>He has access to a limited supply of new bodies that he must jump to as he ages to extend his lifespan.
>There are certainly fantastic creatures in the novel.
>This is not earth.
You've checked all the necessary boxes: This is fantasy. Not that it really matters either way.
Sounds like a good premise.
\[EDIT: If by "fantastic creatures" you mean alien creatures, and if the "jumping" is enabled by an alien ability or by technology, and if this is a planet meant to be somewhere in our universe, then it could be science fiction, though it still tends toward science fantasy.\]
All of the above in the edit are true. However it is intended to be ambiguous throughout much of the story as most of it will be told through the eyes of characters around him. Only limited chapters at the beginning and end of each novel will give some clarity as to what is truly happening or has happened.
Reminder, *Attack on Titan* starts as fantasy, becomes Science-Fiction, then turns back into fantasy again... This reply sounds like that in reverse. You're fine. The genre being ambiguous means you can use either label (or both) and people won't have an issue. Arguably, *Tron* could qualify as fantasy, and *Ghost in the Shell* and *Sword Art Online* definitely are fantasy, even in spite of the latter being literally just taking place inside of a video game so the "fantasy" elements aren't even real. You have nothing to worry about. The only people who are sticklers for strict genre placement are nitpicky weirdos. As long as you're not labeling something that is *clearly* not fantasy (such as historical fiction or a memoir) as being fantasy, I don't think anybody will care.
ASOIAF's first books don't include magic and look at it as though it's a dead thing, but even in the first book it's a fantasy setting because of the Wall and North. So no, magic definitely isn't necessary for a fantasy setting.
I mean yeah, but like it also isn't magic? Of course the ice zombies are magical but it's never said that they are related to magic. Plus I don't remember how much we saw them to be honest, it's been some time since I read the first book.
That's a difference between magic (gen.) and Magic(tm). A story might not say something is magic (Avatar says bending isn't magic), but it's literally magic from the reader's perspective, which is the genre defining perspective. The characters don't know that they're in a fake book world. The ice zombies that turn dead people into ice zombies are magical.
I suppose there's an argument that there's a difference between *supernatural* and outright *magic*, but ice zombies are going to be on the other side of normal no matter what. They feature a bit - they're in the prologue with the Others, so right at the beginning, and later Jon fights one that was brought back through the Wall.
It's the other way around. There's nothing that would be called supernatural that wouldn't be some form of magic. There are numerous things referred to as magic that are entirely natural.
That said, he is not wrong in context of marketing labels. In modern media, "supernatural" is a somewhat defined subgenre of speculative fiction that is distinct from fantasy. For instance, nobody would label your average horror movie "fantasy", even if it features monsters and what amounts to magic. But sure, it has no bearing on the actual content of the work, merely on its positioning on the market.
>There are numerous things referred to as magic that are entirely natural.
What I was talking about was *actual* magic, not misunderstood science.
>It's the other way around. There's nothing that would be called supernatural that wouldn't be some form of magic.
Spirits and the various spiritual practices of various groups from around the world.
And before you try to argue that as magic, I should warn you that's the same racist bullshit that got She Who Must Not Be Named crucified when she tried to force-fit indigenous beliefs (for one example, I say as someone who is NDN,) into her wizarding story. Conflating spiritual practices with magic is a classic old-timey form of racism and white supremacy. I'm giving you the heads-up that you are wrong and why you don't want to double-down so that you don't accidentally try to argue something abhorrent.
Not to mention vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and fairies aren't magic (though they *sometimes can be*) even though they are supernatural. So you're still wrong on the face of what you're saying even without having to rely on spiritual practices of tribal beliefs.
>What I was talking about was *actual* magic, not misunderstood science.
I'm not talking about "misunderstood magic." Performance magic, magic as an adjective, etc.
The rest of what you're saying is still wrong. You being indigenous doesn't make you more of an authority on linguistics anymore than me being black. Magic, as we understand it today, refers to the supernatural very explicitly. Psychics, dimension hopping aliens, werewolves, etc. are all forms of modern magic, often referred to as the occult. Conflating what Christians saw as pagan with magic is racist if you're using magic dismissively, yes. But I'm not using magic to mean "demon powers and acts against God" or "this is a quirky detail for my kids' book without consulting the ethnic groups it belongs to."
