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High Tech Vs. High Fantasy
see317
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for a new book, figured someone here would be able to point me in the right direction.
I'm looking for something where a high tech sci-fi world runs into a stereo typical high fantasy world.
I've read Blade of Tyshalle by Stover and the only other book I can think of along these lines off the top of my head is the second (or third?) book in the Darksword Trilogy by Weiss and Hickman which I haven't read for a while.
I figure there's got to be more out there along these lines, so point me in the right direction. Elves getting blown to bits by tanks, dragons immolating vast swaths of elite marines, gryphons tangling with attack choppers...
Help me H/A-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
I'm looking for something where a high tech sci-fi world runs into a stereo typical high fantasy world.
I've read Blade of Tyshalle by Stover and the only other book I can think of along these lines off the top of my head is the second (or third?) book in the Darksword Trilogy by Weiss and Hickman which I haven't read for a while.
I figure there's got to be more out there along these lines, so point me in the right direction. Elves getting blown to bits by tanks, dragons immolating vast swaths of elite marines, gryphons tangling with attack choppers...
Help me H/A-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
see317 on
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Never Deal With A Dragon
Also by David Weber is the novella Sword Brother, which involves a few soldiers from the modern world being transported into the high fantasy realm his War God series was based in.
Shadowrun fits your description perfectly, and there are multiple author's working within the shadowrun universe.
So if one of the author's doesn't tickle your fancy can try another, and any of the titles will give you a good overview of the world.
(And the one I'm reading right now has a party of 2 elves and an Ork, driving a Transport Tank, down the highway, with a Magic VS Laser Rifle Vs Tech Bows battle going on as they whip down the highway at high speed.)
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WiseManTobes, I've read a few Shadowrun books but it's been a while. May pick some up next time I hit the library or a used book store (if I can track one down).
FallingMan, The Void trilogy is good so far, but there isn't much interaction between the high tech and the magic. With the ending of the second book, it doesn't seem likely that the high tech world will have a chance to interact with the Waterwalker's world without screwing with the timeline to such an extent that Hamilton would have to rewrite the entire series.
Fair warning: A lot of Piers Anthony work has a strong subtheme of sexual deviance.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Man, I'm posting on the Penny-Arcade forums. I'm no stranger to sexual deviance.
Glad to hear it =P. I'd have felt bad if you'd come back here and said "Why the fuck did you recommend this?"
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
"Into the Shadows" is a collection of Short Stories written by several different authors, but all of them are related to each other in some way. It is quite interesting how the individual stories weave together to form a bigger story.
"Wolf and Raven" is a collection of Short Stories about two of the characters in "Into the Shadows", and the author really does a good job of rounding out Wolfgang Kies. The story about Baseball and how chipped players changed the game is particularly interesting. It keeps the spell-chuckers on the lowdown, too, so it doesn't feel like there are spellslinging mages around every corner.
"Burning Bright" details, through the eyes of a private detective, the events that happen before one of the biggest disasters in the Shadowrun universe, the fall of downtown Chicago. It keeps up the action and suspense, and although it is mage-centric, it's a pretty good read.
This book was mid way through a series, and I think was a sort of side-story or prequel, so I'm not sure how it reflects exactly on the rest of the series.
The book starts out with a very advanced setting, a spaceship heading toward some sort of battle against who is not entirely clear, but I think they were calling them demons. However, during the battle something happens and the ship is sent far away and crashes on an unknown planet. Many people die, and the ship is too badly damaged to ever fix, so they decide they'll have to stay. Thing is, the surviving crew is almost all female. The main character is a guy, and there may be a couple others, but everyone else is female. On top of that, they're not normal humans. The most distinct feature I remember is that they stay up in the mountains where they crashed not only because it's obscure and they won't be bothered, but because they're more acclimated to the cold. All the chapters dealing with the crashed survivors are past tense.
