The Sword and Laser discussion

It's time for our March book tournament! Nominations are open. Also, Veronica and Tom have shocking revelations about books they have NOT read. Also, why is Tom having a hard time with this month's pick?

https://www.swordandlaser.com/home/20...

March Madness! I am so excited!

We should do a "what are we nomming" March Madness addition! And Tom and Veronica have to can enjoy eating or drinking the winner! 😉

No nominating surstromming though 😅

I nominate haggis.

I will take Trike’s excellent suggestion and add nachos. I nominate haggis nachos! With a nice Scottish whiskey on the side.

I nominate veggie haggis so the non meat eaters have an option :-)

I nominate the Chat GPT generated Sword & Laser Cocktail

**Sword & Laser**

**Ingredients**

* 2 oz bourbon or rye whiskey
* ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
* ½ oz honey syrup (1:1 honey and water heated on stove top while stirring)
* 1 wide strip orange peel

**Instructions**

1. Add whiskey, lemon juice and honey syrup to a shaker with ice.
2. Shake well and strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.
3. Flame the orange peel over the drink*, rub peel on rim, discard peel.
4. Enjoy

*) express the oils of the orange peel against a lighter flame over the drink

Or should I nominate a Martini made with "Old Tom Gin" and "Crafter's London Dry Gin Veronica & Fennel"? 😋

Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth wrote: "... I nominate haggis nachos! With a nice Scottish whiskey on the side."

I feel like whiskey as an accompaniment to nachos is a bit uneven, because you'll want something you can swig, not sip. I will nominate Innis & Gunn whiskey barrel beer to accompany the haggis nachos.

Haggis nachos seem to actually be a thing?!

Chipotle Vegetarian Haggis Nachos

https://share.google/v8OXDD9sfUZEtryfS

John wrote: "I nominate veggie haggis so the non meat eaters have an option :-)"

Agreed! I am happy for them to choose veggie or traditional haggis with their nachos.

Jan wrote: "Haggis nachos seem to actually be a thing?!

Chipotle Vegetarian Haggis Nachos

https://share.google/v8OXDD9sfUZEtryfS"

Oh, they are totally a thing! I enjoyed them in an Edinburgh pub on more than one occasion. With some delicious whiskey! My nomination was experienced based! :)

I'm going to be unwise and respond to the portion of "Bare your sword" about genre definitions. I heard an established SFF editor give an off-hand definition once which to me makes the most sense, and it's my personal metric:

Speculative fiction explores a "What if..." question that could not be explored in the world as we know it.
Sci-fi answers "What if..." questions that COULD happen, either in the future or on another planet etc., while Fantasy answers What Ifs that COULD NOT happen like what if people had super powers, what if elves interacted with humans, etc.
Alternative history is neither but answers What Ifs that COULD HAVE happened in the past, which is why it aligns a little closer with sci-fi. Also, one could argue that Man in the High Castle, a popular alt-history example is actually Sci-fi (view spoiler)[because the end could be interpreted as this being a multiverse story, and not simply an alternate history (hide spoiler)].

I think this is a good guide, if not a perfect rule. I feel that it holds up for the most part, and accounts for debatable examples like Dragonriders of Pern, often labelled as Fantasy b/c dragons with powers, but according to the author, it's sci-fi. By this "What if" metric, it passes as Sci-fi because the intro to the first book explains that it's a deep future where people managed to use technology and genetic modification to create the dragons. They are not merely mystical magic creatures.
Meanwhile Star Wars - which involves using spiritual mind powers to perform magic - is a Fantasy in space. There is no indication that "the force" is something that could ever exist, given science as we know it.

This is an imperfect system for a couple of reasons: for one, it could be argued that any story with science that we don't know is possible - such as faster than light travel - is Fantasy since as we know, it could never happen. However, I choose to believe that FTL travel is something that physics hasn't figured out yet, but that it could be discovered as physically possible eventually (after all, in 1400 electricity, radio communication and gene editing would have been fantasy, so why can't we have FTL in 600 years?).
Conversely, one could argue that according to some interpretations of infinite multiverses, everything is sci-fi because anything could exist in an alternate universe with different laws of physics. I once heard Alan Moore describe fiction books as portals into other universes as real as this one, created from imagination but no less significant. A lovely thought, though a little unhelpful.

Mostly though, I think those arguments are beside the point. I think the key is the creator's intent. Anne McCaffery made a point in explaining how dragons could be made to exist using a future-developed science, just as Star Trek argues that faster than light travel could happen with the right chemicals and physics. So whether you agree with their assessment of science or not, that was the intent, so it's sci-fi. If there is no attempt to explain how magical or inexplicable things happen, or the explanation has no connection to science (ie metacalorians in Star Wars), then it's fantasy.
Probably my favourite example of this is The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. which involved time traveling witches, but goes to lengths to describe how it's all possible using existing science, and is therefore sci-fi.

