Magical Realism

I have not been able to find a good definition of this literary term-magical realism-apparently no one can describe the true meaning. My own logic tells me that it describes real life to the highest possible, or imaginable (almost dreamlike) degree. Science fiction, on the other hand, may be based on real life, or not, and can contain anything the imagination can conceive.
I think the main difference in Love in the Time of Cholera and science fiction is emotion and feelings. There is true love and emotion in this book, whereas in both Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale, the result of the planned societies was to remove all emotion. The lack of emotion was supposed to control crime and sexual desire, among other things, but it also makes for a very dull world.