The Sword and Laser discussion
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A Wrinkle in Time
2018 Reads
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AWIT: Difficult choices
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I don't think it is a stupid question at all. There are certainly aspects to both in this book. There is as much science in this book as in some lighter space opera, like The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, that would clearly be called science fiction. Then you have fairies that are clearly fantastical elements.In the end, I would say it would be fine to file it either way. If your can't make up you mind, you could always go with Team Veronica since it was her pick.
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It is Science Fantasy so could go in both. But I think it leans more heavily in the sword realm because of the 3 witches/angels.
Apparently later books reinforce the religious aspects of the themes in this book, which pushes it further into sword.
Team Veronica
Hmm, since no one has shown up to argue "Team Tom" for this book, I'll go on and tag it as "Team Veronica."It is a good thing - my Sword goal is bigger than my Laser. =)
Haha, I actually do have it shelved as science fiction, but people are weird about genres, so whatever. :)
I've always classified this as science fiction, even though I found the later books to be more in the fantasy category. This is partly because what I remember most from the book when I read it as a kid were all the sciencey elements. Like the folding of space and time. And the quarks and atom bits. I'm sticking to that classification, and when I get around to re-reading it this month, I'll be putting it in Team Laser.
I kind of thought of them less as angels/fairies and more like some sort of "pan dimensional being" kind of similar to the (view spoiler) (not 100% sure that needs to be behind spoiler tags here, but just in case?), which is a book that a lot more people easily place as science fiction. Although, to be fair, some people will also categorize that as Science Fantasy or similar, so this may or may not be actually helpful :P
Argh! I can’t shake off the feeling that we are somehow cheating the challenge if half of the group marks it as Sword and the other half marks it as Laser.Hell, Goodreads even allows putting the book on both shelves!
Even libraries cannot get this right. They put A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction in fantasy because Terry Pratchett wrote it. Doh.Categories are blurry at the edges so it doesn’t really matter where you put it... if I were a cruel person I might restart the “is Star Wars” fantasy thread again...
It's all Sword to me. Magic and love and hope and fancy.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction (other topics)The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (other topics)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (other topics)
I was never bothered about books that are hard to classify, but we have a practical issue here. I mean, three fairies that transport children by folding the spacetime continuum to fight an alien menace and rescue their father fits both categories.
Help?