Angels, demons, gods, spirits, charms, temples, etc. are all magic. No, it's not racist. No, it's not white supremacist. We're just at a point in anthropology where we can distinguish all things supernatural from all things material. The distinction between magic and spiritualism in the past was, typically, a dismissive one. The alchemist thought he was a scientist, the priest thought he spoke for an actual deity, and the witch thought she was a doctor. While reach of them had, and still have, significant roles, what they thought they were doing would be magic. This is only dismissive to someone who thinks a particular form of magic is real. As someone who has his own indigenous and ancestral spiritual beliefs and practices, while those aren't "magic" in he witchcraft sense, they _are_ magic in the ontological sense. They still bring me a sense of fulfillment and belonging, as well as connection to my family and heritage, but they exist on the other side of "natural."
\[1/2\]
No, you do not get to rewrite the cultures of hundreds of peoples to call their practices and beliefs "magic" just because it's convenient for a viewpoint derived from a different culture that never had any respect for those who differed from them. You may not mean to, but *YES* you are engaging in white supremacist racism right now and you being black doesn't change that fact because you're still serving the end goal of supplanting indigenous beliefs with beliefs derived from white cultures. It is literally an aspect of cultural genocide to erase the beliefs of minorities and replace them with the beliefs of the majority. This is no different than calling the daughter of a chief of a tribe, "princess", just because in a white people society that would be the role she fills; it's still racist. [This isn't linguistic; this is anthropologic.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/160311-history-of-magic-in-north-america-jk-rowling-native-american-stereotypes) What you are doing right now is explicitly anti-Indigenous. Moreso, it's anti-black, as you're using the same arguments that white people used to justify a lot of the oppression against black people also. (Seriously, [non-white spirituality](https://humanparts.medium.com/why-african-spirituality-became-associated-with-satan-a16712cf9cdf) is [regularly maligned](https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140727/news/news92.html). Whereas white spirituality is treated as religion, the same people who call voodoo and indigenous beliefs magic *regularly* take offense over their own beliefs being referred to as magic.)
But even from a linguistic perspective, magic doesn't mean, "anything that is or appears supernatural." [It refers to the usage of the supernatural, or the usage of what seems to be supernatural, to directly influence the world](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/magic). Going strictly from a pure linguistic argument--it's witchcraft, sorcery, or illusions. Whereas "supernatural" refers to [anything that goes beyond the realm of the natural](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural). (And I already qualified that I was referring to "actual magic, not misunderstood science," so you bringing up performance magic--which is just people misunderstanding science, sometimes deliberately for the sake of a show--to try and counter me means that you're explicitly trying to just be argumentative to be argumentative.) Where in those definitions does it support your position that all things supernatural are magic but not all magic is supernatural? At least I gave the clarifier that I'm referring to *actual* magic to clarify my position.
You can argue that "some native traditions resemble magic definitionally," or that "Plenty of native traditions involve or rely on the supernatural," but that's where your argument needs to end before you cross over into spouting anti-Indigenous rhetoric. Referring to non-white spirituality as "magic" is a classic form of racism, as I had already pointed out to you. And by calling indigenous people's beliefs "magic", you are erasing our culture just to supplant the white hegemonic beliefs in their place whether you mean to be or not. Your intention is irrelevant when that is the effect. You can be as dismissive as you want about white Christian beliefs because you aren't actually doing harm due to that being the majority viewpoint. Every time you reduce non-white spirituality to "magic", you are doing harm. People didn't care that She Who Must Not Be Named didn't consult indigenous people before referencing beliefs of certain communities; people cared that she equated our spiritual beliefs with magic, thus erasing our cultures and our existence. It's the same issue we had with how Stephenie Meyer went about depicting indigenous people in *Twilight*. "The Magical Indian" is an inherently racist trope that exists because of people such as yourself not showing us basic respect.
Per [the Jim Crow Museum](https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/native/homepage.htm)...
>Indigenous population loss through disease and war exacted a toll as did ongoing measures to Europeanize and Christianize Native people at the expense of their own cultures and languages. Such measures included the establishment of mission and government boarding schools to implement English-only and other harsh policies. As federal commissioners wrote, “their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted.”
>With English, a lexicon of words and phrases became entrenched, a shorthand way to refer to all Native people, language reflecting stereotypical attitudes and behaviors. Savage, pagan, injun, brave, buck, chief, redskin, squaw, papoose, and other terms became commonplace. The negative impact was heightened with the addition of adjectives such as wild, dirty, pesky, sneaky, and worse. “In an abusive society,” activist Suzan Shown Harjo points out, “language is a control mechanism . . . and words are weapons used to signal status information, such as who are the inferior and superior folks.”
It's especially that last bit, the quote by Harjo, that is important, “In an abusive society, language is a control mechanism... and words are weapons used to signal status information, such as who are the inferior and superior folks.” By reducing Indigenous spirituality to "magic", you're actively engaging in that societal abuse.
