Fantasy

[wellinghall]

camillofan has asked me:
"Is the distinguishing feature of fantasy (as opposed to other sorts of speculative fiction) Magic?"

And she has also said:
"What you need is a bracing debate on what exactly constitutes fantasy literature."

So - over to you, oh wise FList. What made a book "fantasy"?

Comments

Veering off topic

[tovaglia.livejournal.com]

Obviously, all fiction is fantasy when you come down to it - fantasy is anything that isn't real - but that would be a bit of a glib answer.

I have read so little fantasy / SF (esp SF, due to early bad experiences with some poor-quality, overly-macho works) that I hardly feel qualified to comment on the fantasy / SF division compared to the other, much wiser people on your flist.

Thinking about this, though, I guess it must be hard to write good SF because you do always have to judge where you can stretch the science a bit in favour of a good story (or come up with something scientifically plausible which helps your plot)

But also it must be hard to write good fantasy without it all getting a little bit silly / ironic / over the top.

It's probably all about pretending you are writing credible, consistent, cool SF while actually writing fantasy and hoping nobody will notice :-)