#I'm gonna try and expand my borders a little so I can have the robots back in circulation. that makes two anthro fixes (sonic

[kunosoura]

So...how about that science fantasy? 😏

Alright, here goes

Science fantasy is a little hard to pin down. For me, if science fiction has, like, psionics but it's treated like any other technology, that's just science fiction to me (biotics in Mass Effect being one example). And if a fantasy story has a bit of a technological edge (like, steampunk aesthetics placing it during an industrial revolution) but it still largely explores fantastic themes, it's just fantasy that doesn't take place during the middle ages.

So to list some science fantasy I like:

Dune by Frank Herbert is more on the science fiction end of things, and a lot of the more mystical elements of it are deliberate in-universe fabrications... but there are still elements of the setting refusing to be explained scientifically (science-fiction scientifically), and even though the fantastic elements are fabricated, the effect they have on the world and narrative end up all too real.

Star Wars is probably the main example of Science Fantasy thrown around; it has all sorts of fun with its robots and space ships and AI, but the core of the story, at least for the main movies, is still a very mystical one regarding the Force. I'm not gonna tell you to go watch the movies, they're a mixed bag and they'll be fine without my cheerleading them, but I still really like the Knights of the Old Republic games. If you do explore the expanded universe, Legends especially, there's a lot of stories about people living average lives in this universe and reckoning with both the mass of technological civilization weighing over them and the mystical elements that dictate the conflicts in their lives, but the EU is another mixed bag (and it's honestly been too long since I've engaged with it).

Speaking of CRPGs, Arcanum is all about a fantasy world that's reckoning with an industrial revolution; as it turns out, a world with magic isn't all that compatible with a world run by the logic of technology, and the world itself is undergoing a sort of reckoning with its nature as a science fantasy world. It doesn't deliver on this as much as I'd like, but it's still a really good an interesting game.

Another one in the more fantasy-world end of the spectrum, The Iron Dragon's Daughter is one of my favorite books of all time. Taking place in an unseelie realm that irrevocably reflects all the worst aspects of our own, technology and magic become inseperable. Birth control medicine is an antifertility ritual, Dragons are steel death machines that resemble nuclear bomber planes as much as they do creatures, a fae child experiencing prophetic visions while on the verge of death from a beating rattles off Mcdonald's commercials; Magic Is Technology Is Magic and both dictate our lives in ways we can barely grasp. It's science fiction less in the sense that there are sweeping shots of space and more in the sense that it's extremely concerned with the relationship between humanity and technology. Maybe a border case but I genuinely look for every excuse to recommend it.

If you like weird old animation and can stomach Ralph Bakshi in particular, Wizards is an offbeat adult animated movie VERY concerned with the relationship between fascism and technology as they encroach into a fantasy world. One of my favorite endings to any movie, ever.

If you want something where the scifi elements feel more like Jules Verne, check out the His Dark Materials series. It's a little Young Adult in its prose, but as it goes on its themes become increasingly Gnostic.

Here's another videogame recommendation, if you like roguelikes (or want to try them out) - Caves of Qud is all about finding yourself on a world ripped straight out of an old scifi adventure, with dangerous fauna, ancient technology that you can tinker and fuck around with but never truly Get which indelibly shapes the landscape. Also, you can become a psychic so powerful that reality begins literally warping around you wherever you go, and assassins begin slipping in from other dimensions to kill you. Very atmospheric and evocative for a roguelike game.

oh um. does cave story count? there are androids and curses and witches.

There are more, but those are some of my favorites!

[beast-feast]

What am I doing being all depressed and shit c'mon I got kids. Boom problems solved. Crops flourishing. MILF era reached.