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If a story is based in an alternate universe or timeline but is not otherwise overtly "sci-fi", is it still sci-fi? Or is it a function of what the author normally writes?

For example, I'm currently reading Fatherland by Robert Harris, which is a crime thriller that takes place in 1964 Berlin; however, in this Berlin, Germany did not lose WWII, controls most of Europe and Hitler is still alive. Contrast that with Harry Turtledove's alternate timeline series where the US Civil War was fought to a standstill, and the Union and Confederacy continue to fight each other as part of the opposing alliances of the two World Wars. In Harris' case, his book is found in general adult fiction in the library while Turtledove's are at home in sci-fi.

If an author tends to write in one genre, is that where they are defaulted even if they slightly stray into sort of sci-fi? Curious what others think.

Good luck with deciding that one. In another group, we decided that A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was proto-SF since time travel which caused alternate events took place. It was also written long before the term "science fiction" was coined. If the book had been written a century later, I don't think we would have accepted it as SF, though.

For group purposes, studying the evolution of SF, we generally use the GR shelving as a guide. If a lot of people have shelved the book as SF, we will too even though many of us wouldn't have classified it as such ourselves.

Categories help us create groups to make valid comparisons. They can be overused, though. One person on here made an excellent case for anything using Faster Than Light (FTL) travel to be classed as fantasy which is the broad genre that includes SF as a subgenre. While I respect their definition & logic, I won't use it myself. I've read too many that blend both genres & don't have any problem shelving a book as both. I enjoy it since physical shelves make it impossible, a choice I often have at home.

I think you're on to something with an author's typical genre. That certainly adds a lot of weight to my decision. For instance The Erection Set by Mickey Spillane is a typical tough guy action book. It's based on a short story "The Bastard Bannerman" that had no SF elements. The book has an SF element - an antigravity device - which changes the hero's quest from a hollow victory to a major one, but that will happen later, after the book is ended. It's a really jarring, lame & lazy way to do it IMO, so I've never really classed it as SF.

I hope that helps & gives some more food for thought.

I wondered about this last year. I think it depends on the explanation and style of the book, for example, I reaad Civilizations by Laurent Binet, it is definitely an alt-history, but it isn't sci fi because every event and all the plot is treated as real, in fact, one section of the book is in the style of a chronicle.

That's a good one. I usually classify anything where the author at least tries to come up with a scientific explanation to be SF (e.g. the dragons in McCaffrey's Pern are genetically engineered) and then anything that explicitly uses magic to be fantasy.

For me FTL would still count since how many times have scientists thought one thing to be proven wrong, maybe we just haven't found a way around FTL limits (space expands faster than FTL, perhaps we could leverage that, or some weird quantum thing that allows us to be in two places at once) so at least if the author comes up with a fancy-schmancy name for his FTL engine, it's still "trying" to be SF.

Even if the author doesn't try hard, if it's got spaceships and aliens and AI and whatnot, it's SF not fantasy. But if it has unicorns, and wizards, and gryphons, it's fantasy. Of course you could genetically engineer a unicorn too, but that would need to be explained before I call it SF (I actually ran into a couple of those that appeared fantasy on the surface till you dug deeper and realized it might really be SF with advanced tech fueling the magic)

I mean one could take fantasy to an extreme and say it's anything that's made up, thus pretty much all fiction. But then it becomes a useless term :)

But there is a grey area where you get into alternate histories, where there is no time travel or other event that changes history, it's just a "what if", basically speculative fiction, a different use of the acronym SF. Maybe they get lumped together because science fiction speculates on the science, but one can also speculate on other things like many dystopias.

For example Handmaid's Tale by Atwood is often categorized by SF, but there's nothing "science" about it at all (well, maybe the plague that caused women to be infertile in the first place), it's just a "what if" story. Same with 1984, sure there is also some tech that we don't have, and would seem futuristic for someone reading it when it was written, but it's not about the tech but the society.

I guess all urban fantasies are technically "alternate histories", what our world would be like if magic existed, only they take place in present day so aren't viewed as "histories" (but presumably the magic had always been there).

And Naomi Novik's Temeraire is totally a fantasy alternate history (what if Napoleon had access to dragons and used them as airships to drop bombs) so clearly not "always" sci-fi :) So that alone answers your original question actually!

This discussion made me think of something similar, but not the same...are there fantasy time travel tales? Usually a time machine is used (with some handwaving to claim it's powered by science and not magic) but what about where a wizard casts a time travel spell? I guess those are more rare because fantasies often don't take place in our world, which makes that world interesting enough not to require time travel to spice up the story?