So while I didn't read Black Box of doom, it sounded like something that could definitely have taken place in the world as we know it, and therefore it's not a branch of speculative fiction, according to me.

Paul wrote: "I think this is a good guide, if not a perfect rule. I feel that it holds up for the most part, and accounts for debatable examples like Dragonriders of Pern, often labelled as Fantasy b/c dragons with powers, but according to the author, it's sci-fi. By this "What if" metric, it passes as Sci-fi because the intro to the first book explains that it's a deep future where people managed to use technology and genetic modification to create the dragons. They are not merely mystical magic creatures.
Meanwhile Star Wars - which involves using spiritual mind powers to perform magic - is a Fantasy in space. There is no indication that "the force" is something that could ever exist, given science as we know it."

That doesn’t work for me. Pern has the fantastical mind powers, too.

Sci-fi is stuff that *could* happen while Fantasy is stuff that *couldn't* happen.

By that measure, Pern is absolutely not Science Fiction, regardless of McCaffrey’s opinion. Dragons that couldn’t possibly fly given their description, with telepathy, teleportation and time travel just because they will it? Utter Fantasy.

That’s like saying Poltergeist is Sci-fi because it features a girl getting pulled into a television. Or that Raiders of the Lost Ark is Sci-fi because it has airplanes. The fantastical and supernatural things trump the mundane mechanical items.

By that measure of “couldn’t”, then yes Star Wars is Fantasy, but so is Star Trek.

I agree with you about FTL. If we don’t know that something can’t work, as we do with telekinesis, telepathy and mental teleportation, then I say it should be allowed in the genre. There are plenty of actual physicists who think both FTL and time travel are possible, so I’ll defer to them. But FTL is the least of fantastical things in Star Trek and Star Wars.

lol, this is why I said my post might be unwise: one can never suggest a definition of SFF without immediately having someone disagree with it.

Trike wrote: "Sci-fi is stuff that *could* happen while Fantasy is stuff that *couldn't* happen.

By that measure, Pern is absolutely not Science Fiction, regardless of McCaffrey’s opinion. ..."

It sounds like we're actually in agreement about the idea that sci-fi is a "what if" that could happen and fantasy is a "what if" that couldn't, but where we disagree is whether to take into account the author's intent.

I think that when an author makes an argument in their book that this is something that could happen, then I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and suspend disbelief, whether it be FTL travel, a time-travel device, genetically engineered psychic dragons or uploadable souls. Some of these ideas may seem impossible today, but perhaps I'm wrong and things that seem impossible actually won't be, or perhaps science suggested different things were possible in the past, and we now know better. Either way, for me author's intent is key.
Trike seems to disagree though and instead chooses to measure whether something is sci-fi based on his personal understanding of what could happen regardless of author intent. So not only would Pern be fantasy, but also D.O.D.O. because witches connect with alternate universes to produce magic in that story.

I think it's important to note though, that especially with works that came out between the 50s and the 80s, there was a popular belief that mind powers were considered to be a very likely scientific development, and the cold war powers were even trying to harness it. In sci-fi, we see it in Asimov's Foundation series, starting with the Mule and the Psychologists, Clarke promoted pan-psychism in Childhood's End and other stories, and so McCaffrey seemed to tap into that idea with the genetically engineered dragons.
With better knowledge of neuroscience, the idea that brains can be trained or developed to have psychic abilities is less popular, and now we see neural nano-technology supplanting the psychic power tropes. That doesn't mean that authors who wrote sci-fi in the 60s and 70s now have to have their stories relegated to fantasy though. That's why I think the author's intent supersedes current scientific knowledge.

Unread SF&F confessions, what a great thread topic!

Mine is: Never read a Brandon Sanderson

Pumpkinstew wrote: "Unread SF&F confessions, what a great thread topic!

Mine is: Never read a Brandon Sanderson "

Is that “read” present or past tense?

Paul wrote: "I think it's important to note though, that especially with works that came out between the 50s and the 80s, there was a popular belief that mind powers were considered to be a very likely scientific development, and the cold war powers were even trying to harness it. In sci-fi, we see it in Asimov's Foundation series, starting with the Mule and the Psychologists, Clarke promoted pan-psychism in Childhood's End and other stories, and so McCaffrey seemed to tap into that idea with the genetically engineered dragons.
With better knowledge of neuroscience, the idea that brains can be trained or developed to have psychic abilities is less popular, and now we see neural nano-technology supplanting the psychic power tropes. That doesn't mean that authors who wrote sci-fi in the 60s and 70s now have to have their stories relegated to fantasy though. That's why I think the author's intent supersedes current scientific knowledge"

I’m all for grandfathering in stories that have been superseded by technology. The Nautilus and Red October are two examples of Science Fiction vehicles that have come true since the publication of those books, so Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Hunt for Red October should still be part of SF even if the ideas are now reality.