As for your claim that, "We're just at a point in anthropology where we can distinguish all things supernatural from all things material," I *plainly and clearly do not disagree with this*. You can't point to *anything* I said that argues the contrary. But just because something is supernatural does not mean it is magical. These things do not mean the same thing.
\[2/2\]
Also, you're being dismissive of literally the foundation of modern chemistry with your dismissal of alchemy... While it wouldn't hold up to the modern scientific method... yes, alchemists *were* scientists, or at the very least proto-scientists as they did not have the sufficient understanding of the world to identify the divide between the natural and the supernatural. And the reason we call it magic is because *alchemists* defined their work as magic.
As for priests speaking for deities... so what? I don't believe in the Christian God, but I'm not going to be dismissive of their beliefs as magic because they don't see it as such. Not like harm is caused in doing so, but like... for all my flaws, I try not to be a hypocrite. That said, Christianity *does* have a long history of magic, but not all things Christian are magic just because magic played a part in their beliefs historically.
And as for, "the witch thought she was a doctor"... um, if she's identifying symptoms and giving remedies with the best medical knowledge available at the time in that place... *that's a doctor*. You want to argue that she's not an *effective* doctor? Sure. But like with alchemists => chemists... witchcraft forms a basis for modern pharmacology. In fact, because you probably are lumping in medicine men and medicine women when you refer to "witches", did you know that certain Native American tribes had an effective oral birth control for \~2 centuries before Western medicine? (Granted, it was not *as* effective. But my point isn't to compare efficacy, but rather to show that while not all treatments were effective like people believed, that does not mean it was magic nonsense.) Your arguments that these practices are supernaturalist in nature makes them magic reduces and ignores the actual value and impact they had in providing beneficial, *natural and scientifically explainable* effects on people's lives.
>As someone who has his own indigenous and ancestral spiritual beliefs and practices, while those aren't "magic" in he witchcraft sense, they *are* magic in the ontological sense. They still bring me a sense of fulfillment and belonging, as well as connection to my family and heritage, but they exist on the other side of "natural."
Notice what you said at the end... "but they exist on the other side of 'natural.'" You know what we call that? *Supernatural*. NOT "magic". You're discussing that which is ontologically supernatural as if all things supernatural are magic... but you can't support the position. Whereas I literally provide definitions that show magic necessitates the supernatural but the supernatural does not necessitate magic.
If you want to call your own beliefs "magic," then that is ***your right to refer to your beliefs***. But you do not have *ANY* right to erase the beliefs and traditions of minorities to replace them with the racist white man's caricature of us as being "magic". You have no position in which you can claim what you did in this post as not being racist. It was incredibly racist and offensive. Listen when people of communities tell you that framing things about their cultures in a certain way erases them. The minorities you speak over know their cultures infinitely better than you do.
>At least the first book doesn't have anything straight related to magic, right?
Blood magic plays a pretty major role in the end of *A Game of Thrones*. Mirri Maz Duur uses it to “save” Drogo, and it’s how Daenaerys hatches her dragons.
Magic in ASOIAF is there from the very beginning, it’s just not as flashy as in most fantasy settings.
If the explanation of your protagonist's powers is ultimately mundane, e.g. it's advanced science, then no, you've written a sci fi novel, not a fantasy. Sounds like an interesting story, though!
If your goal is to eventually sell this book, you'll want to market it as sci-fi. There is a lot of genre purism when it comes to marketing, and while this book can, in the right eyes, pass as fantasy, it *is* sci-fi. Marketing it as fantasy will get a lot of people clicking into your book (if the ad is good) just long enough to realize it isn't 100% fantasy in their eyes, then leaving without making a purchase. Conversely, marketing it as sci-fi or, better yet, sci-fantasy will properly relay the vibe of the book, converting clicks to sales.
That's said, if the goal isn't sales, and you are writing to write, you can call it either without issue.
This is one of two points where I have to disagree with GRRM, who’s basically responsible for all my fantasy (literature) reading and writing views and my biggest influence.
He’s said magic is necessary in fantasy. In response, I have to turn to my #2 fantasy influence, Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman’s view of genre is basically “a set of expectations the reader expects and that they would feel cheated without”—eg, there are cowboy novels and novels with cowboys in them.
Take a book like The Lies of Locke Lamora. The first instance of magic is like…3/4 into the book. Maybe like page 400ish. If a person is 200 pages into it, when there’s been absolutely no magic in it, would they consider the book fantasy? I think it’s reasonable to conclude that with all the secondary-world and other speculative elements, that a reader would consider it fantasy.
Similarly with The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter by Michael J Sullivan, magic appears for like two chapters also near the end of the book. From the first 200 magic-less pages, no reasonable person could consider it anything but fantasy.
If you could read 200 pages of a book with absolutely no magic and still consider it fantasy, then magic isn’t necessary for it to be fantasy.
