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Or is there no difference? According to Mark Wilson, About.Com's "Sci-Fi/Fantasy Guide", there is a small, yet fundamental difference. From here:

I think that about covers it in my eyes too - sci-fi, if you accept the premise, can be realistic in a way pure fantasy, with its vampires and werewolves and ghosts, can't. For instance, something like Jules Verne's classic A Journey to the Center of the Earth is easily and correctly classified as sci-fi, but you can't, not even using the widest definition of the word, classify it as fantasy.

What do you think?

Nad

Very interesting topic, Dan, thanks for getting this started

I think the article sums it up pretty good, with Sci-Fi you've got f. e. stories set in the future, with huge new inventions (like f. e. space ships travelling throughout the universe without any problems and in short amounts of time) and can imagine it happening one day, whereas with Fantasy, you've got magic and other supernatural phenomena's as a subtext, which makes a good distinction to the Sci-Fi genre.

Andie

Great idea for a thread, Dan

I agree with you guys Considering the fundamental difference, I wonder why it's always put together as one genre?

thescoobygang

To save space maybe? I think the assumption is that people who enjoy Sci-Fi will automatically like Fantasy or vice versa. So it's lumped together, especially for marketing purposes.

Fantasy I think, is more difficult to categorize for people. If you go to IMDB, King Kong (1933) is listed at #26 for Top 250 Sci Fi. But it's also listed at #33 for Top 250 Fantasy. If you go to AFI's top 10 Fantasy, they have it at #4. (OT, that AFI top 10 Fantasy list is disappointing. I think they could have changed a few)

And is there a difference between Dark Fantasy & Horror? They seem to overlap.

AlexEvans

There's lots of stuff that's clearly classifiable as either SF or Fantasy, but however you draw the boundary there's always going to be something that straddles it. I think that's why they're put together.

I happen to love both so this is convenient for me anyway, but I know plenty of people who like one but not the other.

Horror overlaps not only with Dark Fantasy but with Urban Fantasy more generally, and Romance/Urban Fantasy mixes are quite common too... I guess you have to categorize somehow though.

I'd agree that the 'feel' of the work is the most reliable guide. I've seen other definitions, sometimes useful, but none that worked perfectly.

Nad

I think most people don't draw a strict line between the two categories anyhow.

Even though it is quite interesting to see how they put some stuff in the SciFi/Fantasy category whereas other stuff is put into the Horror category in book stores. I'm still trying to figure out the reasoning for that. Overall it seems to be more in the 'eye of the beholder' than anything else though.

I don't think there is a huge difference. It is more about people's perception of the book/movie in my opinion.

What other definitions have you seen?

AlexEvans

One that sticks in my mind is that with Science Fiction, everything is possible with one or two exceptions, and with fantasy, everything is assumed to be different.

sum1

Science fiction generally pretends to be able to work by real laws of science, even if so much science fiction totally abuses that. Fantasy doesn't usually pretend to fit in with our reality in that way. It's based on magic. But SF is a subcategory and offshoot of fantasy. It's just a (relatively) modern development of fantasy wherein people's faith in science allows a form of fantasy in which the fantastical aspects are explained by science or in which we pretend they can be.

K'Vruck

I define fantasy as dealing with magic, supernatural creatures and such. And sci-fi as dealing with science and future. Sometimes I do think of them as one. The college I earned my associate's degree from offered a lit class in sci-fi one semester and the other fantasy. I took the sci-fi one my last semester. I really wanted to take the fantasy one too since I'm more into fantasy than sci-fi

Tomorrow's skies

For me sci-fi was always technology, space, spaceships

And my view of fantasy has always been pretty 'high fantasy,' and to this day if there's a more fitting subgenre I won't call it fantasy