Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [177]
Science fiction, therefore, is an offshoot of fantasy. It has subcategories in turn—many of its stories specialize in explaining away “supernatural” phenomena, just as the Gothic often did. Others are fables or moral tales—satires, if you like—set somewhere in the galaxy or in the future instead of in an “unexplored” part of the globe like Lilliput. Many of them merely substitute ray-guns and Super Science for swords and sorcery, far-off planets for “prehistoric” lands, and are, apart from their use of scientific instead of supernatural jargon, direct developments from the Gothic and earlier kinds of fantasy. If science fiction’s purpose is, as some say, to prepare people for possible eventualities in the future by detailing the probable influence that our technical progress will have on new generations, then it has largely failed. On the whole, I regard this claim as unsubstantiated. Much as I enjoy reading science fiction, I enjoy it for its moods, images and the fresh moods and images which they, in turn, create in me.
The fact is clear that SF is a vein of fantasy which has been more or less worked out.
To claim, as many enthusiasts have done, that fantasy is a “branch” of science fiction is nonsense. This should now be obvious.
The limitations of science fiction nowadays are far greater than its possibilities. Today the better SF stories are largely defeated by being SF! On the whole SF themes are super-conventionally handled and this results in the ruin and “conventionalization” of whatever merit existed in the theme originally. Where else, for instance, would a story like Harry Harrison’s Streets of Ashkelon be hailed as daringly unconventional, save in the super-conventional world of SF? With all due respect to writer and editor, this theme has been used in mainstream fiction in one way or another for years! The fact is, of course, that the best SF is not strictly SF. The themes of Case of Conscience, Canticle for Leibowitz or The Streets of Ashkelon, if handled well, would carry infinitely more impact if put in a present-day setting! SF readers, writers and editors comprise, it appears, one of the most shockable sections of the modern reading public!
“Pure” fantasy does not carry these limitations in anything like the same proportion. The “other planets” of SF possess, by definition, shape and dimensions. The fluid dream-worlds of the sword-and-sorcery tale, say, do not carry the same limitations. As a potential form, then, the sword-and-sorcery story is the better bet as a vehicle for unconventional ideas.
Admittedly, fantasy fiction does not have the technical information and quasi-sociological themes of its currently more popular offshoot and this is why, I think, its enthusiasts are not so numerous. With his escapism, today’s reader appears to want “authentic” material information rather than the more abstract variety. He wants Defoe’s laundry lists rather than Richardson’s “analysis of the human heart.” This is the only explanation, too, for the current popularity of an otherwise poor series of spy-thrillers which tell John Smith how to dress, what food to order, where to eat it, what kind of handmade spark-plugs, size, weight, diameter etc., etc., to have in his expensive sports car, assuming he has the money. This emphasis on gadgets and their accompanying jargon is distasteful. But it is the only explanation for the current boom in SF compared to the static or only gradually awakening interest in experimental fantasy. A reaction away from SF towards fantasy may already be taking place—but I could be thinking wishfully.
Now we come to what I think of as fantasy and what you may have been considering as science fiction.
First I dismiss all talk of “sociological” SF and