No one should get the idea—and I have repeatedly stated this—that any of this is a good/bad issue.
If you have a science-fiction story where guys are fighting with laser guns and then someone pulls out a magic wand that shoots harmful-light-rays, you have a fantasy story. So, I’m not ignoring it, and I’m not refuting that (as an experience) he blurs the lines expertly. But I’m refuting that the end product remains science-fiction.
Sorry, this is abuse. Arguments are down the hall, room 12A.
I think “SF” also commonly means “speculative fiction”, which was the cool kids’ way (back when Harlan Ellison was a kid) of distancing themselves from the previous generation, and it was a blanket term for science-fiction, fantasy and horror/the weird. But you’re right that people use the terms interchangeably and to be more concise; I’m aware of that, and that’s fine.
But it’s just a reflection of what you care about, and the context you’re in. Bruce set up this thread with “Science Fiction knows no bounds”. Well, fine, but what then makes it different from fantasy?
Over in the game thread (What games have you played recently?), I mentioned that I’m a fan of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which for all the world looks like a bog-standard fantasy world. There was a big controversy at the time, because an expansion for the game was going to include a faction that was, essentially, DOOM-type monsters (cyber-demons, arachno-trons) that were bio-machines. The backlash against adding SF elements was enough to kill the expansion, sadly, but people were quite fierce about it remaining “pure” fantasy, even though the author of the series said that it had always been envisioned as a post-apocalyptic science-fiction world. (And there were plenty of clues on that front.)
Would it have been any less fantasy had they gone through with it? I don’t think so. It “knew no bounds” all along.
You know, I don’t disagree with this paragraph on the whole, but there are such things as artistic movements, and the GAoSF was one, just like the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood or the Bauhaus. John W. Campbell had a vision, and that not only influenced the contents of Astounding but the contents of all the science-fiction magazines—and the culture as whole.