I disagree on Fantasy worlds being "rule breaking." Tolkien once said that the world needs to be true to itself, so the "rules" still have to be spelled out and adhered to.
Perhaps this is why lord of the rings and the hobbit are the only fantasy books I was able to finish reading. Not a lot of flashing magic there either.
Science fiction is not about the technology - at least not the good SF. It is about humans and our own society. Asimov's nightfall is a good example. The only difference between that world and ours is that it has 6 suns. No different technology what so ever. The story is about the relationship between science religion and the public media. There are many other examples where the technology is only a mean to test human behavior. It is almost never what the story is really about. Again, I emphasize that this is regarding good SF and not the ton of garbage that is out there. Niven, Asimov, Ellison, Clark, Lem, Dick, Bester etc. Even Douglas Adams which is not really SF is about our lives on planet earth more than anything else.
