Science fantasy

Science fantasy are works of SF which read like fantasy but have a scientific (actual, pseudo, or purportedly scientific) explanation for the fantastic elements. They frequently occur in lost colonies or post-apocalyptic worlds. Examples:

• Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories -- The first stories begin in a medieval world with magical powers. In later stories it is revealed that Darkover is a lost colony, and the magical powers are given legitimacy as psychic powers which can be understood by science. The backstory is most clearly revealed in Darkover Landfall.

• Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories -- The first stories begin with dragons in a medieval fantasy world (see Dragonflight (1968)) over the series it is revealed that this is a lost colony; the dragons are the result of a breeding program by the original colonists; and the medieval social and political structures are the result of devolution from more democratic social structures. This science fiction backstory is most clearly explicated in Dragonsdawn (1988).

These stories and worlds exemplify Arthur C. Clarke's famous line that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

If Pern and Darkover exemplify the heart of science fantasy, many other SF writers have played with the concepts or expanded them.

• In John Varley's Titan, for example, explorers encounter a world which was always science fictionally explicated; but which had nevertheless developed fantastic elements. The world, as it turned out, was overseen by a governing intelligence who had encountered Earth's science fiction, fantasies and myths and emulated aspects of them.

• Julian May's Pliocene Exile series.

• Rosemary Kirstein's "Steerswoman" stories set up a world in which the characters, a likely lost colony, gradually discover the scientific underpinnings of fantastical elements.

• Sheri Tepper has taken science fantasy more in the direction of science horror or science gothic in numerous novels, revealing at the end of the story a scientific explanation such as alien life for an "ancient evil" or occult practice.

• "Star Wars" -- Popularly described as science fiction, "Star Wars" is actually a mix of science fictional and fantastic elements, and demonstrates the same post-hoc science fictional explanation that shows up in Pern and Darkover. The Force, for instance, is mystical in the first movies, and given a science fictional explanation in later films. The setting -- a long time ago in a galaxy far far away -- recapitulates the pseudo-scientific explanation for fantastic settings found in lost worlds stories, lost colony stories, post-apocalyptic stories, and so on.

• Frank Herbert's Dune stories also fall somewhat less squarely in the center of the "science fantasy" subgenre. The stories are more grounded in science fiction from the outset, but include elements that are essentially fantastic (the voice, the spice, lineal memory) with a mere veneer of scientific explanation. As with "Star Wars", the setting is initially science fictionalized with space travel and a relationship to today's chronological time (long time ago in Star Wars; far future in Dune), but then rarely related to any sense of today's human history or time.

• Liz Williams' Banner of Souls also goes into the far future, edging dark-fantasy elements with high-tech explanations, and a shadowy revealed historical connection to modern earth. Her story both more self-consciously employs fantastic elements than the Dune and Star Wars stories, while simultaneously providing more plausible realistic ties to science and history.

• Classic pulp works, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books and Robert E. Howard's Conan books, also cross into science fantasy. Like many Lost Cities or Lost World stories, Burroughs' Mars books send scientific explorers into a world that feels fantastic but is semi-plausibly explained. Howard and other writers took a descent into barbarism, creating sword-and-sorcery from a mix of technology, rediscovered magic or psychic powers, and non-modern social structures.

• A number of modern stories have also tried to reclaim traditional fantasy elements with scientific explanations. Vampires as a hidden species or vampirism as a mutation, for instance.

At its broadest, "science fantasy" might include any fantastical elements which could not actually happen -- classically, faster-than-light travel (FTL, hyperdrives, warp drives, etc.) Such a definition seems too broad: Would it be judged by the understanding of the reader? or the writer? or by the scientific consensus understanding at the time the story was read? or written?