Fantasy vs Science Fiction
Personally, I much prefer Fantasy over Science Fiction. I think that, being trained as a scientist, I can't make the jump from our current day technology to the futuristic extrapolations made by SF authors. That is, I always find things in SF that make me think that science doesn't allow for that. So, I can't suspend my disbelief for those maybe relatively small jumps that SF takes to create its world.
However, I have no problem suspending my disbelief about everything and immersing myself in a fantasy world where nothing is grounded in the real world. At least SF tries to ground its basic ideas in the real world, but I can't handle when they make even small errors. Completely abondoning the real world for the fantasy world works better for me.
My boss is the opposite. He much prefers SF for exactly these reasons, that it is grounded in reality, that the authors are trying to extrapolate what we know to the future. But the complete abandonment of our world for a fantasy world doesn't work at all for him.
I was wondering about other people. Do people tend to read both SF and fantasy, or do they focus on one or the other? Why do they prefer one over the other? I'd really be interested in hearing what other people think.
I've got a physics degree, but don't use it anymore. I read more science fiction than fantasy though that's starting to change a little.
I don't have too much trouble suspending disbelief in either case, but have tended to find more science fiction that I've found interesting enough to want to read. Part of that might be than I came late to the genres. I had read very little of either before I started reading a lot of it in college. I didn't read Tolkein until college. I didn't even read the Hitchhiker's Guide until college.
I liked science fiction from day one. I grew up in the 1950s when space travel seemed just around the corner, and then surprise, surprise, so it was. Sputnik, Gagarin, Apollo, the dark side of the moon; science fiction was just a little ahead of where we were (and still are). Fantasy I took much longer to get into - and I'm still a little wary of the genre. I'm much more picky about my fantasy authors.
What I have decided, however, is that I like and appreciate stories about well-rounded characters - they may be people in the future, or in a galaxy a long way from here, or wizards with tame dragons but ultimately the characters have to be at least as interesting as the science and the scenario to hold my attention.
As a result I have a relatively short "required reading" list of authors - Clarke, Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, science fiction, Janny Wurts and Julian May, fantasy. I also recommend Terry Pratchett for the most fun you can have with four elephants and a giant turtle. For the rest, there are some fantastic books out there under both headings, and sometimes under both at once, but you have to find them for yourself!