Meanwhile, the planet they've crashed on is in the middle of a full-blown fantasy backstabbery war for ascension, with various nations fighting it out and lots of scheming. There is magic, which is used for warfare in a very systematic way, mostly magic users who throw fireballs in battle. All the chapters told from the fantasy perspective, which I believe is primarily the viewpoint of the main villain, are in present tense.
The crash survivors build themselves a big tower to live in. These parts of the book are very heavy on the tools and technology they've lost as everyone deals with not knowing how to survive out in the wild, even though they still have some technology that survived the crash. They have to relearn or invent ways to make mortar and cook and hunt. From what I remember, since most of the survivors are combat marines, they all know how to use swords, but they also start making bows from scavenged material leftover from the ship. Using these special plastics and alloys they're able to make bows that are much, much stronger than anything the natives have. The captain of the ship, being pragmatic, orders the main character to impregnate many of the women, since he's the only guy around.
Another thing is that the main character learns that he has some sort of magical power that he only got when they came to that planet. He's able to forge metal and imbue it with magic or something. I want to say that his power is considered very rare by the natives and they call it black magic or something, in contrast to the regular magic used to throw fireballs.
Eventually the natives attack the crash survivors and a whole bunch of stuff goes down. I don't even remember if it was a particularly good book, but since I never bothered to look for other books in the series it may not have been that great.
Ring a bell for anyone? I'm finding it hard to google effectively.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Actually sounds vaguely like ElfQuest.
Or possibly... what is it... Spelljammers? The ships used by spacefaring elves that purported to be ancestors of all the elves in disparate fantasy settings like the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance?
I want to say that the author was French, but that's just a guess.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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The Fall of Angels from the Saga of Recluce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Recluce
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Bah, you beat me to it. Almost every recluse book can stand alone (weirdly) because each is another addition to the world. The books that take place later in time (but weren't necessarily written later) keep making references to stories that became legend or myths, and these are actually (eventually) covered in another story. This one (The Fall of Angels) is one of the few books in the series (there's one other I've read) that actually has a sequel.
Also, if you read the books in the order they're written, there's an overarching theme of the magic, making "order" the good magic to begin with (Order magic is called black magic, because black is ordered, and white is a chaos of colors) but eventually (at least as far as I am in the series, about 1/2 way through) making "grey" magic much better, saying there are benefits to both types.
I found the books to be well-written, but emphasizing the seemingly trivial or day-to-day of life. So, while there are epic battles that are awesome, most of the book is them figuring out how to survive without their technology. This is true for all the books, many of which are coming-of-age stories. I enjoy the slower pace of the books, but many find them tedious or dull...just a warning.
The Incarnations series is more current tech + fantasy. For High Tech + fantasy Anthony has the Out Of Phaze series.
There's also Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter which is magic + science blended.
Not exactly what you described -- no elves or dragons -- but it's got awesome sci-fi technology that's created with magic. Imagine a band of filthy, bearded, 10th century viking warriors. Now give them all powered battle armor and see what happens.
In short, it's a retelling of the greatest stories of Norse mythology (which I find to be just about the most compelling in terms of mythology, for my taste anyway) in a sci-fi setting.
I was going to say that (as well as its semi-sequel The Dragons of Babel), though they are more a post-industrial revolution fantasy world than an explicit clash between fantasy and tech. Great book though.
Grunts by Mary Gentle has a lot of this sort of stuff, but I honestly cannot recommend it based on quality. It is bad.
In a sort of gentle deviation, the Wizardry series by Rick Cook involves a computer programmer teleported into a standard fantasy world, who then discovers that he can "program" magic (in words of fire hanging in midair, no less) and creates a rudimentary operating system, single-handedly inventing a new form of magic-casting. Lots of puns involving the word "daemon" are involved. The first one can be read online for free by the publisher here. It's entitled Wizard's Bane, the other Wizardry title there is an unfinished book the author decided to release after he quit writing following heart surgery.
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