I like both, but I've always leaned toward science fiction myself. I have an easier time finding deep and thought-provoking stories in the science fiction genre, and I tend to prefer its more emphasis on exploring what its possibilities mean and using them to examine ourselves.

  • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I love both equally. There's honestly not a ton of difference between the two. Pretty much all sci-fi/fantasy can be boiled down to one of two things:

    1. Spectacle. "Ooooh, cool magic!" or "Ooooooh, cool robots!" I don't mean this in a derogatory sense, just in the sense that the purpose is mostly exploring this fantastical world that's different from reality. Your Star Wars' and Lord of the Rings' and such largely fall under here.
    2. Allegorical. "We wanted to make a story about how segregation bad, but it's 1970s America so we can't do that, so instead we made up an alien planet where blue-skinned people get treated like shit by red-skinned people while our cast explains why this is stupid." A lens to view the real world with a degree of separation to make a point. Your Star Treks' and Dunes' and, as much as Tolkien hates me for saying this, also your Lord of the Rings' fit here.

    There's a lot of overlap between the two categories, but the combination of both is really the heart and soul of both genres.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      There's this, and there's also I think "exploratory": what happens if you take the human condition and knock out a couple of things? Things like Left hand of darkness, and a bunch, though not all alternate history is this

      • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        If we're buying this binary, I'd say more in (2). The movie's big focus is on the process stuff surrounding discovery and engineering, and almost all the protagonists' trouble comes from their irresponsible and reckless misuse of a new technology (as well as interpersonal conflict), rather than because of anything intrinsic to the technology itself. I think you can read it as a kind of argument for technology being "neutral," and the moral valence of tools coming from the reactive attitudes and use-behaviors of intentional agents.

        • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          That's a good callout. And as the maker of this very spur-of-the-moment binary, I'd agree that speculative fiction built around how people would react to $shiny_new_tech_or_magic falls under the broad category of allegory. I suppose I should rename that category something along the lines of "lens we view the real world through" instead.