Fantasy and science fiction as crossover stories

Fantasy and Science Fiction as Crossover Stories
Paige Burlingame

November 2015 (Edited: August 2016)

If you go into any bookstore and look for their science fiction section, you will probably only have to walk a few feet, or a few aisles, from there to find their fantasy section. Some bookstores even shelve them together. The genres of science fiction and fantasy often get lumped together into one category, with some even arguing that science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy, despite how fundamentally different they are. Stories in the fantasy genre exist within worlds where the line between magic and reality is either extremely thin or completely non-existent. They often take place in worlds that are entirely unlike the worlds you or I know to exist – worlds where fairies and dragons and wizards are real. While science fiction stories also exist in worlds which are also outside of our understanding of reality, they often take place (fully or partially) on Earth or a planet much like Earth. These stories will often take place on a future Earth, in which scientific advancements have accomplished things that we, as readers, may not even see as remotely possible, such as instantaneous transportation, complete virtual reality, androids, interplanetary politics, etc. However the key difference between the two genres is that in science fiction stories there are no dragons or unicorns. Science fiction stories may be fantastical in their content, but nothing is explained away as being magic. Everything that seems magic has a scientific explanation, be it time travel, space travel, or parallel universes. There is always some type of science to back-up the things in the fictional worlds that do not fit into our reality as we understand it. In The Twilight Zone, “The Fugitive,” Rod Serling eloquently summed up the difference between the genres by saying that fantasy makes the implausible possible, while science fiction makes the impossible plausible. One thing that the two genres do have in common is that stories that fall under either genre, more often than not, appeal to people of all ages.

Even with such stark differences between the genres, they do have some things in common; the fantasy and science fiction genres are ripe for stand-alone novels and serialized stories alike. It could be argued that this is due to the amount of world-building that tends to come with writing within the genres. It takes many hours and extensive research to create a world that is foreign enough to fit within these genres, yet consistent enough to maintain a suspension-of-disbelief for the readers. An inadvertent result of all of this world building is that it lends itself well to a series. There is always going to be more of the fictional world to discover and always more adventures to be had. The advantage that authors get from this is that they are able to show their characters’ growth – in a literal and/or metaphorical sense – gradually over the course of their series. This often results in the books progressively getting longer, more complex, and getting into more mature content as the characters grow and they encounter things that are much more profound or serious than they had experienced when they were younger. This phenomenon is extremely common in these genres.

Several examples would be The Lost Years of Merlin series by T.A. Barron (5 books), the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (7 books), and the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster (17 books). All of these series start with their protagonists being very young, with the first book in each series very likely being shelved under Young Adult or Middle Reader. However, as these series’ progress their protagonists grow older and wiser (slowly in some cases, and rapidly in others), and the writing style and content grows with them.

The Harry Potter series is a great instance of this phenomenon. If one were to look at the first book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) and the last book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) side-by-side, it would seem ridiculous to say that they are part of the same series. If the covers didn’t tell you, in bright gold letters, that they were about the same character, it would be easy to assume that they are completely unrelated. Not only is Deathly Hallows significantly longer than Sorcerer’s Stone (309 and 759 pages, respectively), but the writing style is very different. In Deathly Hallows, the language is tighter and more dense and the subject matter is much darker and more mature. This is easily exemplified by looking at the themes of these two books. The first book deals with entering new environments, making friends, and discovering new abilities. The last book deals with death, loss, and self-sacrifice. They are very different to say the least. In cases like these not only are readers seeing the characters grow and mature, but they are seeing the entire writing style grow with the characters. In the case of Harry Potter, this change is so subtle and well-paced that it is hard to notice when you read them in sequence. It is only when you look at the first book and the last book side-by-side that you realize just how much has changed.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to literature. This is a common theme in the fantasy and science fiction genres as a whole. It shows up in television and movies as well. An example of this could be the television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The titular character starts out as a 15 year old high school sophomore, who also happens to have supernatural powers which make her especially adept at killing vampires and other such dangerous creatures. In the beginning, episodes tended to be light and comical, but as the show went on things grew to be much more sober and serious. This same phenomenon is also displayed in the Star Wars series. The first movies in the various trilogies show viewers a young, inexperienced protagonist learning how to use the powers that they had just discovered and as they grow up, the movies take on increasingly serious and higher-stakes content. The character Luke Skywalker from the original trilogy starts his journey as a simple “moisture farmer,” but at the end of the trilogy, he has reached potential and become, “a Jedi like [his] father before [him]” (Return of the Jedi). These movies, originally created with a young audience in mind, continue to be wildly popular with people of all ages.

There are also instances where these science fiction and fantasy genres overlap, thereby creating a literal crossover story. An example of this would be the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. This series is a reimagining of age-old fairy tale characters, modernized and places them within a more science-fiction based world. The first book in the series, Cinder, features Cinderella (Linh Cinder in this case), a cyborg teenage girl living in an alternate universe, future version of Beijing – a world that is not friendly toward cyborgs. She still has the canonically horrible step-mother, two step-sisters, and a father who has passed away several years before the story takes place.

