4c1547ff$1@news.povray.org...
> I just like making the distinction between "science fiction" and "fantasy 
> set in the future".   Fifth Element is fantasy set in the future, not 
> science fiction.
The problem with that definition is that is probably excludes most of what 
has been produced, sold and accepted by the public under that name, from the 
pulp stuff written to titillate teenage boys (monsters! titties!) to the 
works of many famous SF writers. Bradbury was never about science, and 
neither were Dick, Farmer, Herbert, Van Vogt etc. Hard SF where science is 
the topic rather that the facilitator / pretext is really a subgenre rather 
than the norm. Likewise, movie SF is rather about eye candy and occasionally 
challenging ideas than science. "A clockwork orange" is one of the most 
powerful and influential SF movie ever, except that there's 0 science in it. 
There's not much science in 2001 either, btw.
Really, the label "science fiction" was basically a marketing trick design 
to attract readers at a time when "science" was a catch-all term (see 
"scientology" or "Christian science" for similar abuses of the word). In 
other words, the "science" in science fiction never actually meant science, 
except for a few science-minded writers.

G.

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