Novels that are both SciFi and Fantasy.

defyalllogic · Jun 30, 2010

examples?

I think my WIP is both but I'm not sure what that looks like...

(it would best be compared to something like the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, with the adventuring and weird characters and a robot but they stay on earth and there are other characters coming from another realm to earth. there are mutants and mad scientists and portals to other dimensions... so part of the book takes place in another realm where it's pretty much another planet...)

DeleyanLee · Jun 30, 2010

The Tinker books by Wen Spencer qualify, I think.

Though Wen is a good friend, it's the main reason I can't enjoy those books.

defyalllogic · Jun 30, 2010

thanks! that does seem to be both and a bit of something else...

I'll flip through the next time I'm at the bookstore.

DeleyanLee · Jun 30, 2010

There's Tinker and Wolf Who Rules and she's told me that she's sent in a proposal for #3, so we'll see if Baen bites at it.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 30, 2010

Tinker /Wolf who Rules posits that the Elves are aliens from another dimension.

It's totally SF.

DeleyanLee · Jun 30, 2010

Not to argue, but the spine says Fantasy, as does the author.

dgiharris · Jun 30, 2010

Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony is definitely SF + fantasy.

He also has a bunch of novels called the Adept Series that mixes sci-fi and fantasy...

There is also a lot of Sci-Fi that makes use of the psychic element.

Anne McCaffery's Rowan Series does that.

C.S. Friedman's The Madness Season also mixes Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Has aliens, FTL, and a shapeshifter who thinks he is human.

I'm sure there are many others, those where the first examples that came to mind

Mel...

thothguard51 · Jun 30, 2010

I don't mind mixing the two so long as the fantasy elements jive well with the sci-fi FACTS...

veinglory · Jun 30, 2010

I think something that is fantasy and sci fi is generally classified as sci fi as the trump genre. Quite a lot of sci fi has some magical rather than technological elements.

defyalllogic · Jun 30, 2010

Thank you for helping me with this research! I appreciate your brains.

i normally find new books through amazon.com suggestions...

Deleted member 42 · Jun 30, 2010

DeleyanLee said:
Not to argue, but the spine says Fantasy, as does the author.

Library of Congress says SF and Speculative Fiction, and Urban folklore, and Celtic

What makes the Tinker books tricky is not the elves, or the alternate universes, but the magic that is not always explained via science. It falls right smack on top of Clarke's Law.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 30, 2010

My (and Doyle's) own Mageworlds books.

Deleted member 42 · Jun 30, 2010

James D. Macdonald said:
My (and Doyle's) own Mageworlds books.

What about Mist and Snow?

benbradley · Jun 30, 2010

defyalllogic said:
examples?

I think my WIP is both but I'm not sure what that looks like...

(it would best be compared to something like the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, with the adventuring and weird characters and a robot but they stay on earth and there are other characters coming from another realm to earth. there are mutants and mad scientists and portals to other dimensions... so part of the book takes place in another realm where it's pretty much another planet...)

It sounds like SF to me, and from that description I don't really see any fantasy elements.

dgiharris said:
Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony is definitely SF + fantasy.

It's been a while since I read that, but I remember it being mostly fantasy, and though I generally agree with Veinglory's observation, I did and do consider the Incarnations series to be fantasy. What are the "SF elements" in it?

I think the only "real" SF he wrote was Macroscope. It's too bad (for my reading) he had such good success with his other books, especially the Xanth series, I liked Macroscope a lot better than anything else I've read by him.

GeorgeK · Jul 4, 2010

I've been wondering about this too. Since none of mine are published, they are all W'sIP. The latest is probably more Fantasy than Sci-Fi, but after the last few weeks I'm wondering if it's wandering into horror. Most everyone who's read any of mine say the villains are far more compelling than the heroes. Most everyone here says play to your strengths. So this latest is at least a half of the book from the villain's point of view. Just an hour ago I was deciding if a minor hero should die. There's a very brief torture scene, but definitely the suggestion that a lot more is going to happen.

I don't go into a lot of gory details...certainly less gory than anything in the Iliad or Oddysey, but where is that line? Should I really care about that line?

Deleted member 42 · Jul 4, 2010

GeorgeK said:
I don't go into a lot of gory details...certainly less gory than anything in the Iliad or Oddysey, but where is that line? Should I really care about that line?

