Science fiction:
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible future worlds or futures.
Fantasy:
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common.
Differences:
| Basis | Science fiction | Fantasy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition (www.oxforddictionaries.com) |
Fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets. | The faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things |
| Synonyms | SF, sci-fi, futurism, space fiction and space opera | Illusion, reverie, nightmare, delusion and fancy |
| Antonyms | Science | Certainty, truth, reality, fact and actuality |
| Impossibilities | It consists of improbable possibilities. | It consists of plausible impossibilities. |
| Literature | It is the literature of change. | It is the literature of longing. |
| Word origin | It was originated in 1929 (first attested in advertisements for “Air Wonder Stories” magazine), though there is an isolated use from 1851; abbreviated form sci-fi is from 1955. Earlier in same sense was scientifiction (1916). | It is originated from Late Middle English: from Old French fantasie, from Latin phantasia, from Greek ‘imagination, appearance’, later ‘phantom’, from phantazein ‘make visible’. |
| Fiction | It is a transformational kind of fiction. | It is a normative kind of fiction. |
| Ends | It often ends with an establishment of a new order. | It often ends with the re-establishment of order. |
| Based on | It is based on facts. | It is based on imaginary concepts. |
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| Change | It usually is optimistic about change. | It is rarely optimistic about change. |
| Plot and themes | It has rational plot and themes. | It has irrational plot and themes. |
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