Would you read a fantasy novel that verged into scifi, or vice versa?

[Null_Zone]

I quite like a bit of (distant) post apocalypse in my fantasy, lost hi-tech soyou're never sure where the border with magic might lie.

Much like Mark Lawrences work.

 

[DelActivisto]

I would read it, but I'd feel somehow cheated if the SF element was pulled out of a hat as a surprise. I'm not sure why I'd think that, though.

I can actually relate to that. You're reading along in a strict fantasy novel, and then all of a sudden someone from the future comes barging in. Um, excuse me? Who are you?

Or maybe it's closer to watching a fantasy film and spotting a car in the background. Suddenly it's just a movie set with people acting in it instead of characters with a story and an alternate reality to ours.

So I think there are definitely purists, but I think a lot of people seem all right with a cross over. Even more - both can very well be an exploration of the human condition. Science fiction is just usually more overt about it. (Robot: What's it like to be human? *attaches various and sundry biological equivalents* Welp, now I have to crap, eat, breath, sweat, and I'm rusting already. This sucks!)

 

[Frost Giant]

Oh. My. God. I'd forgotten these... think I gave them away a couple of decades ago, now I want to read them again!!

As I recall, the first three were quite good. If they did a Netflix miniseries or a movie series, the first three books would provide some decent material.

 

[vanye]

Some of my all-time favourites are SF with a very distinct fantasy feel to them: C.J. Cherryh‘s Morgaine cycle.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Lots of people read and/or write Science Fantasy. I think it's really only a problem for readers when it's not clear early on that this is what the story is, and they get hit with the combination late in the book.

Some of my favorite books have been Science Fantasy. Someone mentioned the Morgaine books earlier, which in my opinion are Science Fantasy at it's best.


(The idea that fantasy is mostly an exploration of medieval times is inaccurate. Firstly because most supposedly medieval fantasy is wildly inaccurate when it comes to that period, and secondly because there is so much fantasy that doesn't draw on the Middle Ages for inspiration at all.*)

____

*And a lot that is identified as medieval is actually Renaissance or later.

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm glad this thread got rezzed as it allows me to post something important I realised only when re-reading it.

I like Sci-Fi media that borrows heavily from Fantasy. I like Warhammer 40k, I like Star Wars. I like Space Elves and Mysterious Old Psychics.

I like media that mixes the two, or at least I think I do, because I struggle to name many that fit this.

What leaves me lukewarm on a frequent basis are Fantasy books that reveal they were actually Sci-Fis all along. Aka damn you Anne McCaffrey. In fairness, this might be influenced by that series going downhill at the same time she introduced the Sci-Fi anyway.

Also I cheered loudly at Teresa's bracketed comments on fantasy. There's a thread to be had there, which I might start (or look to see if there's an ongoing one) when I've stopped running around.

 

[aThenian]

I really like a lot of Sheri S.Tepper's books which do have a fantasy feel but which I guess are technically science fiction. There is sometimes a bit of a twist there, where you get a sci-fi explanation for something which felt rather different - The Family Tree is a good example, and I think works really well.

She never has wizards and knights and anything medieval though - or not the ones I've read.

 

[SilentRoamer]

To me this invokes Arthur C Clarkes "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

I actually quite like fantasy and SF plots mixed together, I especially like SF underpinnings for what otherwise could read like a Fantasy.

To use an example - Vernor Vinges A Fire Upon the Deep has two plots thrust throughout most of the book, the Tines feel very pseudo medieval and very fantasy whereas the thread that takes place off of the Tines world is very much SF in nature. Fantastic book either way and one of the things I most enjoyed was the seamless blurring between SF and Fantasy themes.

Hexapodia is the key insight.