TS: sci-fi vs. fantasy!

That said, I have read an enjoyed some fantasy. Here's another vote for The Book of the New Sun. And my favorite blurring of the SF/fantasy line is The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick.

Has anyone else here read Larry Niven's "The Fourth Profession"? That may be my favorite short story in the genre, even more than "The Cold Equations."

But if I had to name anyone off the top of my head as absolutely motherfucking essential, Avram Davidson. Read either The Phoenix and the Mirror or "Now Let Us Sleep" and you'll see what I mean (there's much more I could choose from). Ray Bradbury a close second for The Martian Chronicles and "The Veldt."

INTRIGUED!

i will always associate it with transient random-noise bursts with announcements, which i guess i was listening to an awful lot when i read it...

Sci-fi doesn't really mean anything to me, though I've read my share I suppose.

The Phoenix and the Mirror remains for many his high point w/r/t longer fiction, a reimagining of the character of Virgil Magus, a medieval vision of the Latin poet as a sorceror, in an alternate Roman Empire. But I might also recommend another one of his 'play with history' scenarios, cowritten with Davis, Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty.

http://www.avramdavidson.org/

...and for one of his prime efforts as a critic and essayist (Elvis T. turned me onto this in particular), his take on Lovecraft:

http://www.avramdavidson.org/ephemera.htm#HPL

"...Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Heaven knows, had a talent for writing which was of no mean proportion; only what he did with this talent was a shame and a caution and an eldritch horror. if he had only gotten the Hell down out of his auntie's attic and obtained a job with the Federal Writers Project of the WPA, he could have turned out guidebooks that would be classics and joys to read, forever. Only he stayed up there, muffled up to the tip of his long, gaunt New England chin against the cold which lay more in his heart than in his thermometer, living on 19 cents worth of beans a day, rewriting (for pennies) the crappy MSS of writers whose complete illiteracy would have been a boon to all mankind; and producing ghastly, grisly, ghoulish and horrifying works of his own as well--of man-eating Things which foraged in graveyards, of human/beastie crosses which grew beastier and beastlier as they grew older, of gibbering shoggoths, and Elder Beings which smelt real bad and were always trying to break through Thresholds and Take Over--rugose, squamous, amorphous nasties, abetted by thin, gaunt New England eccentrics who dwelt in attics and who eventually Never Seen Or Heard From Again. Serve them damn well right, I say.
In short, Howard was a twitch, boys and girls, and that's all there is to it."

Since you've said you've not read Davidson, do what I've been saying and read the Treasury. I have that and I have my Lovecraft volumes and I'd rather not part with either.

Curious G, yes. I grew up on Niven and John Varley, pretty hard SF chaps who nevertheless leant towards fantasy at times. The Fourth Profession is the one where the bartender dude takes an alien pill that gives him mad mystic-prophet skeelz, yes? Always a laugh, is Larry. However, I think my favourite Niven bits are the Beowulf thingummy stories where he's gallivanting around the universe getting pummelled by neutron stars and the like.

To answer the actual question: both, although my tolerance for crap SF is slightly higher than that for rubbish fantasy, the pseudoscientific language and hilarious sexual fetishes of the former outweighing the terrible 'here be dragons' maps and fluffy mysticism of the latter heavily for amusement value.

(OK, I'm kidding really)

I read a P.C.Hodgell book once, I liked the cover. IIRC it was pretty good.

Gene Wolfe's 4 books, referred to above, are excellent, really, some of my favourite books ever.

I'm getting back into reading on public transport of late, what's good & new/recent? I'm a bit out of touch (actually very out of touch) - I read Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver" last week, which was very good I thought, but not very SF/fantasy at all.

But I already like the Comsat Angels! *flees*

I wouldn't even go that far. They were much different writers on many levels -- thematic, stylistic, in how they used humor. But you'll have to see for yourself.

(slocki did you finish yr script?)

Check the end of my big list of authors, m'friend. :-)

The Einstein Intersection: SF or fantasy?

xpost

Children's fantasy beats children's sci-fi.

Fantasy RPGs beat sci-fi RPGs.

Post-children's sci-fi beats post-children's fantasy by a LONG way.

I am pwned! I thought there were two 'E's in Delany.

Tom raises an interesting point about age shifts. (If you want real pain, Heinlein's kid-oriented SF...on second thought, don't.)

(Actually kinda glad to see Heinlein NOT mentioned so far, I think.)

Meanwhile, though I think his ideas outstrip his narrative abilities at points (and in other cases overwhelm them), Orson Scott Card should be mentioned, and in fact he has a *great* piece up today via the LA Times regarding the death of Star Trek:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-card3may03,0,6007802.story

Worth a read. (He notes to being a fan of Whedon; I'd say anyone who talks about Whedon's abilities re: interpersonal conflict and communication needs to read Ender's Game if they haven't.)

xpost

It's hard [har har] to write without getting bogged down in technical details at the expense of the story. Here's a good example -- Ringworld by Niven is a great conceit well explained and illustrated, while some of the interspecies characterization is sharp but not perfectly developed. In Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks borrowed Ringworld wholesale and ditched extended explanation for a really good story (doubtless taking advantage of the fact that he didn't need to reinvent or reexplain the wheel, quite literally) -- and as for interaction and characterization, it's quite amazing what he came up with (the Culture novels have in ways all the intentionally parodic zest of Adams with just enough seriousness to make it work surprisingly well; also helps that Banks is essentially an action director working in prose).

To quote Arthur C. Clarke:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The SF I tend to prefer, to echo someone else upthread, tilts reality one or two degrees from the norm (or has fucking huge cosmic ideas explored by people whose characterisation is straight out of the modern day soaps) - more extensive worldbuilding in SF generally gives me as little emotional payback as fantasy worldbuilding and is harder work.

That said there's an atavistic part of me that much prefers SF from before it caved in on the idea of characterisation mattering. I got into it because I wanted an autistic escape from human interaction ta very much!