Does Fantasy HAVE to exist in the past?

In another thread, Moondancer said this:

Moondancer said:

You also have to think in terms of what defines the genre. Regardless if your setting is the modern world or centuries into the future, if those defining elements are missing it's no longer fantasy but something else.

If you use fantasy as a generic term, every novel ever published/printed would fall into the genre.

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My question is: Is this true?

Poul Anderson used a present-day scenerio for his "Operation Chaos" and "Operation Luna". Heinlein did the same in "Magic Inc." Randall Garrett used an alternate 20th century in his "Lord Darcy" mysteries.

Are these just flukes? Is it impossible to have a fantasy that involved space travel? Even if the space travel was by magical means? Aren't there possibilities for creating a spaceship that worked by magic? Are these ideas forever banned from fantasy?

Moondancer said:

A fantasy novel can take place in any time, past, present, or future, as long as the defining elements of what constitutes a fantasy novel are present... That was the point of my original post in the other thread, lol.

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Ah. On re-reading, I see that interpretation too. Still, I think it's a good question. What would a futuristic fantasy look like? We might come up with some novel ideas.

victoriastrauss said:

I agree. Especially since so much fantasy takes place in a world that's not this one, making notions of "past" or "future" moot.

I think maybe the question that's being asked here is whether or not fantasy has to take place in an "ancient" setting--swords, torches, stew, all that stuff. Obviously the answer is no--as Medievalist said, there's urban fantasy, and also steampunk and various bizarre derivatives thereof.

- Victoria

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Right. But still, aside from urban fantasy and the like (which I had not considered), most fantasy is pre-industrial, pre-technological. Even stories like Stasheff's Rogue Wizard Series (where the wizard arrives in a space ship, but the rest of the story is always in a more or less standard fantasy milieu) are only peripherally technological.

This shouldn't have to be. For instance, how would a magical spaceship work? Perhaps in addition to Earth, Wind, Fire, and Ether, a new Elemental was discovered (Nuclear?) with tremedous power available to be tapped. Perhaps the culture is more biologically oriented because of the magic and they grow a spaceship. Perhaps it's a blending of the two.

What happens when our intrepid spaceship meets another from a technological culture. Is it possible that both could exist in the same universe? (Sure. I could explain it anyway.) How would our magical culture interact with a technological culture? Who would win and why? This could be a good allegory for the conflict between modern and post-modern thought today (if you want to get symbolic about it).

Maybe the universe swings between a causality-ruled system and a magically-ruled system. Maybe it happens quickly (decades or centuries) so that the culture of the world must change from a magically-based to a scientifically-based. Or, even better, from a scientific to magically-based culture.

Maybe this begins to happen to our world! It's nothing new to have a story where elves really existed, but were pushed out by the "cold iron" of the industrial age. But what about the reverse? What if our technological world begins to crumble because magic is on the rise?

It seems to me there is tremendous potential for expanding the horizons of fantasy.