science fantasy n. 3

There is one man who is an acknowledged master in the field of weird fiction, but who goes unheralded in the science fiction field. That man is Clark Ashton Smith. Always recognized as a ‘master’ through his works in WEIRD TALES, he has not been directly associated with science fiction despite the fact that almost half of his published works show a definite leaning in the direction of science-fantasy. Smith is a master of words. He knows many and knows how to use them properly. Probably you would not be impressed if I simply recounted to you many of the masterful science-fantasies he has had printed in WEIRD TALES.

I may say in conclusion, that Kuttner is noted for his versatility in science-fantasy such as Mask Of Circe, in pure fantasy such as Call Him Demon.

Best news in aeons is the Return of Hankuttner in the next issue! Hope it’s another bang-up science-fantasy for a change. Kutt hasn’t given us a really good one since THE TIME AXIS.

The rise of H. G. Wells with his The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and When the Sleeper Wakes, towards the end of the 19th century, found him inheriting that term [sc. scientific romances] along with the frequent use of scientific fantasies to describe some of his work that seemed too scientific to be fantasy and too borderline to be scientifically plausible. science fantasy is still commonly used today to describe work of that nature.

Science-fantasy, a classification sometimes used for science-fiction proper. But in this volume it designates science-fiction in which fantasy elements are vital—e g Lest Darkness Fall, in which hero Padway is struck by lightning and thus transferred to decadent Rome, where all his other actions are science-fictional; or those in which the author (like Ego Clarke in The City and The Stars ) depicts the accomplishments of a science so advanced that it merges with wish-fulfillment fantasy.

In many cases, it is impossible to separate science fiction from science fantasy, or either from fantasy, since both genres are part of fantasy.

A science fantasy story uses the means of science to achieve the spirit of fantasy. Like fantasy, science fantasy rests upon, and often abounds with, ‘impossible’ creatures and objects—girls asleep for centuries, one-eyed giants, weapons that can speak and may rebel. But it uses the methodology of science fiction to show that these things are not only possible but probable.

Besides a couple of novels in the ‘Conan’ series, Howard’s major long work is Almuric, which is really of that curious hybrid genre, science fantasy. The earthly hero reaches another planet by a ‘space-transition machine’, but once there he finds it as chock full of magic and demons as any locale in Howard’s fantasies.

I grew up reading science fantasy, Leigh Brackett and stuff like that, which, to me, is the perfect combination. You can have magic and science, throw it all in.

I call four stories ‘science fantasy’, a nod to settings which combine purely fantastic notions with at least some nod to a far future or offworld setting, or with a technological grounding.