Science fiction and fantasy?

[step293]

Hello can anyone tell me what the difference between science fiction and fantasy is and also who the very first writer of science fiction was?

[jno]

Jules Verne is often taken as the first SF writer. Science fiction will have some sort of science in it - not necessarily futuristic - whereas fantasy may be something like Lord fo the Rings, with no science.

[LeMarchand]

SF tends to be based on sience, whereas Fantasy tends to be based on magic. Of course, there are exceptions and crossovers!

As for the first SF writer, that's a long debate; some argue that it was whoever told the myth of Icarus and Deadulus, and there are various arguments for various people through the centuries.

[joko]

fantasy is based on myths and legends and is completely imagination based, such as dragons, elves, sorcery etc

sci fi often has some basis in reality and fact, or at least possible future realities, such as aliens, other planets, space travel, mutunt viruses etc etc

[EssJay1]

Does Mary Shelley come in with Frakenstein or is that the first horror?

[jno]

classic example of one that's a bit of both EssJay, but in terms of its own time, it was probably science fiction - plus horror, plus philosophical speculation.

[MelvynP]

SF writer Theodore Sturgeon said "A good science fiction story is about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content."

Based on that, I would say that Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" would have to count as a sci-fi novel. As would Robert Louis Stevenson's much later work "The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".

[mike b]

Wasn't the original Cyrano de Bergerac one of the first men on the Moon? If you take SF in its wider sense of 'Speculative Fiction' - ie, an 'unreal' premise and the consequent 'What If?s', then it would include such works as Utopia and Gulliver's Travels...