Fantasy Book Club discussion

The majority of fantasy I have read has been medieval and I'm very interested in finding something futuristic. I quite like political storylines but also something that does involve some sort of magic. Something similar to the star wars universe.

Hi Jordan,

I'm a fantasy writer as well as a scientist. I did write a single book, The Doomsday Genie, in which the artificially created "entity" developed a kind of life of its own, albeit a terrible one . . . It is based on scientific concepts and somewhat futuristic.

All the best,

Frank

If you want a bit of humour too, Jordan, you could give this a go: .

A futuristic mix of fantasy and sci-fi, with flying cars and magic portals. It's free too… bonus.

On a Pale Horse is the first book of a series, set in the future, about humans who adopt roles, called Incarnations, of supposed universal constants, such as Death, Fate, and War.
Another series you might like includes WebMage, Cybermancy, Codespell, etc. Greek gods, magic, and Necessity as a supercomputer.

Prince of Thorns is a sci-fi/ fantasy series. That may be a little of a spoiler, but you did ask!

I'll have a look at these. Thanks guys. I've actually read Prince of Thorns and didn't love it, but feel like I might give the next book a try

I loved on a pale horse, the entire incarnations series actually. Some years since I read it though.

David wrote: "I loved on a pale horse, the entire incarnations series actually. Some years since I read it though."

Some were better than others. Death, War, Fate, and Evil were the ones I liked best. Time, Nature, and Good, were meh. Been a while since I read them too.

I'd measure them same, Marc, though I did like Time for the complication.

David wrote: "I'd measure them same, Marc, though I did like Time for the complication."

I'm an ethicist at heart. Character actions and good/evil are what makes a book for me. Plus I think the writing was just abysmal in And Eternity.

Have you considered - I know, old and old-fashioned - Pern?

For the most part, the Pern series are fantasy novels, but they have a SF background, which sometimes pokes through.

In particular, I remember really liking (though i've not re-read it in years so maybe it'll turn out I was just mad at the time) Dragonsdawn, which is essentially a prequel to Pern. It's about a group of colonists settling on a new planet, after a giant space war. It's mostly about the (intentionally simple, unsophisticated) colony, of course, but it sounds like a sort of Star Wars-y background world: space fighter battles, several alien species, but also telepathy. And of course the Pern stories in general feature dragons and teleportation.

The Left Hand of Darkness has fantasy elements, although I suppose I'd classify it as sci-fi, and is intensely political.

Well, there's Andre Norton's Dread Companion, which is definitely both far-future SF and fantasy.

So is Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright

Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle has manned spaceflight in what is definitely a fantasy world. Oddly enough it's an alternate history too: a world in which Greek science is RIGHT -- a spaceship gets tangled in some epicycles -- and we still had Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

As far as science fantasy, you might try Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance or Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe or A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The most deliberately Star Wars-feeling series that I can think of is Margaret Weis' Star of the Guardians books -- King's Test, etc.

You'd love The Quantum Thief and its two sequels by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's science fiction in a post-singularity world, where myth and metaphor have taken on a life of their own through technology.

Jordan wrote: "I'll have a look at these. Thanks guys. I've actually read Prince of Thorns and didn't love it, but feel like I might give the next book a try"

I was so so on Prince but I really loved King of Thorns and Emperor of Thorns. You got a lot more of the science-based magic and futuristic stuff. Very Fringe-like elements.

The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff and all that follow.

I liked the look of a few of these. Thanks for the recommendations. I may try king of thorns at some point considering I already have it.