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Powell’s Essential List: 25 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far)
(www.powells.com)
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I'm over 2000 books read (a mix of classics, literary and genre fiction) and the more I read the more fantasy and sci-fi feel similar. Despite one having a reputation for escapism and the other for (indirect) social commentary, in my experience any given book of either can fall anywhere between those two poles. Any sufficiently advanced technology, etc.
Someone once said that fantasy is a made up world where the author creates the constraints, and science fiction is a made up world where physics creates the constraints. I kind of like that definition.
For hard sci-fi I agree, but for soft one the difference becomes more and more tenuous.
Which is why I disagree with the people saying SF and fantasy don't belong together. Some soft SF is basically fantasy set in space, or whatever.