In "Wireless" by Rudyard Kipling, an experimental radio set seems to initiate a rapport between a contemporary man and John Keats. I have not read this story but, from Poul Anderson's description of it, I accept his classification of it as borderline fantasy-sf.
When I was a philosophy student, a lecturer in Aesthetics suggested a definition of the form: "Art is (fill in the blank)." I cannot remember how he filled in the blank but what I do remember is that another student immediately responded with "What would you say about the borderline case where...?" The lecturer quite reasonably replied, "Why should I say anything about it? It is a borderline case."
I could not possibly agree more. Definitions are not water-tight compartments. A borderline case is not a counterexample. That should be printed on T-shirts and distributed free to philosophy students. Also, when someone suggests: "All A is (fill in the blank)," our first response should be to understand what he is saying and why he is saying it, not to think of counterexamples. That can come later.
I agree with Anderson that sf accepts the scientific worldview whereas fantasy does not.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Well, there's the "border line case" of Anderson's two OPERATION books, where magic is one of the sciences.
Ad astra! Sean
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