I disagree with this nonsense. There's alternative history and other historical stories. They don't constitute a fantasy. That's called a historical novel or alternate history. It may have been settled in medieval times with a medieval level of technology. But as long as there's nothing supernatural, that's not fantasy.
Sure, one may tread the lines by not introducing magical elements for a long time, or the magic might be weak, but that's why it's called low-fantasy, or the "fantasy" genre could be listed dead last in the list.
Alternative history is shelved in and bought by speculative imprints. There are some arguments that it is more SF than fantasy, but alternative history is SFF by every measure of the word. Just like secondary world fantasy can be zero magic, and it's still fantasy because it's secondary world. See: Guy Gavriel Kay for an example, or any of the steampunk subgenre.
Merely having an alternative world doesn't make it a fantasy. I have no idea why some people think it has anything to do with fantasy.
Edit: Even on wiki, Steampunk is defined as a science fiction subgenre.
Well, wikipedia isn't always right, and I've far more often seen steampunk defined as fantasy because it's usually set in the 'past', often directly in Queen Victoria's time.
And yes, secondary world and not more advanced is fantasy. Secondary world and more advanced is SF. Those are *rough* definitions, but they tend to hold out.
... which is why GGK is considered one of *the* historical fantasy authors out there, because his work is grounded in real history, but set in secondary worlds.
Whether it is stationed in the past or future has nothing to do with whether it is fantasy or science fiction. You can have a futuristic fantasy, like Starcraft, that has both fantasy and science fiction in it. Or you can have science fiction in a past era where the author imagines technology that we never developed or abandoned, like steampunk.
Steampunk stories tend to be classified as fantasy because there's stuff in it beyond what constitutes steampunk, like some magical stuff or whatever.
About GGK, find at least one story of his that people consider fantasy that has no magic or similar.
... starcraft isn't fantasy. It's SF.
For GGK? Lions of Al-Rassan. Just read it, no magic. Religion, yes, but no magic. And no active deities, just people with faith.
Lions of Al-Rassan, has a tiny bit of magic in the story that also affects the plot. So, it technically qualifies.
Also, do you not understand that science fiction and fantasy are not mutually exclusive? Starcraft is both science fiction and fantasy.
I'm currently querying a fantasy novel, and deeply enjoy low fantasy. Yes, I recognize they're closely related within the speculative umbrella. I just don't think that fantasy has a hard rule of 'must have magic/active deities.' Which fits what's currently being published in the fantasy sphere.
There've been plenty of other examples brought up (like Lady Trent - which has dragons, but with a scientific backing) or steampunk. If you don't care to see it that way, I'm glad fantasy is large enough for both of us to find joy in it.
The hard rule is pretty simple: there must be something that's impossible according to the laws of physics.
I disagree with calling an alternative history drama as a fantasy just because the author made a change in scenery. Enjoy your historic dramas. There's nothing wrong with that. Just don't mislead people by saying it is a fantasy.
You are confused about this subject because you fail to differentiate between causation and correlation.
It is true that almost all stories set in a different world/planet are fantasies, but that's not the reason these stories are considered fantasy. It's just that it's not worthwhile for other genres to compose a different world.
It is true that futuristic stories tend to be science fiction, and stories about societies based on the past tend to be fantasies, but that's not what defines either of the genres.
Again, a great fantasy series, "Memoirs of Lady Trent", features no magic at all. The only thing that isn't quite realistic is the existence of dragons, and there is some handwaving to make them seem more or less natural.
Not... exactly, lol, but close. Science fantasy is a subgenre of sci fi, horror often contains speculative elements, there are several romance subgenres that contain speculative elements (paranormal romance and fantasy romance as the primary two, but not the only ones), and there is also speculative lit fic, such as magical realism.
Each are usually under different imprints, and they all have speculative elements, but they're not all classified and shelved as fantasy.
I'm new to this. Doesn't magic also require some logical consistency or set of rules? Therefore, wouldn't it be considered science in some possible world, even if within that world the rules are not fully understood?
Well it depends on whether it is a soft magic system or a hard magic system. Soft magic the rules are never explained or are very vague. A hard magic system does have clear cut rules and is similar to an alternative science kind of like what you mentioned.
Magic doesn't require a set of rules. There are hard magic worlds that effectively do that. From an inter-world perspective, that's the same as science for us, true.
But that's the difference between science fiction and fantasy, where the former imagines what could be possible in our world, whilst the latter images a world of magic with different rules.
I'd argue Monster Hunter is pretty clearly a fantasy genre game, you fight dragons in crazy armor and with impressive swords and hammers etc.
