In Russian, "science fiction" is called something like "scientific
fantastics". I'm not sure if "fantastics" is a legal word in English,
but it's a noun derived from "fantastic" and it's different from
"fantasy". The term (sf) is used in Russian-speaking literature for
anything non-realistic (and therefore "fantastical") in the sense that it
describes something that could not possibly happen in real life at the time
it was written.
This way, Russian term for sf includes everything from Gerbert Wells and
Jules Vernes to Tolkien, Stephen King, Star Wars, Robocop, and Isaak Azimov.
It took me some time to learn how to distinguish, say, fantasy and horror, s
ince in my language it was all the same genre. It still often seems kind of
arbitrary to me. Like, how many people should die to make the story a
"horror"? Or how "unscientific" it has to be to shift from "science
fiction" to "fantasy"? However, it poses a problem only when I am looking
for a book in a bookstore and have to figure out whether it's going to be
in SF, Fantasy, or even Mystery section.
Marina
On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Gabrielle Bate
wrote:
> >
> >By the way, is the term 'Science Fiction' used in other languages,
> >too, or have there been other names created for it? I suppose, the
> >French have a French expression for SF.
> >
> >Petra
> >** Petra Mayerhofer ** pm@ier.uni-stuttgart.de **
>
> French for science fiction is science-fiction, pronounced like French because
> those are French words. It is often abbreviated to SF. I personally am very
> fond of SFQ, science-fiction quebecoise. I don't know about any other
> languages.
>
> I meant to reply to this earlier, but it got lost in my mailbox.
>
> Gabby Bate
>
"Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society
happens to be selling at the time."
Naomi Wolf
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