How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy Read Online Free PDF

within these boundaries yet are not considered science fiction or fantasy by anyone. For instance, despite some romanticizing, Felix Salten’s wonderful novel Bambi is a brutally accurate account of the lives of deer. Yet because in his book the animals talk to each other, something that animals simply do not do, does Bambi become fantasy? Perhaps, after a fashion-but you’ll never find it in the fantasy section of the bookstore; you’ll never find it on any fantasy fan’s list of his fifty favorite fantasy novels. It doesn’t fall within the boundaries of the publishing category, the expectations of the community of readers and writers, or even the raw listing of what sf and fantasy writers have written.
    What about The Odyssey and The Iliad? They contain magic and gods aplenty, and it’s hard to imagine any contemporary reader claiming that they represent the way the world really was at the time of the Trojan War, yet they were composed for an audience that believed in these gods and these heroes. To taleteller and talehearer, they were poems about history and not fantasies at all; they were epic, not mythic, tales.
    Indeed, there are many who would claim that my definition of speculative fiction clearly includes the Bible and Paradise Lost, though there are many other people today who would be outraged to hear of either being classified as fantasy.
    And what do we make of jean Auel’s prehistoric romances? They certainly contradict an archaeologist’s vision of the past, yet they are presented as if they correspond to reality. And what about genre-bending books like the recent Moondust and Madness or Jacqueline Susann’s posthumously published first novel, Yargo? Both have spaceships and visitors from other planets, but everything else about them clearly identifies them as pure romance novels, with no hint of any knowledge or understanding of the science fiction tradition. They fit my definition-but anyone familiar with what science fiction and fantasy really are would repudiate them at once.
    And what about horror novels? Many of the works of Stephen King are clearly fantasies-some are even science fiction-and both King and his
    audience would be quick to say so. Yet many other works in the horror genre don’t contradict known reality in any way; they fit in the genre because they include perfectly believable events that are so gruesome or revolting that the audience reacts with fear or disgust.
    Still, despite its inadequacies, my definition has its uses. For one thing, while it includes many works that really don’t belong in the genre, it doesn’t exclude any works that do. That is, your story may fit my definition and still not be sf or fantasy, but you can be sure that if your story doesn’t fit my definition it definitely isn’t within the genre.
    Even works by established sf or fantasy writers that are included within the genre mainly out of courtesy (or force-fitting by publishers) make some bows, however desultory, toward fitting this definition. They at least offer the possibility that the story violates known reality at some point.
    More important is the fact that by this definition, speculative fiction is defined by its milieu. The world in which the story takes place is the genre boundary line. If a story doesn’t take the reader into an otherwise unknowable place, it isn’t speculative fiction.
    One of the primary appeals of all fiction is that it takes the reader into unfamiliar places. But how unfamiliar is it? Like chimps in the savannas of Africa, the human audience for fiction is both afraid of and attracted to strangeness. The chimp, confronted with a stranger who is not openly attacking, will retreat to a safe distance and keep watch. Gradually, if the stranger is doing something interesting, the chimp will be attracted. Curiosity overcomes fear. Or if the stranger’s actions seem threatening, the chimp will flee, call for help, or try to frighten the stranger away, as fear overcomes