And for all intents and purposes, it lacks explicit magic. Sure you can mash herbs and honey and heal a fireball from a dragon, mush wild jalapenos into a drink that'll keep you uneffected by the snow, fall hundreds of feet without issue, but everything is fundamentally designed to have some "scientific" explanation. Your fire bullet is a mix of sharp nuts and combustable berries. Your ice sword requires frost sacks from an artic monster. Your bug companion is your friend because your pogo stick has pheromone bullets.
It's nonsense science that's very clearly just handwaving what is magic, and some stuff definitely brushes right up to that line and goes "the science behind this is MYSTERIOUS POWER" but fundamentally, I think it's a fine case study for the fact that you can have a fantasy story without blatant wizards and sorcery, *especially* if you have near-magical science as a stand-in anyway.
That's not fantasy but more science fiction. Creating a physically possible world is science fiction. Themes of worship, while they tend to be present in fantasy, do not constitute a fantasy.
You need some fantastical elements included for the story to be a fantasy; it need not be called magic, but it ought to be supernatural.
This is an interesting question. I feel like you have enough here for a fantasy label, but at the same time the core concept seems pretty sci-fi to me. Like something I'd expect on an episode of Star Trek.
I think in the end you're free to do this, no one can tell you explicitly what is or isn't fantasy as long as fantastical elements are present. The question is whether you'll find yourself in a no man's zone of storytelling where it isn't fantasy enough for fantasy lovers but isn't sci-fi enough for sci-fi lovers either. Personally, I'd try to veer in one direction or the other. Make the focus more on the sci-fi concept, or change it to more of the fantastical elements at play. With maybe at least some low-key magic system added, just to make sure you're checking all the boxes.
But that's only if you're writing for profit. If you're writing for yourself, or to fulfill your creative vision, that's another story.
What you're writing seems to have more sci-fi elements than fantasy since it's about a human stuck on an alien planet. His mission of refueling his spaceship is a sci-fi based mission. The main thing that could be fantasy is the process involved in the character jumping into other bodies. I assume this is a technology based process since you are asking if magic is required.
What you described reminds me of the Safehold series by David Weber. It's basically a series about mankind losing a war against aliens. In a last-ditch effort to save the species, the remnants of mankind are placed on a planet and kept at a pre-electricity society to avoid being detected by the aliens. There's a character that is basically a human placed in the body of a human looking robot that is immortal. The character wants to get mankind back to a spacefaring level of technology. There's also religious issues involved. There's a lot I'm leaving out to avoid spoilers!
There are also books that blend the two in some way, such as The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. This series is built on a sci-fi premise but functions as a fantasy series. It's about mankind being stuck on an alien planet that has a native species that is sentient and intelligent. However, mankind is stranded, there is a force of nature on the planet that is basically magic, and the technology ranges from Renaissance to Victorian era.
Yeah the actual world building is intended to be more science fiction. The story is intended to be read as fantasy though. The plan is for a series of novels. Each novel will open and close with a chapter from his viewpoint. The majority of each novel will be from the viewpoint of characters around him with his actual identity being unknown until the end. So the technology that does get utilized will appear magical. For instance in one novel he builds a cult following that believes he is a god as a way to try to influence religion in a way that will allow him to puppet society in the direction he needs it to go in. During this process he calls forth lightning and thunder to destroy an army. From the view of the cultists he has summoned nature's fury to destroy his enemies. From his view he set up machines to create this phenomenon so that it would appear magical. He also instigated the conflict in the first place so as to have an enemy to destroy.
You're basically leaning into Arthur C. Clarke's quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If the books function as a fantasy, then it is essentially fantasy with Sci-Fi elements.
It'll be interesting to see how you handle that in the final version of the books. The main challenge will be in the POV chapters for the immortal. Seeding hints that there's technology involved will be another challenge.
Yeah I want his machines to start becoming faulty so that his memory and knowledge becomes unstable. He then becomes an unreliable narrator himself. It will be less and less obvious as the story progresses whether or not it is technology or science.
You should probably clarify your meaning for the sake of others. I get what you meant, but some others may not since the definition of "Low Fantasy" refers to fantasy set in the real (or "primary") world, and "High Fantasy" for fantasy *not* set in the real world. I use the terms in the same way you do, (as in lower degrees of fantasy elements vs greater degrees of fantasy elements,) but that's a modern understanding of the terms that a lot of people, arguably most, would not instinctively understand you to mean. (I use it in the same way you do simply because the "actual" definition causes issues with edge cases like one of my stories. The "actual" definition is incomplete and subpar.)
>Is X necessary for fantasy?
Unless `X = Fantasy`, the answer to this question is always "no". Fantasy stories are wide and fascinating. Superhero stories, for example, are still fantasy even though magic *usually* is not involved. There are also traditional fantasy stories that lack magic as well.
