Fantasy with Sci-Fi Past

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N. Tirion

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I read some of Wyrms (Orson Scott Card) a while ago and I liked the setting of having a vaguely sci-fi deep past with a fantasy present, and I really liked how half-remembered it was. The same thing in Memory of Earth (also Card). Are there other books like this out there?

EDIT: just realized this should be in another thread
 
N. Tirion said:
I read some of Wyrms (Orson Scott Card) a while ago and I liked the setting of having a vaguely sci-fi deep past with a fantasy present, and I really liked how half-remembered it was. The same thing in Memory of Earth (also Card). Are there other books like this out there?

EDIT: just realized this should be in another thread
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The Pern books, Dragon flight etc
 
N. Tirion said:
EDIT: just realized this should be in another thread
Click to expand...
No worries -- I'll move it to Book Discussion which is the right place for asking for recommendations.

As to which, it's been a while since I read it, but I'm pretty sure Jaine Fenn's Consorts of Heaven appears to be fantasy but has SF underpinnings, as does Ursula Le Guin's City of Illusions -- actually two other novellas of hers, Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile (all three found in the anthology Worlds of Illusion and Exile) have much the same Fantasy/SF vibe and are worth reading.
 
Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns had this kind of setting, and I have a feeling that Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is set in the far future, but comes across as fantasy.
 
Adrian Tchaikovsky's short stories have a Science Fiction story within with a Fantasy setting.

The Elder Race was brilliant, if a little maudlin. I also thought that The Experts Systems Brother and The Expert Systems Champion fit into this mold. All of them were very good.
 
Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein - the steerswomen (and men) are an order of travelling map makers and spreaders of news. Particularly popular with sailors as they have the most up to date coastal maps. The steerswomen collect information and have libraries and one particular steerswoman comes across a strange artefact, which kicks off the series. Each is a complete story on a larger arc, one book to go.

Some Sheri Tepper has that feel too - The Gate to Women's Country for example.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies, these have been immensely helpful. Your collective expertise is appreciated.
 
The Shannara universe by Terry Brooks

"Shannara is a series of high fantasy novels written by Terry Brooks, beginning with The Sword of Shannara in 1977 and concluding with The Last Druid which was released in October 2020; there is also a prequel, First King of Shannara. The series blends magic and primitive technology and is set in the Four Lands, which are identified as Earth long after civilization was destroyed in a chemical and nuclear holocaust called the Great Wars. By the time of the prequel First King of Shannara, the world had reverted to a pre-industrial state and magic had re-emerged to supplement science."

Shannara - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
The Warlock in Spite of Himself, and the sequel King Kobold, by Christopher Stasheff. Although the Science fiction past does intrude on the Fantasy present of the story sometimes.

And presumably other books that were added to the series, but I've only read the first two and can't vouch for what the others are like.
 
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Not a novel, but the game Horizon Zero Dawn is an excellent example of this.

The Babylon 5 episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars".

Edmund Cooper's novel, the Cloud Walker. (Great book)
 
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The sf is rather more present, but most of the action is taking place in a lower tech setting, with people from a lower tech planet. King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle. Love that book.
 
Count Brass by Michael Moorcock (and sequels) is set in Europe after a nuclear war. There's also a trilogy of novels set in a future dark age (more mock-historical than fantasy) about a king who discovers how to make Sten guns, and goes off to conquer the world. I can't remember who wrote that - maybe John Christopher.

The first section of A Canticle For Lebowitz almost fits the description.
 
Toby Frost said:
Count Brass by Michael Moorcock (and sequels) is set in Europe after a nuclear war. There's also a trilogy of novels set in a future dark age (more mock-historical than fantasy) about a king who discovers how to make Sten guns, and goes off to conquer the world. I can't remember who wrote that - maybe John Christopher.

The first section of A Canticle For Lebowitz almost fits the description.
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I think the series with the Sten guns is John Christopher's "Sword of the Spirits" YA trilogy, where Britain has reverted to a medieval type society after a long-ago nuclear war.
 
Yammerhant said:
I think the series with the Sten guns is John Christopher's "Sword of the Spirits" YA trilogy, where Britain has reverted to a medieval type society after a long-ago nuclear war.
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I believe you're right, and I was just thinking about this when Toby mentioned Count Brass.
 
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