Science fiction is fiction that speculates into an alternate reality or future in which the technical achievements or prowess is greater than the present. science fiction has the power to ask oneself or another "what if?' - there are many cases of science fiction coming to reality. long before we put a man on the moon there were several stories about space flight, even Edgar Allan Poe wrote such a story. A specific example of sci-fi tech come true is that of the Star Trek communicators used on the show and now today we have cell phones which allow us to communicate nearly any where wirelessly, which was at the time of Star Trek a mere work of fiction. This is not to say that science fiction is responsible for to days gadgets and technology but instead that science fiction has the power to inspire creativity of the minds of those who in turn may turn it into a piece of reality.

The genre of fantasy is a free and nearly unrestricted realm of writing. the writer can create a world of an specification provided that they are able to describe it to the reader. fantasy commonly uses or relates to terms and phrases such as; the paranormal, magic, mythical creatures and alternate realities. Some of the oldest stories and writings from ancient times could be considered words of the fantasy genre, some you may have heard of such as Homers odyssey and Beowulf. Arguably the most popular published works of fantasy are those of J.R.R Tolkien and also J.K Rowling. Fantasy attracts many reader because if well written a fantasy novel can satisfy even the hungriest of creative minds

It may seem like they are completely different but many inexperienced writers try to create a sci-fi novel fail to define the two apart with in their writing. A common mistake that turns a science fiction work into that of fantasy is when the author fails to explain a phenomenon in their writing. You can look at it this way; in Science fiction every thing must have a cause and effect if there is no cause and only an effect then you have an act of fantasy rather than science. I shall give an example:

Suppose in a book that an author is attempting to create science fiction he or she has a space ship. He or she has described the space ship to have gravity within it but failed to explain how this gravity was made or caused, this defies a known law of physics therefore is magical and also a work of fantasy.

This is a problem for inexperienced writers who are over excited about their writing that they forget to have an explanation for any unusual (seemingly impossible) event. When they try to publish this work it will not fit into either sci-fi or fantasy genre and a publisher will most likely of all reject the work and throw away the copy that you sent them. Also of note is that while a fantasy novel could in theory have realistic properties such as manufacturing and politics. However why would some one want to buy a fantasy novel where a wizard lives in a metropolitan city and takes the bus on all of his magical adventures, they probably wouldn't! A situation like that is more of a farce than either fantasy or sci-fi, and probably won't get taken seriously. it is pretty much like this, the reader will ask themselves this why would a character otherwise magical use a piece of functional technology rather than finding a magical solution more suited to his attributes? It is in theory possible to splice these genres and maybe some one will write a brilliant work that is equally magical and scientific but even if that book was well written it would not sell as many copies than if it were one or the other of genres.

It is very important to understand the genres before you write your own work within them or you will come out in the end rather flumuxed and disatisfied with the results.