Bridging the Gap between Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Imagined with Midjourney

Walk into any bookstore and you will find a fantasy section and a sci-fi section. Both are filled with stories that will plunge you into vast worlds full of imaginative intrigue, peculiar creatures, and unfamiliar cultures. Keeping these genres separate is not a trick of the publishers and bookstores, though. They have grown to become very different types of literature, but at the same time sci-fi and fantasy share so many qualities that a bridge between them seems necessary.

Fantasy often has to do with idealized re-creations of the past. In fact, it is a step away from legend just as legend is a step away from history. Fantasy takes concepts from legends developed over generations and embellishes them. More often than not, fantasy is about what might have been and the best of what was.

Sci-fi, on the other hand, is about what could be. It's about what we could accomplish in the future, or what is possible with the proper technological advances, and what might happen if we are not responsible with those technologies.

Somewhere in the middle of fantasy and sci-fi, therefore, we can find our present reality. Ideologies have taught us to pit the past against the future. If we're conservative, we're expected to wish for a return to the good old days. If we're liberal or progressive, we're expected to imagine a better future. But allow me to suggest that that the good old days had the innovations we need to build a better tomorrow.

Fantasy stories often take place in medieval-styled worlds, while sci-fi stories often take place in a technologically advanced future. Medieval and technologically advanced are not as diametrically opposed as one may think, though. The technology of medieval times simply worked more with nature, while our technology today uses more synthetic, manmade materials.

For instance, some medieval shelter methods have stood the test of time, even though the technology has been mostly forgotten. Many cruck frame structures from the middle ages remain standing today, even as reinforced concrete structures begin to crumble.

We are only now learning that medieval building methods like turf integration, wattle and daub, thatch engineering, dry stone construction, smoke hardening, and passive ventilation methods all employed advanced engineering techniques that rival those used in modern structures. In other words, the masters of today and yesteryear were not as far apart as we may think.

Therefore, our vision of the future may take on a more realistic, holistic character if we were to see the past, present, and future as one universal quest for knowledge, one common goal shared by all people throughout every age to come to a deeper understanding of reality.

Our progress in today's age, however, is stymied by an excessive concern for monetary gain and political power. For example, today's buildings are usually built just for profit, so it's no wonder why the builders and developers don't care much about how long the building lasts. Once they make back their money on it, they just move on to the next project. Likewise, politicians pass laws that prohibit development of any kind, even good development, in the name of some ideological cause.

But in fantasy stories, the good characters tend to live for a higher cause, one that can see beyond money and power. They fight for virtue, and they sacrifice themselves for the common good. That is, after all, what makes it fantasy. In the real world, money and power are real concerns. Without them, we can't do much. If we could set those concerns aside, we'd all be pursuing fantasy-like dreams, probably.

Sci-fi, on the other hand, often takes place in a dystopian future that is suffering from the greedy ambitions of its past. That is just one more way in which reality sits in between fantasy and sci-fi. Fantasy stories usually take place in some golden age that is threatened by an outside evil. Sci-fi stories are often immersed in an evil that the characters are trying to escape. Once again, in the real world we find ourselves somewhere in between. We are fighting enemies from within and from without. We're trying to escape from what is bad and preserve what is good.

So, perhaps the bridge between sci-fi and fantasy has already been built. Perhaps it's the real world we step outside and walk into every day. It's a world apart from fantasy kingdoms where heroes prevail over some universal evil, and from sci-fi galaxies where alien alliances blur the lines between good and evil.

Our story is set in a place that is a strange synthesis of those two settings. Some things are black and white, some things are shades of grey, other things can be any color in between. Good and evil exist here, but Lord help us if we think we can always tell the difference. Truth exists, but villians in the shadows mingle it with falsehoods.

Readers and moviegoers may dive into stories set in other worlds to try and escape our own, but I think the one we inhabit offers the most thrilling setting of all. I only need fantasy and sci-fi to help me distill all the craziness going on all around me.

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Midjourney prompt: A panorama capturing three worlds: a fantasy world with castles and ancient ruins on the left, and a sci-fi world with spaceships and space stations on the right. A present-day modern environment with an art deco suspension bridge in the middle connects the two worlds. --chaos 30 --ar 16:9 --raw --stylize 200