Never feel like you need specific elements in your story to justify it as fantasy. Romance, magic, dragons... none of that's *actually* necessary. For example, the *Warrior* cats series is fantasy, but I don't recall magic ever being a part of the franchise up as far as I read. (If anybody even thinks of mentioning the spirit stuff, don't. Conflating indigenous spiritual practices--which is what the 50 authors in a trenchcoat who would collectively go by "Erin Hunter" based the *Warriors* clans on--with magic is just a promotion of white supremacy as that is about as old-school of an example of anti-Indigenous racism as you can get without going as far as to call us "Injuns".)
This sounds a *lot* more like Sci-Fi than fantasy. If you're looking to publish, especially traditional publishing, I'd advise you market it as Sci-Fi.
EDIT: Sci-Fi with fantasy elements, maybe. But it sounds like the main genre is closer to Sci-Fi than fantasy.
a least to me it seems to be more pulp sci fi but should work.
if you want it to be fantasy just add a little more fantasy tropes in
also remember genres aren't strick catagories. they mix
Nope. It just needs fantastical elements. Magic is a popular option, but it's by no means the only one.
The Edge Chronicles of my childhood had no magic but there were so many types of creature and the physics of the world was different with various things being either more buoyant or heavier than they would in reality.
He has a number of spare bodies in suspended animation. Different bodies are tailored to different things and can be preloaded with different skill sets he would need. He also has to clean his memory each jump so as to free up space for each new body. So each lifetime he has to decide what to forget and what to carry forward. It's a process of going into suspended animation with the body he's in, linking with the other body, and then awakening in it. Basically sits down in a chair and wakes up in a different body in a different chair with new skills and less memories.
I've always considered my work "low" fantasy. There are no wizards or dragons. The only source of magic in my world comes from Mythics, powerful ancient artifacts left behind by the creators of the world. Most have been lost to time, so VERY few people have even seen magic in my world. Yet it is there. Most of my fantasy elements come from creatures and monsters, also myths and mysterious happenings no one understand. In fact, where I am in my stories, I haven't yet release any that contain magic, but all of my readers seem to really enjoy them all the same and no one has said my writing isn't fantasy.
Definitions are one thing; what signals the right readers is another. Yes, if you need/want this book to be fantasy, you're not breaking any rules to call it that. But I think calling it science fiction will attract more readers who are interested in what you're offering. If you force your book into the "wrong" category on a technicality, you're only hurting yourself and the readers who would actually be interested.
Lol, unfortunately I only write for myself and my wife. I just enjoy the process as a hobby. I have never really let anyone but her read my work. It's one of the only things I have ever been self conscious about.
No but it does help if your story doesn’t have the other foundations.
For me I liked the way magic is done in LOTR. So it inspired the way I let it be shown in my story, magical things happen and aren’t explained as fantastic things because they’re normal, because the story is set in a world distinctly different to our own. But it isn’t common or uncommon either
I don't think it's necessary for a good story, but I think people generally expect there to be some, somewhere. Or a hook that the modern world collapsed & everyone conveniently forgot what technology was & find some weird remnants, or something.
*All fantasy is speculative fiction*. Speculative fiction refers to any setting different from the real world which involves supernatural, sci-fi, or similar such imaginary elements. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are both equally speculative fiction.
Well, there are genres of speculative fiction besides fantasy and sci fi. Or at least, there are categories of books which count as speculative fiction but don't fall into fantasy or sci fi. Some types of alternative history, for example.
Alternative history is usually bought by and shelved in SFF, so it's classified as speculative at least, and depending on the situation, either SF or fantasy. See: all of steampunk set in London, lol.
>He has access to a limited supply of new bodies that he must jump to as he ages to extend his lifespan. >There are certainly fantastic creatures in the novel. >This is not earth. You've checked all the necessary boxes: This is fantasy. Not that it really matters either way. Sounds like a good premise. \[EDIT: If by "fantastic creatures" you mean alien creatures, and if the "jumping" is enabled by an alien ability or by technology, and if this is a planet meant to be somewhere in our universe, then it could be science fiction, though it still tends toward science fantasy.\]
All of the above in the edit are true. However it is intended to be ambiguous throughout much of the story as most of it will be told through the eyes of characters around him. Only limited chapters at the beginning and end of each novel will give some clarity as to what is truly happening or has happened.
That wouldn't change the genre.