I doubt it will be a problem. There's some exceedingly gory violence in a fair number of works that do quite well.

Sex is a greater problem than gore or violence.

Cranky · Jul 4, 2010

Interesting. I've been simmering on a new idea all day -- a sort of mash-up of cosmological theories and straight up portal fantasy. Doors to pocket universes or the multiverse, or whatever.

Since I don't know much about quantum theory and what I know about cosmology is pretty limited as well (not much beyond The Big Bang, the theory of inflation, dark energy/matter, etc.), I'm probably going to end up leaning more towards the fantasy line. I'm gonna have to fudge as a matter of necessity, at least for a short story. Now, if I expand it to a novel (as the idea seems to beg me to do, lol), I'll have to take a serious crash course. But even then, it still would seem to at least be on the softer side of the science fiction spectrum, rather than the harder stuff.

Hmmm.

GeorgeK · Jul 5, 2010

Medievalist said:
Sex is a greater problem than gore or violence.

So if the scene with the villain is suggestive that a victim will be raped but cut to next scene and the medical examiner says, "No, she wasn't raped or tortured, SAE was negative. There's no bruising. She was probably sedated somehow, I don't know how yet, and then exanguinated."

The villain is a serial killer.

See any problem with that for mainstream reading? I figured it can't be worse than any average vampire story.

defyalllogic · Jul 5, 2010

Medievalist said:
Tinker /Wolf who Rules posits that the Elves are aliens from another dimension.

It's totally SF.

so people from another dimension are a. aliens and b. science fiction.

good to know.

I always think of things as being stylistically scifi or fantasy... they way the ideas are handled and explained rather than the ideas themselves.

i.e.: there are scientific portals to other dimensions and magical portals to other dimensions.

Also werewolves are generally fantasy, but if someone decides to explain that they're a branch species or mutation or something then it become scifi right? or still Fantasy?

James D. Macdonald · Jul 5, 2010

It used to be that science fiction was what Damon Knight was pointing to when he said "science fiction."

Since Damon died, no one knows what's science fiction.

Liosse de Velishaf · Jul 5, 2010

James D. Macdonald said:
It used to be that science fiction was what Damon Knight was pointing to when he said "science fiction."

Since Damon died, no one knows what's science fiction.

Which is frustrating, but good.

Torgo · Jul 6, 2010

I'd include those books where the magical has an SF explanation, which is present to a greater or lesser extent. Examples might be LORD OF LIGHT (Zelazny), where the true nature of the Gods and demons is a major plot point; the DYING EARTH books by Jack Vance and the NEW SUN books by Gene Wolfe, where we're in the far future and the magic seems to be based on advanced technology (but that isn't very deeply explored); the LORD DARCY stories by Randall Garrett, in which magic is treated as rigorously as a science (and also allows for good old SF trope the alternate history); Charlie Stross' LAUNDRY novels (i.e. THE ATROCITY ARCHIVE) in which we have all the Cthulhoid nasties of HP Lovecraft, but it's all explained by maths. Oh, also Charlie's MERCHANT PRINCES books, which play like dynastic fantasy (the AMBER books are a touchstone for the series) but have SF bones.

eventidepress · Jul 6, 2010

dgiharris said:
There is also a lot of Sci-Fi that makes use of the psychic element.

Dune series does that too

There's also books like Scott Westerfeld's Peeps, which I would argue is a kind of science fantasy -- the story is fantasy, since it features pseudo-vampires, but their existence and biology is completely scientifically explained, so thoroughly that I could believe they really existed

And there's no magical reasoning/etc. involved.

VileZero · Sep 23, 2010

I'm writing a sci-fi/fantasy combination right now, and I'm really loving it.

My biggest influence in this genre is the video game Chrono Trigger. Played it on the SNES in like the 5th grade and it blew me away. I've been replaying it on my DS lately, and it's every bit as superb as it was back then - perhaps more now that I can fully wrap my head around the plot.

eyeblink · Sep 24, 2010

I've just read Mary Gentle's novel Ash ( a single volume in the UK, a four-book series in the US) and I would say that it qualifies. It says "Fantasy" on the back cover, and it's basically the story of a female mercenary in 15th Century Europe (with a 20th/21st century framing story) but its premise, not to give too much away, involves quantum mechanics.

Novels that are both SciFi and Fantasy.

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