CIMG4366 The God or The Machine panel at the World Fantasy Convention 2006

CIMG4366 Ted Chiang, Walter Jon Williams, Janine Young at The God or The Machine panel at the World Fantasy Convention 2006

What the panel was about

First, the panelists admitted they didn’t really understand the topic of the panel as stated in the program book. They didn’t get much mileage out of “scientific worldview elements moving a concept out of fantasy”. After addressing the distinction between technology and magic, and Ted Chiang stating why he believes Clarke’s famous adage is incorrect, the panelists quickly became mired in the age-old debate of what is science fiction, and what is fantasy. Oh no, not again, you say! Well, this discussion wasn’t quite like beating a dead horse. I heard some interesting insights.

A lot of western fantasy writers prefer magic to be systematic, i.e. to have laws, rules, constraints. An arbitrary magic, where everything is possible or impossible, depending on whether it is convenient for the author, they don’t find very interesting. But does systematizing magic move it closer to science? Not necessarily.

Traditionally it’s thought that it’s the presence or absence of scientific / technological elements — the so-called furniture — that causes most people to view a certain story as science fiction or fantasy. But actually, the worldview expressed in a story may be more relevant. (Though apparently there are no universal criteria how to determine the genre a particular story belongs to, because some people in the audience disagreed over which genre certain books belonged to.)

Read more about the “The God or the Machine” panel in my blog post.

World Fantasy Convention 2006 took place in Austin, Texas, November 2-5, 2006.