Week 3 and 4- Fantasy

How is science fiction different from fantasy, according to Le Guin?

According to Le Guin science fiction is a branch of realism. She states that “Realism uses actuality and history, inserting invented characters in amongst real people and places” so

“In general, science fiction proceeds just as realistic fiction does, meeting conventional expectations of how people generally act, and either avoiding events that will strike the reader as improbable, or plausibly explaining them. Realism and science fiction both employ plausibility to win the reader's consent to the fiction” (Le Guin 2005)

Science fiction has a way of making things sound plausible. Its plausibility comes from it being written rationally.  The reader invests in a story that plausibly may have happened or could happen because of such things as the time, place, events, characters or scientific explanations used to ground the story in reality. Science fiction is mostly based in alternative worlds or futures and Le Guin puts this to the idea that the future is a “blank page”, anything can be written on it. Take a look at science fiction such as The Planet of the Apes films, Star Wars, Predator and books such as Neuromancer (William Gibson, 1984) or The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1979); though of course they are made up there is a certain credibility to these stories because of the explanations behind them or the fact that aspects of real life are incorporated whether it be through the characters or setting.

In contrast Le Guin says that fantasy is much more direct in it fictionality. There is nothing really that binds the story to reality in fact with the readers knowledge “fantasy deliberately violates plausibility in the sense of congruence with the world outside the story” (Le Guin 2005). Of course there is some realism used on lesser detail to ground the story. For example Le Guin says that in fantasy there may be characters with human behaviour but they may not be human. Certainly one can say this with science fiction (for example aliens are not human) but generally this is rationally explained. She says that for the fantasy reader there “is no agreement to pretend that its story happened, might have happened, or might ever happen”.



Le Guinn. U.K. (2005). Plausibility revisited. Retrieved August 29, 2012, from       http://www.ursulakleguin.com/PlausibilityRevisited.html