[gjstein]

Ursula Le Guin in her preface to The Left Hand of Darkness [1], describes Science Fiction as "descriptive." She invents "elaborately circumstantial lies" as a means of describing what she sees as some truth in our being. The full quote:

> I’m merely observing, in the peculiar, devious, and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction, that if you look at us at certain odd times of day in certain weathers, we already are. I am not predicting, or prescribing. I am describing. I am describing certain aspects of psychological reality in the novelist’s way, which is by inventing elaborately circumstantial lies.

This is how I think about both science fiction and fantasy. Elements of world building are different, even within each sub-genre, but this element of incorporating elements that are inconsistent with our world to tell stories is common to both. It's also why the term "speculative fiction" persists: a category that subsumes sci-fi and fantasy.

[1] Read that full preface here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/342990/the-left-hand...

[readthenotes1]

"A novelist's business is lying....

and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That’s the truth!"

The preface is as valuable as the book that follows.