XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Troels Forchhammer  wrote:   
      
   > My original point in invoking it was to say that if you only observe   
   > the effect, the two _are_ indistinguishable.   
      
   Yes, that too.   
      
   > This means that it is perfectly possible to write a story in which   
   > things happen that cannot be explained by our science, but if the   
   > author makes an effort not to explain how this is done, we will be   
   > unable to say whether it is fantasy or science-fiction   
      
   And it's often better to not explain them in detail in the first place.   
   Otherwise one gets dreadful technobabble. Much too often.   
      
   [snip]   
      
   > I think that Tolkien has a good point when he compares 'magic' and   
   > 'the machine' -- that the basis is the desire for 'making the will   
   > more quickly effective.' (_Letters_ #131) Within the story, the   
   > author needs devices that can make the will and the desires of the   
   > characters clearer -- more obvious, if you will.   
      
   Did Tolkien mean this with respect to story-writing? I understood   
   that he wanted to point out that "Magic" and "Technology" are similar   
   in that they both try to let humankind manipulate nature, or other   
   humans (though in our world, the latter works and the former doesn't :-).   
      
   > [some] fiction [...] uses the sub-creation itself to set up a model   
   > in which human nature can be 'studied' in a controlled, noise-free   
   > environment. These devices, what Tolkien calles 'the Machine'   
   > (whether magical or technological) is, IMO, a part of that:   
      
   I think these two are quite different: Technology/Magic as a symbol   
   for Man trying to conquer Nature OTOH, and OTOH a subcreative setting   
   where one can study human nature. Of course the latter can make use   
   of the former, but most SF/F doesn't.   
      
   > This also takes me to, what I believe is (possibly a rather small)   
   > part of the explanation for the success of sub-creative fiction in   
   > the twentieth century. The complexity of human life has always been   
   > growing, [...] and many other reactions including attempts to build   
   > models that can help overview some few aspects without the   
   > complexity of 'real reality.'  The usefulness of sub-creative   
   > fiction in achieving the latter is,   
      
   Again, I don't think so. People have been telling "fantastic" stories   
   (fairy-tales, sagas, myths) for thousands of years. If the complexity   
   of human life is different now from what it was then, and the main   
   reason of success of SF/F is to cope with that complexity, why hasn't   
   story-telling changed a lot (new ingredients like spaceships aside)?   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)