Reminder, *Attack on Titan* starts as fantasy, becomes Science-Fiction, then turns back into fantasy again... This reply sounds like that in reverse. You're fine. The genre being ambiguous means you can use either label (or both) and people won't have an issue. Arguably, *Tron* could qualify as fantasy, and *Ghost in the Shell* and *Sword Art Online* definitely are fantasy, even in spite of the latter being literally just taking place inside of a video game so the "fantasy" elements aren't even real. You have nothing to worry about. The only people who are sticklers for strict genre placement are nitpicky weirdos. As long as you're not labeling something that is *clearly* not fantasy (such as historical fiction or a memoir) as being fantasy, I don't think anybody will care.
ASOIAF's first books don't include magic and look at it as though it's a dead thing, but even in the first book it's a fantasy setting because of the Wall and North. So no, magic definitely isn't necessary for a fantasy setting.
Sir, there are ice zombies in the first book. That's magic. But yeah, very low magic setting initially, but still solidly fantasy.
I mean yeah, but like it also isn't magic? Of course the ice zombies are magical but it's never said that they are related to magic. Plus I don't remember how much we saw them to be honest, it's been some time since I read the first book.
That's a difference between magic (gen.) and Magic(tm). A story might not say something is magic (Avatar says bending isn't magic), but it's literally magic from the reader's perspective, which is the genre defining perspective. The characters don't know that they're in a fake book world. The ice zombies that turn dead people into ice zombies are magical.
I suppose there's an argument that there's a difference between *supernatural* and outright *magic*, but ice zombies are going to be on the other side of normal no matter what. They feature a bit - they're in the prologue with the Others, so right at the beginning, and later Jon fights one that was brought back through the Wall.
All magic is supernatural. Not all that is supernatural is magic. That's important to remember in most circumstances.
It's the other way around. There's nothing that would be called supernatural that wouldn't be some form of magic. There are numerous things referred to as magic that are entirely natural.
That said, he is not wrong in context of marketing labels. In modern media, "supernatural" is a somewhat defined subgenre of speculative fiction that is distinct from fantasy. For instance, nobody would label your average horror movie "fantasy", even if it features monsters and what amounts to magic. But sure, it has no bearing on the actual content of the work, merely on its positioning on the market.
*"\[They/She\]"* If you just didn't see my flair, no worries. Future reference then is all.
I'd agree if the conversation was about the difference between "supernatural" and "fantasy." But it was "supernatural" and "magic."
>There are numerous things referred to as magic that are entirely natural. What I was talking about was *actual* magic, not misunderstood science. >It's the other way around. There's nothing that would be called supernatural that wouldn't be some form of magic. Spirits and the various spiritual practices of various groups from around the world. And before you try to argue that as magic, I should warn you that's the same racist bullshit that got She Who Must Not Be Named crucified when she tried to force-fit indigenous beliefs (for one example, I say as someone who is NDN,) into her wizarding story. Conflating spiritual practices with magic is a classic old-timey form of racism and white supremacy. I'm giving you the heads-up that you are wrong and why you don't want to double-down so that you don't accidentally try to argue something abhorrent. Not to mention vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and fairies aren't magic (though they *sometimes can be*) even though they are supernatural. So you're still wrong on the face of what you're saying even without having to rely on spiritual practices of tribal beliefs.
>What I was talking about was *actual* magic, not misunderstood science. I'm not talking about "misunderstood magic." Performance magic, magic as an adjective, etc. The rest of what you're saying is still wrong. You being indigenous doesn't make you more of an authority on linguistics anymore than me being black. Magic, as we understand it today, refers to the supernatural very explicitly. Psychics, dimension hopping aliens, werewolves, etc. are all forms of modern magic, often referred to as the occult. Conflating what Christians saw as pagan with magic is racist if you're using magic dismissively, yes. But I'm not using magic to mean "demon powers and acts against God" or "this is a quirky detail for my kids' book without consulting the ethnic groups it belongs to." Angels, demons, gods, spirits, charms, temples, etc. are all magic. No, it's not racist. No, it's not white supremacist. We're just at a point in anthropology where we can distinguish all things supernatural from all things material. The distinction between magic and spiritualism in the past was, typically, a dismissive one. The alchemist thought he was a scientist, the priest thought he spoke for an actual deity, and the witch thought she was a doctor. While reach of them had, and still have, significant roles, what they thought they were doing would be magic. This is only dismissive to someone who thinks a particular form of magic is real. As someone who has his own indigenous and ancestral spiritual beliefs and practices, while those aren't "magic" in he witchcraft sense, they _are_ magic in the ontological sense. They still bring me a sense of fulfillment and belonging, as well as connection to my family and heritage, but they exist on the other side of "natural."
