intertwined with other literary genres, giving rise to a fantastic detective story or a fantastic action film.

Conclusions website

Science fiction is based on scientific facts, fantasy is based on magic.
Science fiction literally translates as scientific fiction, and fantasy as fantasy.
Science fiction became the foundation for the emergence of both genres. Science fiction appeared at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and developed rapidly throughout the twentieth century. Fantasy appeared in the middle of the century.
Science fiction is currently going through hard times, but fantasy, on the contrary, is developing, giving rise to more and more new genres.