Some things were never real, despite a lot of people believing in them. Alchemy, astrology, ESP, pyramid power, etc.

We knew (collectively) by the early ‘70s that psychic powers weren’t a thing. But even if we fudge things and allow telepathy, we can’t ignore the fact that the Pern dragons would be physically incapable of flight (Judy-Lynn Del Rey told Michael Whelan that his anatomy studies were for naught since the dragons fly because they think they can), and that you can’t teleport through space and time simply because you want to. That’s pure fantasy.

People get upset when I say that Pern and Star Trek are Fantasy, apparently thinking I’m dissing them. I’m not. Fantasy is just as valid as Science Fiction and vice versa. It’s not a judgement about quality. I just like things to be placed in their proper categories.

This topic comes up a lot. I made this 10 years ago: https://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/...

I think you meant to write Star Wars and not Star Trek. This is news if now Star Trek is Fantasy, heading into Tin Foil Cap crazy talk.

Pumpkinstew wrote: "Unread SF&F confessions, what a great thread topic!
I have never read anything from Steven King. If that counts.

Ok, not enough nominations for the nomming madness, but Veggie Haggis Nachos with a Sword & Laser Cocktail at the side sounds pretty multiple attribute dependent (D&D reference, sorry)

Trike wrote: "Pumpkinstew wrote: "Unread SF&F confessions, what a great thread topic!

Mine is: Never read a Brandon Sanderson "

Is that “read” present or past tense?"

Oops, past tense. No reason other than I haven't got around to it yet.
This was not intended to provoke 'dump on a popular author' type responses.

Jan wrote: "Pumpkinstew wrote: "Unread SF&F confessions, what a great thread topic!
I have never read anything from Steven King. If that counts."

With his many pen names can you be certain?

With his many pen names can you be certain?"

Well, I think I haven't read any novels set in New England, so...

Stephen wrote: "I think you meant to write Star Wars and not Star Trek. This is news if now Star Trek is Fantasy, heading into Tin Foil Cap crazy talk."

I SAID WHAT I SAID

😜

I'm in the camp that views science fiction and fantasy as comparatively minor and broadly overlapping subgenre distinctions. I'm fine with labeling the overarching genre SFF or speculative fiction. While some works will more obviously land in one or the other category for marketing purposes, everyone is going to have differing opinions about where in the pie chart any given work will fall. And when pressed, any such dividing line will eventually yield amusing results.

Using Trike's demarcation line as an example, it's not just Star Trek and Star Wars that get ruled out of science fiction. Dune becomes fantasy under that definition as well.

Mostly it boils down to personal taste. I tend to just go along with however an author wants to categorize one of their works. Though in the case of some authors, that's tricky. Nnedi Okorafor is on record in multiple interviews that she mostly doesn't write anything specifically as science fiction or fantasy. Nor does she intentionally write adult or young adult works. She's writing a story she wants to tell and it's mostly her agent, editor, publisher that pick how it's going to be labeled and marketed.

Scott wrote: "Using Trike's demarcation line as an example, it's not just Star Trek and Star Wars that get ruled out of science fiction. Dune becomes fantasy under that definition as well."

Yep. See how easy that is?

One impossible thing in a story makes something Fantasy. One possible thing in a story makes it Science Fiction. The impossible trumps the possible, so Fantasy sits atop the genre pyramid. Could not be simpler to then categorize things.

I genuinely don’t understand why people have hizzy fits over that. It’s just grouping similar things together. You got a 4-door car? That’s a sedan. 2-door? That’s a coupe. 3-door? That’s something else, and you need to stop calling it a coupe, Hyundai.


Scott wrote: "I tend to just go along with however an author wants to categorize one of their works. Though in the case of some authors, that's tricky. Nnedi Okorafor is on record in multiple interviews that she mostly doesn't write anything specifically as science fiction or fantasy."

That’s why I don’t leave it up to authors. Margaret Atwood claimed for decades that she didn’t write Science Fiction, because, as she put it, sci-fi is that Buck Rogers stuff for children. Ridiculous. The Handmaid's Tale and her other books are absolutely Science Fiction.

Anne McCaffrey related how she and Frank Herbert got into an argument about whose book was the first one labeled “Science Fiction” to hit the bestseller list. They were at a convention and a fan asked why it mattered. She snapped, “Because truth matters!” (Or something; it’s been 40+ years since I read that anecdote.)

Later in college when I first started work on my thesis about genres, I realized neither of them were correct: they’d both written Fantasy.

Which, again, doesn’t mean that either Dune or The Dragonriders of Pern are “lesser than”, it’s purely an academic exercise to categorize things easily.