Has this idea been done before?

[BcRedneck]

As I write this last book of my series I have been kind of upset that this will be the end of my characters. Then yesterday I got my next idea. I'm going to try a fantasy book, but not swords and bows and sh*t. Well not much anyway. I want to have it set in the bitter end of that with guns motorcycles and sparse technology of various levels. With magic (This will be science friendly no energy out of nowhere it must be absorbed). I want the world to be fighting between those who wish to bring industrial revolution and those who don't want change crushing the rest between them. two mains separated till the last half.
And the most important part no one is truly good or evil.
I lived in a population were 32% of the people had murdered others for 2 years. (colony farms B.C.) No one person can be fully evil only somewhere in the middle if you claim they can be measured at all

 

[Flaviosky]

Well, there's plenty of anime series that involve technology and "magic", or better put, fantasy themes laid out in a more technological/futuristic setting (instead of a medieval one).

Obviously that's no standard as usually these stories just dump worldbuilding and exposition in the first two episodes and no depth is given to how the magic and the science interact whatsoever.

Considering my next project involves a very similar challenge, my approach was to incorporate magic themes but build a rough scientific explanation (genetic modification and nanotechnology to explain super-human abilities). In that sense, there's a difference on how deep you want to go with the "science", resulting either with a "space opera" with soft treatment of it or a straightforward science fiction story where technical aspects are more important. I was told to go with the first, as that leaves more space to plot than worldbuilding itself.

I like your idea, but shifting the "industrial revolution" to a discovery or development of a breakthrough new technology (I don't know, it may be the discovery of FTL travel, the achiviement of farming dark energy, etc). Obviously there are many ways to lay out the conflict, be it political, social, and you may want to zoom into a certain aspect of the struggle.

A grey moral setting as you lay out needs characters that go along with that. You may want a good guy, a bad guy, and anti-hero that plays in the middle, but you can't dispense with the good versus evil theme, because that's roughly human nature.

 

[JS Wiig]

The answer to this question is almost always 99.99999% of the time “yes”.

 

[BcRedneck]

The idea I had for the magic thing was since energy can not be created or destroyed only converted or stored. Was to give them each a force say the people of fire would burn things to absorb it and sh*t like that. I don't know my knowledge base is drugs, guns, crime, mental illness, science, machinery, and electronics. Other than ice and fire and the Mazlan book of the fallen I have not read to much fantasy.

As for good and evil in human nature I lived with the worst criminals in B.C. for 2 years. For f*ck sake I met a guy who had removed a guys head to drink his blood and at least one person who killed each member of immediate family you could have. (Don't believe me look at Canada NCRMD cases. I'm the guy who lost it and tried to burn down a cop shop.) Not one person I met was pure evil. I'm talking about people who did sh*t you couldn't comprehend and these guys conduct themselves is a morally acceptable manner, even go out of their way to improve the lives of people around them. It was a shocking experience to meet these people live with them and then find out what they had done.

 

[Guttersnipe]

That combination of science and magic, or magic that follows scientific rules, makes me think of Robert A Heinlein's Magic, Inc.

Magic, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org