Tuesday, March 6, 2018

novel - Can You Mix Readers of Fantasy and Sci-Fi?


In his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card mentions the differences between fantasy and sci-fi readers, and even says that an author should stick to only one genre, as the readers of the other genre will not know who he is (to which my answer is to simply be a bestseller in both, but I digress). My point is, those two genres are different, and have very different readers as far as tastes are concerned.


Therefore, I am wondering if it is a bad idea to create what I am terming 'Science-Fiction-Fantasy.' Or maybe 'Fantastical-Science-Fiction.' The idea is that the novel is both science fiction and fantasy, no matter how inconceivable that might seem at first.


Is this a bad idea? My assumption is that it would be, as fantasy readers would be turned off by the sci-fi elements, and sci-fi readers would be turned off by the fantasy elements, thus turning out a novel that was 'mediocrely' received at best (obviously there would be some cross-over, but on the whole readers tend to stick to one or the other). Consider some examples:



  • A fantasy novel, concerning elves and magic and such, but taking place in a post-apocalyptic setting where 'magic' is based in hard science, and explained as such.

  • A strange fantasy world, which turns out to be a massive space ship hurtling through space.


  • An advanced sci-fi civilization, which gets invaded and destroyed by vastly superior elves, using magic to invade Earth.


The last one in particular is a prime example of what I'm going for, and I think it really shows the total contrast between the two sides of the genre. Creating a novel like this would certainly be original (to the best of my knowledge). But would it work?



Answer



The novel I'm writing is actually along this vein, and I had the same thought as you: it appears to be a portion of the market that is yet to be fully recognized and tapped into. Whilst it definitely exists, not a lot of mainstream fiction seems to explore the vast possibilities of combining these two distinct yet similar genres.


Media are generally categorized as "Sci-Fi/Fantasy" because there tends to be a lot of overlap between the people who like the two different types of fiction. Although this isn't always true, it's usually enough of a generalization to assume that if someone is a fan of one, they would also be a fan of the other.


However, a high majority of fans of both Sci-Fi and Fantasy will have an opinion on which they prefer; they will rarely like both types of fiction equally. This means that few people will looking for pieces of work that combine the two 50/50.


So writing books that split the two down the middle will be a niche audience, who are looking to read something that caters to multiple of their interests, whilst readers who prefer one over the other may choose to read it, but are unlikely to be drawn to it naturally. That's not to say that you shouldn't write it, but you would need to understand that it is a niche market that you are writing for.


What you may be looking for, and what I believe is the best solution to the issue, is to not do both entirely equally, but rather have either a Fantasy piece with Sci-Fi elements or a Sci-Fi novel containing aspects of Fantasy.


This way, let's say you choose to write your first example of Fantasy creatures in a post-apocalyptic age on earth, you could write it as a Fantasy novel with swords & sorcery, but also contains things such as radiation, ancient technologies from humans before the apocalypse, and even maybe popular themes of Sci-Fi such as attempting to rebuild civilization.



However, it would need to be made clear to the readers early on what it is they are reading. Within the first 2 or 3 chapters you would need to establish which genre your piece is, but also establish that it will also contain portions of another genre.


That last thing you want to do is write an entirely Fantasy novel, then in the final couple of chapters include a big twist that they were on a spaceship all along, unless you drop clues about it throughout the story.


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