Well, the internet is full of wrongheads, I hear. ;-)
I meant to look at what the SF Encyclopaedia says on the matter last night, but forgot. Dammit.
So why is it not acceptable or useful to acknowledge and label those differences?
I think it's perfectly acceptable, because it's a useful way of looking at how a text does what it does. But I don't think the different strategies of worldbuilding map to different types of fiction. I agree with Dan that you can worldbuild by showing the characters first or showing the world first; I disagree that one strategy is 'sfnal', or that it's meaningful to talk about 'sfnal worldbuilding'. I think both (all) strategies have been used in all kinds of fiction.
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Date: 2006-06-09 09:41 am (UTC)I meant to look at what the SF Encyclopaedia says on the matter last night, but forgot. Dammit.
So why is it not acceptable or useful to acknowledge and label those differences?
I think it's perfectly acceptable, because it's a useful way of looking at how a text does what it does. But I don't think the different strategies of worldbuilding map to different types of fiction. I agree with Dan that you can worldbuild by showing the characters first or showing the world first; I disagree that one strategy is 'sfnal', or that it's meaningful to talk about 'sfnal worldbuilding'. I think both (all) strategies have been used in all kinds of fiction.