All I can think of is Hermione and her time device in the Harry Potter series but it was a plot device and not core to the story.

Andrea: "I guess even if the author doesn't try hard, if it's got spaceships and aliens and AI and whatnot, it's SF not fantasy".

I tend to think the same, but there is the famous example of Star Wars, people often said is a fantasy in space because of the narrative and the lack of scientific explanation.

The Handmaid's Tale is an an interesting example as it describes a possible future in a way that the reader can imagine that world could actually come to pass, without the need for some advanced technology creating it.

It's interesting how the plot device of alternate/parallel universe can be used to create unlimited story possibilities without being overly "science-y". While not a book, another example is the excellent TV series Counterpart (which unfortunately only lasted two seasons) ... while it takes place in parallel universes which were created when a science experiment "split" reality into two, that's the extent of the sci-fi in what is at its core an espionage thriller. Yet Counterpart is classified as sci-fi.

Andrea wrote: "That's a good one. I usually classify anything where the author at least tries to come up with a scientific explanation to be SF (e.g. the dragons in McCaffrey's Pern are genetically engineered) an..."

I pretty much agree. Good examples of gray areas. Gabriela's example of Star Wars is good, too.

For me, Zelazny has written some of the best SF-Fantasy genre straddling novels & they're among my favorites. Lord of Light is written like a fantasy novel. It has PSI powers (SF or fantasy?), gods, & demons delivered in a style that's told like a legend. We find out that it's an alien planet colonized by humans from Old Urath, so I guess it's really SF.

Roadmarks has people traveling through time on a road with high tech at one end & prehistoric ages at the other. Along it there are 20th century hitmen, Doc Savage, & an alien robot, not to mention the Dragons which usually fly invisibly over it. If pressed, I'd probably call it fantasy.

In Isle of the Dead, man has expanded into the galaxy & Francis Sandow went with it. As an early explorer, he was centuries out of time & still young due to traveling close to the speed of light when he stopped to study religion with an alien race. He winds up becoming a channel for one of their gods & thus is able to create entire worlds. He does that for a fee. The story itself is a murder mystery. I wouldn't try putting it on one shelf.

There are some authors who combine the two - Andrew Dobell has written a couple of series of Star Magi books - set in a very sci-fi universe, but there is magic. Superheroes is another area that is difficult - most superheroes have a sci-fi background - aliens, bitten by a radioactive spider, high-tech armour - that sort of thing. But there are characters in the same universe who are definitely magical - Doctor Strange, Zatana, Sargon the Sorcerer. Wonder Woman was sculpted out of clay and given life by a goddess, and she regularly fights gods, but she also fights Martians.

Alt-history does seem to depend on the author. Len Deighton wrote a book similar to Fatherland - SS-GB. It's set in an England which is part of the Third Reich, but is basically a spy/detective story. Because it's written by Deighton, most bookstores would have it in general fiction. However, The Man in the High Castle is also a spy/detective story set in an America occupied by the Nazis and the Japanese, but because the author is Philip K Dick, it would generally be shelved in sci-fi.

James Philip has written over 20 books based in a world where the Cuban Missile Crisis turned the Cold War into a nuclear war, and there are plenty of books written about how WWII would have gone if one of the plots to assassinate Hitler had worked. I don't think any of them would class as sci-fi.

In my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ shelves, I will just put books on multiples shelves (although I do have a separate shelf for alt-history). In my physical bookshelves, I don't worry about it and I order everything alphabetically by author, regardless of genre.

Shawn wrote: "If a story is based in an alternate universe or timeline but is not otherwise overtly "sci-fi", is it still sci-fi? Or is it a function of what the author normally writes?

For example, I'm current..."

I think from the perspective of a writer, the distinction between fantasy and sci-fi is a strategic and marketing issue. Both areas involve alternative worlds. If you had to draw a line, sci-fi involves worlds we believe or hope are plausible, whereas fantasy involves worlds we believe are implausible.
I, for one, do not believe in massive, fire-breathing dragons. But I am hopeful of faster-than-light travel. There is empirical evidence for neither.
So a writer can aim at one or the other, for fun or for money. Insert dragons, wizards, hermaphrodite warriors, and broadswords, and you've got a fantasy. Insert spaceships, genetic engineering, and quantum displacement, and it's a sci-fi.
Some writers (e.g. Robert Ludlum?) pick a genre and stay there; others like to stray (e.g. Michael Sullivan). There's no hard rule.