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My goodness has it really been four months since I last posted… eesh. Well, let’s fix that.
A while back, I posted an entry about fantasy and why I believe I have an affinity for it. Of course, fantasy isn’t the sole genre I read. In truth I read a rather wide variety of things, some of which I enjoy, some of which I really don’t, but I’ll give most things a shot.
I could probably go on for quite some time about a whole bunch of different genres, but I’ll save thoughts on others for another time, mostly to conserve space for the time being. 
Instead I’d like to focus on just two this time around. Fantasy is often lumped with science fiction, and so I feel obligated to say something there, and along with that, I’ve taken on another favorite genre – historical fiction.
I’ll start with the latter. History has never really been my subject – in truth, it wasn’t until late high school-slash-my first years of college that I even had much of an appreciation for history. Now I find it interesting – I chalk a lot of this up to a few history teachers I’ve had that have done an excellent job and really made me look at history in a different light. As a result, I’ve found historical fiction moving up my list of favorite genres.
I think part of the reason why is the same reason I like fantasy – though historical fiction is based in fact, rather than fantasy which is in a whole other imagined world, historical fiction is still detached enough from our own that it feels like another world. And in this, it continues to prove the timelessness of certain values, that there are things that transcend our own location, that there /are/ morals that last and aren’t solely the product of the culture one is in. What I love about fantasy is the lessons that can be learned and the truths that can be seen regardless of the place and time – even in another world entirely that’s completely foreign, some things still remain. It’s the same with stories set in past periods of time, whether it’s Celtic Ireland, medieval Britain or Renaissance Italy.
Science fiction can prove this too – in fact, I wrote a paper on the subject back in high school, on why an author we studied then chose to use a futuristic setting in many of his stories. I have a great respect for science fiction – as I’ve stated before, it tends to be lumped with fantasy, and the line where the two become distinct from each other is indeed rather thin and blurry at times. Yet I find myself with less of a liking for science fiction than fantasy, and I think I finally hit upon the reason why. Don’t get me wrong, there’s certain sci-fi stories I have a great liking for: Lewis’s Space Trilogy rapidly comes to mind. There’s something in sci-fi that appeals to my scientific side, and that’s a fairly large part of who I am.
Even so, there is something about sci-fi that turns me off as well. To me, it places far too much stock in what man is capable of. In other words, it loses something of the other-worldly-ness that I like in fantasy, and even historical fiction, because there’s less room for God and the spiritual side of things in it. There tends to be too much mind and not enough heart, I feel. Again, there’s sci-fi that I’ve read that I don’t feel this about, sci-fi as a whole doesn’t always fall into this ‘trap.’ Still, that’s what I feel is missing from sci-fi that makes it less appealing for me – the unexplainable is gone, because there’s a scientific explanation for it all. There’s no mystery, no intrigue, no sense that there’s something beyond it all, because it’s all boiled down to scientific fact. It’s a tricky balance to run, and I feel a lot of the sci-fi I’ve read falls a little flat in that respect.
Of course, this is only the opinion of one college student, with no proper English degree training. So take those thoughts as you will. 
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