XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Troels Forchhammer  wrote:   
   > I acknowledge that there seems to be an element of authorial   
   > preference involved: very few authors successfully create worlds of   
   > both kinds (both the technological and the magical);   
      
   But I don't think that is really the problem: Quite a few authors   
   can, and very successfully. Eg. McMaster Bujold. And mixing technology   
   and magic isn't so difficult, either. Anne McCaffrey has already   
   been mentioned, LeGuin did it very explicitely in /Rocannon's World/   
   (and came up with a nice marriage of relativity and a fairy-tale   
   motif), Vernor Vinge did, and lots of others I can't remember in   
   the moment. Especially in the "golden age" there really wasn't   
   a sharp distinction between SF and F, one gets princesses in space   
   everywhere, from Edgar Rice Burroughs on. And /Star Wars/ and even   
   /Babylon 5/ still take that up.   
      
   So it's really only props and setting. Which can be easily   
   exchanged, if necessary. To convert, say, /The Tempest/ to /Forbidden   
   Planet/.   
      
   And even "hard science" isn't restricted to SF, Tolkien e.g. used a lot   
   of his knowledge of philology and history (which is also science,   
   just not physics in LotR. Which is part of what makes it so enjoyable.   
   Unfortunately, many modern authors of Fantasy don't do that, and it shows.   
      
   So I completely agree with what you wrote earlier:   
      
   > In many ways I think the distinction is artificial and tends to cloud   
   > over some important similarities -- it is a distinction that is   
   > wholly related to the type of the setting (and which, as mentioned   
   > above, cannot always give a satisfying answer), and which, IMNSHO,   
   > does more to hinder and obscure the issues than to help an attempt to   
   > analyze this kind of literature.   
      
   And moreover, I also think that   
      
   > However, I feel that the distinction, while possibly useful for a   
   > reader who prefers one kind and dislikes the other, is less useful   
   > when it comes to literary critique -- in my experience this kind of   
   > sub-creations, when viewed as a literary device, are used in the same   
   > manners in both fantasy and science fiction,   
      
   *this* is the important point: the sub-creative process, the literary   
   work that uses the "what-if" game to tell an interesting story.   
      
   > I think it would be interesting to ask to, and investigate, the   
   > reasons for the huge success of sub-creative fiction in the   
   > twentieth century -- especially as it has generally happened in   
   > spite of a clear antipathy from the majority of the literary elite.   
      
   I guess Tolkien would have some answers to that :-)   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)