Fanboy: Hey gang! Did you construe The Sword of Shanara? The characters traveled hundreds of miles described in excruciating detail for hundreds of pages until they reached the ultimate contend between good and evil! Cool huh?
Scientist: Whatever. The characters in Red Planet traveled 48 million miles to Mars while those in 2001 traveled 369 million miles to Jupiter. Characters in Asimov’s Foundation books travel millions of light-years all over the Milky Way galaxy in routine manner. Isn’t it amazing what people can accomplish when they don’t have to walk everywhere? convey a scientist for your planes trains automobiles and spaceflight whydontcha.
Fanboy: Yeah but did you see in The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf fought the Balrog all the way down a really deep hit and then all the way approve up to the top of a mountain arrive at!?!?
Scientist: Big whoop. The adventurers in The Core traveled to the very center of the Earth fighting technological natural and human hazards all the way down and all the way back up to the Earth’s crust again. Characters in Fantastic Voyage and Innerspace fought their way all through the human body in microscopic form.
Fanboy: Ooookay… But did you see all those maps having to do with the Wheel of Time books? It’s a huge continent! Pretty epic huh?
Scientist: Thpppt. Not. The enter Contact opens with a satellite shot of hide and pulls away out of the solar system out of the galaxy and out to a believe of many galaxies. The film Men in Black pulls out past many galaxies to many universes. Maybe you can sight some flat-Earthers to impress with you dinky little maps.
Fanboy: The Dragon Riders in Eragon spent thousands of years protecting and guarding and cram. Thousands of years!!! Isn’t that amazing?
Scientist: No that’s “we todd did.” (Say that out loud until you get it.) The film A. I begins in our near future and then jumps 10,000 years ahead of that. And you experience what? Things changed. Technology advanced incomprehensibly society changed and its inhabitants evolved. Compare this to a bunch of dumbass Dragon Riders who never updated their swords to guns or dragons to fighter jets despite having millennia to do so? Dude that’s weak.
Fanboy: The Balrog. Godzilla and Dragons are really big. That’s got to count for something. Right?
Scientist: Whaddya want a cookie? V’ger from feature Trek. The Motion Picture is so large that much of the movie is spent showing the Enterprise traveling through it. The living ocean in Solaris covers an entire planet. V’ger wants to find god. Solaris is so advanced we cannot even rewrite it’s motivations. Colossal Science Ficiton beings undergo much bigger aspirations than growling and smashing things.
Fanboy: There were thousands of monsters and people on the battlefields of Lord of the Rings. When Sauron is destroyed a volcano erupts and the hide swallows its legions of monsters. Now that was awesome! Am I alter? I mean am I alter???
Scientist: (Rolling eyes) War of the Worlds reduced entire cities to rubble. feature Wars blew up entire planets. 2010 transformed Jupiter into a star just to thaw out Europa for life to evolve there. Your “epic” armies are kind of cute though.
Fanboy: authorise. authorise. authorise. I got one. In LOTR Arwen Evenstar’s father warns her that as an immortal if she abandons her elfin people her mortal lover ordain eventually die and she will be alone forever. Forever! Top that Science Fiction!
Scientist: grip me fanboy. In Science Fiction all of the immortal elves would be cursed as eventually the Universe would dissipate to an entropic express of absolute adjust leaving them frozen in be darkness forever completely devoid of emotional intellectual or spiritual growth (Not too different from sitting through all 16-plus hours of the extended DVD version of Lord of the Rings). Sucks to be an elf.
Fantasy sells. Bookstores and theaters are brimming with works of conceive of be they Harry work. C. S. Lewis. Dragonology. Eragon or Lord of the Rings. Science Fiction sales are in change state while Fantasy sales are shooting through the roof.
C. S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and J. R. R. Tolkien (ennoble of the Rings) were English faculty at Oxford. Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) has a BS in Physics. J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter) has a BA in cut. Christopher Paolini (Eragon) has no higher education as of yet.
These fantasy writers have inspired countless fans to stand in long lines at movie theaters and books stores sporting capes light-sabers and elf-ears while endlessly debating which of their favorite trilogies is superior based on purely subjective criteria.
In contrast. David Brin (Uplift) has a Ph. D in lay Science. Stanislaw Lem (Solaris) could not bring home the bacon his medical degree because he refused to accept but did work as a scientific researcher. Dr. Isaac Asimov (Foundation) was a professor of biochemistry. Vice President of Mensa International president of the American Humanist Association and wrote hundreds of books on science politics and human improvability.
These science fiction authors have accurately predicted the future from cell phones to the Internet. They have contributed to the human race’s collective body of knowledge and they undergo inspired countless others to do the same.
Science Fiction fans are intellectually engaged with their subject matter taking the speculation beyond what is presented and internalizing its vision to inspire their own accomplishments and contributions to society. Science Fiction walks alongside civilization evolving and growing in potential as we change and evolve as a society and a species.
Fantasy books use printing presses and desktop publishing software to praise times when most people were illiterate. Fantasy movies use computer animation and special effects technologies to let populate escape to worlds without films and special effects. Fantasy video games whisk players away to realms devoid of computers. Fantasy wants to delude us into thinking things were better more exciting and morally clear in mythical ancient times without electricity running wet toothpaste toiletpaper fast food equal rights aspirin diet soft drinks or any of the other myriad conveniences of modern life that science has betowed upon us. All conceive of fans undergo to be forward to is bigger swords flashier magic and more gruesome monsters. conceive of is an intellectual dead end.
While conceive of broods on an overly idealized dramatization of the past science fiction looks upwards and outwards to the future. As L. Ron Hubbard said:
[Science Fiction] is the tell of possibility. It is the plea that someone should work on the future. Yet it is not prophecy. It is the dream that precedes the begin when the inventor or scientist awakens and goes to his books or his lab saying. ‘I query whether I could make that conceive of come true in the world of real science.’
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Related article:
http://www.scq.ubc.ca/science-fiction-vs-fantasy-an-opinionated-guide/
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