A key difference in this case, aside from the whole cyborg thing, is that Cinder was adopted by her father, a fact which puts more heft behind her step-mother’s threats of kicking her out on the street if she doesn’t obey her every whim. The story follows the bare bones of the source material – horrible step-mother and sisters, a prince showing interest in her, being forced to flee from a ball  – but it doesn’t have the happily-ever-after ending we have come to expect from stories about these character archetypes. The series later brings in characters that are based on Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (Scarlet and Wolf), Rapunzel (Cress), and Snow White (Winter).

This series is firmly rooted in a science-fiction setting, but it still plays with the concept of magic in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. A major conflict within the narrative is the unhinged and passive aggressive queen of the moon (Luna) who is constantly on the verge of declaring war on the Earth. The Lunar people possess an ability to manipulate and control the emotions, perceptions, and actions of others. This power is referred to as “Lunar magic,” by average Earthen citizens, but it is repeatedly emphasized by scientists and the protagonists that this ability is not magical in nature. This ability is referred to by these more knowledgeable characters as “bioelectrical manipulation,” thereby giving this phenomenon, which would have simply been chalked up as “magic” in the fantasy genre, a scientific explanation and placing the story more squarely in the science-fiction genre.

This series is a great example of not only a series which can appeal to people of all ages, but also the intersection that can sometimes pop up when elements of science fiction and fantasy genres are mixed together. Books that subvert the two genres in this way don’t fully fit in either. Too much science for fantasy or too many scientifically implausible aspects for science fiction. In this way, these stories almost create a brand new genre. They are crossovers in more ways than one. The appeal for adults could come from many aspects of this particular series. Adults may be amused at the reimagining of the stories and characters they read when they were young. They could be interested in how the author manages to mix the science-fiction elements with the fantasy tropes which are integral to the source material.

An added factor in the equation as to why young adult science fiction and fantasy novels are particularly adept at being crossover stories is that, since the “fantasy renaissance” that was led by the Harry Potter series, it has become more profitable than ever for authors to publish their books under the “young adult” heading. This has led to an increasing number of authors repackaging their stories, which may have been originally intended to be “adult” books, rather than “young adult,” and releasing them under this new heading. In his article for Horn Book Magazine, Jonathan Hunt explains:

“It is probable that just a few years ago none of these books would have been published as YA, but the fantasy renaissance led by Harry Potter […] brought a huge financial windfall to the field, making publishers realize just how lucrative the market could be if it grew beyond its problem novel origins to include genre fiction and literary fiction, especially for the neglected upper end of the age range.” (Hunt, 142.)

That is to say, some of the titles in the young adult fantasy and science fiction genres could very well have never been meant for a “young adult” audience in the first place.

Another reason which would explain why young adult science fiction and fantasy novels are crossover stories is that many of these stories are universal. Regardless of where it takes place, who is experiencing them, or why they are happening, they all touch on key issues of the human condition. In Beth Revis’ Across the Universe, the main character, Amy, and her parents are cryogenically frozen and placed on a spaceship headed off on a one-way-trip. This ship is headed to a planet that the U.S. government hoped to colonize when their human cargo landed there, after the 300 years it will take them to make the journey. When Amy’s cryogenic pod is sabotaged 250 years into their 300 year journey, causing her to wake from her cryogenic sleep, she is understandably in shock. While the ship had its 100 cryogenically frozen people, it also had around 2,000 unfrozen people keeping the ship running and going along its course to the planet. These people had lived on this ship for generations and she, who went to sleep a 17 year-old girl on Earth, is now suddenly awake with people who have never seen Earth. She has to cope with the fact that by the time they reach the new planet and her parents are brought out of their cryogenic sleep, she will be older than they were when frozen, on top of being afraid because someone tried to kill her by turning off her cryogenic pod. Although it may not seem like it on a surface level, this is an incredibly universal story. This book touches on the emotions inherent in being an outsider, coping with the loss of your family as you knew them, the fear that comes from being thrust into an environment in which you are not familiar. The vulnerability of her situation is palpable as well as relatable to anyone, regardless of age.

When it comes to crossover stories, science fiction and fantasy are the genres which are best at consistently delivering. Not only has there been a “fantasy renaissance” (Hunt, 142) thanks to Harry Potter, but the genres have so much wiggle room to address any and all aspects of the human condition, regardless of the age (or species) of their characters. A teenage girl all alone on a crowded spaceship in outer space could very well speak to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. A teenage wizard could speak to anyone who was abused as a child. A 15 year-old vampire slayer could speak to anyone who has been told that you can’t be feminine and still be strong enough to slay a vampire if they needed to. Fantasy and science fiction, even when written for young adults, have something to offer everyone regardless of their age.

Works Cited

Beaumont, Chris, and Rod Serling. “The Fugitive.” The Twilight Zone. Dir. Richard L. Bare.
CBS Films. 9 Mar. 1962. Television.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Writ. Joss Whedon. Dir. Joss Whedon. Twentieth Century Fox. The WB. Television. 1997-2003.

Hunt, Jonathan. “Redefining The Young Adult Novel.” Horn Book Magazine 83.2 (2007): MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

Meyer, Marissa. Cinder. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2012. Print.

Return of the Jedi. Dir. Richard Marquand. By Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Perf. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Billy Dee Williams. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1983. DVD.

Revis, Beth. Across the Universe. New York: Razorbill, 2011. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic, 1998. Print.