Why did sci-fi take off so much more, artistically, than fantasy did?

Why did sci-fi take off so much more, artistically, than fantasy did?
Obviously Wolfe is pretty good, but most fantasy is autistic or Tolkien worship.
Sci-fi has way more literary value

But that's wrong

I want you to fully appreciate how wrong you are. I want you to sink like a pebble into the ocean of your ignorance. But I will be forever disappointed, for a pleb such as you can never grasp the beauty of language, the soaring heights of human expression. Someday, perhaps, you may leave your turgid little life, eyes fixed to the muck as a compass is fixed to the North, and look to the heavens for just a moment. In that heartbeat, if you are lucky, you may perceive at the back of your mind the sensations we patricians experience all our lives. And you will weep, and I will weep beside you.

you sure you're not operating under a false premise here? i have read very little fantasy, but in addition to wolfe, i can also think of mervyn peake, john crowley, david lindsay, even ursula le guin (i've read a bit of her sci-fi but none of her fantasy) who are lauded as literary fantasy authors. i can only imagine there are plenty of others i've never even heard of.

It's actually the truth, just because of how SF works. SF is much more rooted in the "real world" (despite the themes being fantastical) and so is much more able to comment on real-life things, not to mention all the correct predictions in SF such as Orwell and (yes,) PKD.

If you want commentary of real-life things, read normal literature.

Because literary fantasy is called "magical realism" and is mostly a thing in Spanish-language literature

>normal literature
What do you even mean? What defines "literature"? Dullness? It being one hundred percent rooted in reality? You're an idiot.

>much more able to comment on real-life things
That's retarded, sorry. According to your logic, non-fiction has more "literary value" than fiction because it's more able to comment on real-life things. Besides, how are flying cars and time travel "real-life things" but swords and castles aren't?

If you're looking for something rooted in the "real world," you'd be better off reading works completely set in the real world.

There's not that many more that you haven't heard of.
Fantasy can be good, but there's more good sci-fi
Something like Brave New World couldn't be done in "normal" literature.
Fantasy has very few (if any) books like that.

There's half a dozen great writers in fantasy and the same in science fiction. Based le guin gets to be on both lists

I'm just trying to say that SF is more rooted in "our universe" so compared to fantasy it's more able to comment on things that happen in real life. Not to mention that SF is much better at relating philosophy when compared to fantasy.

anyone who disagrees is now BTFO

Sci fi is fundamentally more of an open concept. It's about speculating about the future, based on X or Y or whatever about the planet as it is now. This is super loose and gives authors huge leeway to build whatever settings or whatever that they want.

Fantasy is a little more staid simply because to meet the requirements for being fantasy over sci fi a lot more boxes about the universe have to be checked.

>Medeival tech
>magic
>magical creatures

Sci Fi just has to be set in the future and be about people.

fags BTFO p2

PS this is the book by Ben "big dic" Bova

That's fine if that's what you think but neither of those things, even if true, make SF "better" or have "more literary value"

Fantasy has nothing to do with castles or dragons. It's about feeling, where scifi is concerned with reason. It is about the why, where scifi is concerned with the how.

Maybe not "better" but SF generally is more literary that most fantasy. If you want "literary" fantasy you're going to need to read something that's based on characterization rather than worldbuilding.

>SF generally is more literary that most fantasy
That's an empirical claim that you have no way of proving. What do you mean by "literary" anyway?

So fantasy is what, just sci fi written by an unintelligent author?

It's fiction that, at its best, captures and satisfies the human longing for meaning beyond the mundane. Scifi, at its best, elevates mundane things to the level of the fantastic

Perhaps Scifi finds the fantastic in the mundane. Science fiction shows the world as it is in such a way as to render any need for meaning beyond the universe moot. It shows you that the meaning you want so desperately already exists if only you had the eyes to see it.

I think it's mostly that the idea of fantasy is stuck in a rut while there are more possibilities for what you can do with sci-fi and still have it be accepted as sci-fi.

I think dividing sci fi and fantady is pretty fucking stupid.
It's ALL fantasy, you idiot.