Far be it from me to critique other people's ideosyncratic classification systems

[james_davis_nicoll]

After all, I will argue that Starship Troopers is proto-MilSF.

Brin's system of sorting SF from F will produce counter-intuitive results, like Asimov's Foundation, which is all about restoring the Old Order What Stood for Thousands of Years, is fantasy, whereas any Diskworld novel about clackers and the post and dwarves and trolls learning to coexist is SF.

(it's important to note "Having said that, what is my definition of the separation?". Brin's definition, not THE WORD OF MIGHT DEGLER HIMSELF)

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That's a fair point. But surely the root to "symbolic means" lies in the discovery of essential sympathy between signifier and signified, and this relationship can't be discovered rationally: only by hazard or by enlightened realization, which then circles back to "follow tradition"?