Discussion topic: what is fantasy?

[Saturday]

By on the edge, i mean at the frontier between "classical" fiction, and pure fantasy
Like Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, or 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, or the Rivers of London series, or Les futurs mystères de Paris by Roland Wagner
Set here and now, but with a twist
Except for STP of course, but I agree with Dotsie, some could be happening here and not on the Disc, almost

 

[=Tamar]

Besides, the limits are blurred. Is Neverwhere fantasy ? Something else ? ( and it's just an example)
I think it might have something to do with localisation though. Books happening on Earth, in an imaginary place be that could exist next door, are not generally considered fantasy (unless they involve travelling to another place).

But books like Mistress Masham's Repose, which has a 20th century young girl finding the Lilliputians living in her garden in England, are fantasy, even though they don't involve travel or magic other than the unusual size of the Lilliputians. Lost-race novels still occasionally appear on the shelves. "Portal" fantasies like H*rry P*tter can involve a world that intermeshes with our own yet is somehow unnoticed.

They have to be set in an entirely different world (but still recognisable, like Umberto Eco said, a forest is still a large amount of trees together, and bushes and such, and a castle is either medieval or a Friedrich II fantasy)

In science fiction, the forest might be sentient fungi. Is that magic, or imaginative science?
What about stories set in alternate history, where there is no magic, but history was different? Is the difference between alternate-medieval and alternate-high-technology what makes one fantasy and the other science fiction?
Or, to go closer to the edge, what about stories that keep major historical events the same, but add a kind of secret history that gives the people involved different reasons for what they chose to do, but those reasons don't get into the historical record?

I think the ones on the edge are my favourites

Mine, too. Most of my favorite books are cross-genre, often across several genres.

 

[Saturday]

Tamar, my point was that it was difficult to make a classification thatt everyone would agree on, and that, depending on the library or bookshop, it might not be in the same category. Besides, some people won't go in section labelled fantasy, or science fiction, or fiction, depending on what they think they like, thus never discovering authors they might have otherwise enjoyed
And it's even sadder when you see some books by the same author in different categories (and i'm not talking about someone who would write essays and fiction)

But without categories, it would just be impossible, so i guess i'm stuck

Ah well, time to go back to On the shoulders of giants

 

[=Tamar]

Classification systems can be useful, but when they become too complicated, they defeat the purpose, which is to make finding a specific book easy. When a given fantasy mystery story might be in Children's, YA, "Coming-of-Age", Mystery, SF/Fantasy, New Arrivals, Movie Tie-Ins, or Manager's Specials, it's time to give up. It's no wonder the stores have computer programs to tell them where in the store the book ought to be.

 

[RathDarkblade]

=Tamar, I liked your use of asterisks. For a second or so, I thought it would read "Harry Pooter".

 

[Ignisis]

any book sparkles your own imagination and provides knowledge in a broader sense and I quote Robin Hobb:

'Do not do anything that can't be undone before you have thought about what you can not do anymore,
before it is done!'