Orson Scott Card and Scifi

For those unfamilar with the work of OSC, he wrote Ender's Game. For those that have never heard of Ender's game, you should just kill yourself now. What is ender's game? Think of Harry Potter on Crack. But, the key is here, Ender's game was written like 20 years or so before HP ever even was thought up of. When you think, "Rise To power" You think Ender's game as a stepping stone to that cliche.

I digress, i'm not here to talk about the glory of Ender's Game. (Even though it rocks) I'm here to talk about what OSC said in one of his interviews. He said that, when he was starting out, he wrote this one short story about a boy liberating a town (or something like that) Preety standard stuff. Boy saves town yadda yadda yadda. But, when he submitted it to a publisher it got rejected on the grounds that it wasn't, "Scifi enough." What did they mean? OSC explains that even though he described, in ornate detail, the wierd planet this story was proposed on, it did not contain any Scifi qualities that made up something of Science Fiction.

In this, I kinda agree with OSC. While you don't need magic in EVERY Fantasy story, it cannot be just a story without a staple from the genra. It's not enough for a boy to save the day, he has to do it in the context of Fantasy, to distinguish it from a "present-day" story.

Ok, i'm ranting and this probably isn't making much sense. I'll stop now.

-Lonbow