Scifi vs. fantasy

The new Wired magazine has a letter to the editor which summarizes the differences between scifi and fantasy (as a way of explaining why scifi doesn't get the respect it deserves.) In referencing a comment made in issue 16.02, Andrew Hageman of Davis, California, says this:

Perhaps one reason science fiction as a genre has been largely dismissed is that it has been conflated too readily with its rose-tinted twin: fantasy. They share shelf space in bookshops and tags online. But science fiction, particularly at its best (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or William Gibson's novels), tends toward ethical complexities, sophisticated worldviews, and urban and transnational/trans-planetary environments. Fantasy, meanwhile, tends toward ethical simplicity with more overtly delineated heroes and villains, as well as celebrations of nostalgic rural settings.

And so, yet another example of it-makes-me-feel-superior-if-I-bash-you, thinly disguised as a simple observation of the differences between two genres.

I thought for a moment about whether I should call them two genres or two sub-genres in that last sentence. I understand why they're lumped together, since at a basic level they both deal with non-existent worlds, be they the world of our future (non-existent yet), a different world altogether (but one which could exist 'out there' somewhere), or a world which exists only in the mind of its author.

But on a different level, I think you can make an argument they're unalike enough to be considered different genres, though not in any of the ways Mr. Superior sees. I'm quite aware that while many people who like fantasy also like scifi (I certainly do) that many others will only read one or the other. And I like to think that many of the people I know personally who only like one or the other at least made an honest attempt to read in the other one before calling it quits, something I can only assume Hageman didn't.

"Tends toward ethical complexities"? "Sophisticated worldviews"? I'm not sure I even know what he means by the latter (anyone who does know, feel free to enlighten me) but I've seen plenty of books firmly in the scifi camp that weren't particularly ethically complex. (Does every story have to be, to be worth being told? Is it possible, even, that what is complex to one person isn't to someone else?)

And I can think of several fantasy authors he's clearly never considered in order to make the statement that the entire genre 'tends toward ethical simplicity.' And his last phrase, 'celebrations of nostalgic rural settings' indicates he's completely unfamiliar with the subgenre of urban fantasy.

His accusation about fantasy being 'rose-tinted' also suggests to me that there's a whole subgenre of science fiction that he doesn't like, either, since not everything that's clearly in that camp assumes a dark future for the human race. But perhaps rather than criticizing such books as being too similar to fantasy, he simply ignores them in his assessments of the genres.

I will never understand why some individuals find it necessary to build themselves up by bashing someone else -- and make no mistake, what he's really saying here is "I and others like me who read only science fiction are superior to those who read and like fantasy.'

But I wonder, if fantasy were given its own shelves (perhaps in the back of the store would suit him) what excuse then would he give for why scifi isn't being given the respect he thinks it's due?