Magical Realism

[Nickswitz]

Ok, so in class we have to write a story on magical realism.

For all those who may be in school, or those who would like to share, do you think that science fiction is considered magical realism?

[Lazar]

In general I would say no: magical realism involves a basically realistic setting that incorporates absurd, magical or fantastical elements. If you're writing a universe in which everything has, or is assumed to have, a scientific explanation (which is most sci-fi), then it's something different. This site puts it nicely:

And then there is magical realism, a genre in which elements of the supernatural are introduced into recognizable geographical and temporal settings. Sometimes actual historical events are included in the plot, although this is not a prerequisite for the genre. Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, stated that, "My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separate what seems to be real from what seems fantastic."

As it's generally understood, to be magical realism, it has to start with a real-world setting, not with a speculative fiction setting.