this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Science Fiction
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Magic alien space goo, psychics, etc...
Your distinctions are arbitrary and purely a function of how you feel about certain properties.
Enjoy your gatekeeping purity tests, I hope they bring you comfort.
They aren’t, they are the foundational and distinguishing differences between the scifi and fantasy genres.
Fantasy doesn’t explain the “magic” or the “tech” it’s all handwaved and is just there as part of the story.
Scifi on the other hand, the technology is the foundation of the story, and the rest is built off of that.
Both can use parts of each other, but how the story is built is which dictates which is the primary category it should be in.
If you can’t understand something, and someone is trying to explain it, does that make them gatekeeping?
So using those non arbitrary definitions, it’s pretty easy to see DCC is fantasy, along with Star Trek and wars
Foundation, expanse, Robots, they all fall into the other.
Using only excerpts from the books themselves. Explain to me how the proto molecule works without one iota of handwaiving.
That’s the combining with the fantasy genre, but everything in the slow and otherwise WAS explained with physics. Not well in the show, but the books yeah.
You’re also ignoring the key basis of the story being the technology and other parts. That’s not gonna help you comprehend it.
You're hopeless
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink.
If you’re gonna ignore established standards, and misinterpret what I’m saying because you think you’re correct, you aren’t gonna learn anything from that place of ignorance.
As a writer of sci-fi/fantasy stories, this level of willful ignorance makes me laugh.
What are the differences than?
These are the differences according to multiple veterans (literary the OG inventors of them…) of Sci fi and Fantasy writing. As well as definitions available on every library as well as Wikipedia and other available sources. We are just supposed to take your word over the proven professionals?
What are your qualifications other than self pronounced author? Usually when someone just interjects that they are lawyer, or a doctor, or other professional, without providing a detailed response, is just making stuff up.
Because the difference surely isn’t “it has spaceships”, that’s a gross oversimplification.
I think rather we need to go back and have you explain where you got these definitions because I've read a great many books of both genres and your definitions don't fit most of them.
Lots of fantasy magic systems have explanations. They just tend to be fantastical explanations.
You count Star Trek as fantasy despite it fitting this description to a tee. Everything about the setting and the stories they tell are predicated on their living in a technologically advanced society. Replicators, transporters, warp drives, holodecks, self-aware AI, all technologies that make Star Trek possible.
Who says it needs to be put in a single primary category? Why can't we have a sci-fi/fantasy genre in and of itself?
Basically, before you ask for my qualifications, I'm gonna need you to start making a single lick of sense in the first place.
In Star Trek, nothing is explained, it’s all handwaved and is just there as backround to the stories. You said it with your own words “the setting” that’s not the story or the backround of the universe now is it? You contradict yourself in your own point. Just because there is spaceships doesn’t mean it’s scifi, please provide an actual source that supports this exact statement. No one should take you for your word, especially when there is now a posted source that contradicts your statements.
That’s why it’s fantasy. Yes advanced technology exists, but how did they get there from where we are? If you need to suspend belief, it becomes fantasy instead of sci fi
I like their description though, it is just space elves and Klingons.
It just sounds like you self publish and call your stuff whatever you think will sell. Why should we listen to you? There’s sources and credible authors who support here views. What are your credentials, if it’s self published, you’re nothing more than a troll.
Yes it is. It's not always explained well, and it doesn't always make sense, but the key technologies of the setting such as transporters, replicator, and warp drives all have very reasonable explanations for how they work. This argument makes no sense on its face.
Magic, no how wonderfully explained, is not an extension of our universe.
I told you my sources?
You’re given the oversimplified modern version for mass appeal. That’s not how libraries and other places categorize the books.
We do have that genre? Science fantasy, that was covered already… you really aren’t given your ale dmucj merit here.
Then they should get with the times, which do change.
No, that's science fantasy, not sci-fi/fantasy. The image you posted is just sci-fi. You're not making whatever point you think you're making.
Well thank goodness for that!
And insult the creators of the genres by making their craft out to be “pew pew lasers and spaceships?”, there’s a reason why the genres were created, if we just want to make things as simple as easy as possible, just call everything fiction, no need to describe it more. I’m sure you can understand how that’s a terrible idea…? Why even have the genres, if you’re just gonna ignore them anyways?
Sure, let’s let everything be meaningless so nothing matters, that’s what you want with the world?
There’s also reasons why there is standards and they don’t just let anyone publish stories in magazines and other established prints. Editors exist so they can separate the chaff from the wheat. If you’re just gonna ignore these standards. It shouldn’t be a shock when you’re rejected.
You provided nothing to show you have any merit to decide what is and isn’t right, the fact that you’re parading around you’re an author means nothing. Especially if you don’t respect the established covenants of writing particular genres.
If you self publish, of course you can just incorrectly refer to your stuff as whatever you want, especially so it just sells.