# [Are science fiction and fantasy essentially the same thing?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/4yya4n/fantasy_and_science_fiction_are_the_same_thing/) I think this depends on what you define as "the thing." Space Opera and hard science fiction and military science fiction and Napoleonic wars in space are all fundamentally different genres in and of themselves. Urban fantasy is different from epic fantasy is different from grimdark. I'll grant you that they're all speculative fiction, but the same? That seems like a deliberately obtuse position. Genres have conventions, and science fiction and fantasy generally have different conventions even though there can be overlap and blurriness.