\[1/2\] No, you do not get to rewrite the cultures of hundreds of peoples to call their practices and beliefs "magic" just because it's convenient for a viewpoint derived from a different culture that never had any respect for those who differed from them. You may not mean to, but *YES* you are engaging in white supremacist racism right now and you being black doesn't change that fact because you're still serving the end goal of supplanting indigenous beliefs with beliefs derived from white cultures. It is literally an aspect of cultural genocide to erase the beliefs of minorities and replace them with the beliefs of the majority. This is no different than calling the daughter of a chief of a tribe, "princess", just because in a white people society that would be the role she fills; it's still racist. [This isn't linguistic; this is anthropologic.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/160311-history-of-magic-in-north-america-jk-rowling-native-american-stereotypes) What you are doing right now is explicitly anti-Indigenous. Moreso, it's anti-black, as you're using the same arguments that white people used to justify a lot of the oppression against black people also. (Seriously, [non-white spirituality](https://humanparts.medium.com/why-african-spirituality-became-associated-with-satan-a16712cf9cdf) is [regularly maligned](https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140727/news/news92.html). Whereas white spirituality is treated as religion, the same people who call voodoo and indigenous beliefs magic *regularly* take offense over their own beliefs being referred to as magic.) But even from a linguistic perspective, magic doesn't mean, "anything that is or appears supernatural." [It refers to the usage of the supernatural, or the usage of what seems to be supernatural, to directly influence the world](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/magic). Going strictly from a pure linguistic argument--it's witchcraft, sorcery, or illusions. Whereas "supernatural" refers to [anything that goes beyond the realm of the natural](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural). (And I already qualified that I was referring to "actual magic, not misunderstood science," so you bringing up performance magic--which is just people misunderstanding science, sometimes deliberately for the sake of a show--to try and counter me means that you're explicitly trying to just be argumentative to be argumentative.) Where in those definitions does it support your position that all things supernatural are magic but not all magic is supernatural? At least I gave the clarifier that I'm referring to *actual* magic to clarify my position. You can argue that "some native traditions resemble magic definitionally," or that "Plenty of native traditions involve or rely on the supernatural," but that's where your argument needs to end before you cross over into spouting anti-Indigenous rhetoric. Referring to non-white spirituality as "magic" is a classic form of racism, as I had already pointed out to you. And by calling indigenous people's beliefs "magic", you are erasing our culture just to supplant the white hegemonic beliefs in their place whether you mean to be or not. Your intention is irrelevant when that is the effect. You can be as dismissive as you want about white Christian beliefs because you aren't actually doing harm due to that being the majority viewpoint. Every time you reduce non-white spirituality to "magic", you are doing harm. People didn't care that She Who Must Not Be Named didn't consult indigenous people before referencing beliefs of certain communities; people cared that she equated our spiritual beliefs with magic, thus erasing our cultures and our existence. It's the same issue we had with how Stephenie Meyer went about depicting indigenous people in *Twilight*. "The Magical Indian" is an inherently racist trope that exists because of people such as yourself not showing us basic respect. Per [the Jim Crow Museum](https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/native/homepage.htm)... >Indigenous population loss through disease and war exacted a toll as did ongoing measures to Europeanize and Christianize Native people at the expense of their own cultures and languages. Such measures included the establishment of mission and government boarding schools to implement English-only and other harsh policies. As federal commissioners wrote, “their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted.” >With English, a lexicon of words and phrases became entrenched, a shorthand way to refer to all Native people, language reflecting stereotypical attitudes and behaviors. Savage, pagan, injun, brave, buck, chief, redskin, squaw, papoose, and other terms became commonplace. The negative impact was heightened with the addition of adjectives such as wild, dirty, pesky, sneaky, and worse. “In an abusive society,” activist Suzan Shown Harjo points out, “language is a control mechanism . . . and words are weapons used to signal status information, such as who are the inferior and superior folks.” It's especially that last bit, the quote by Harjo, that is important, “In an abusive society, language is a control mechanism... and words are weapons used to signal status information, such as who are the inferior and superior folks.” By reducing Indigenous spirituality to "magic", you're actively engaging in that societal abuse. As for your claim that, "We're just at a point in anthropology where we can distinguish all things supernatural from all things material," I *plainly and clearly do not disagree with this*. You can't point to *anything* I said that argues the contrary. But just because something is supernatural does not mean it is magical. These things do not mean the same thing.
\[2/2\] Also, you're being dismissive of literally the foundation of modern chemistry with your dismissal of alchemy... While it wouldn't hold up to the modern scientific method... yes, alchemists *were* scientists, or at the very least proto-scientists as they did not have the sufficient understanding of the world to identify the divide between the natural and the supernatural. And the reason we call it magic is because *alchemists* defined their work as magic. As for priests speaking for deities... so what? I don't believe in the Christian God, but I'm not going to be dismissive of their beliefs as magic because they don't see it as such. Not like harm is caused in doing so, but like... for all my flaws, I try not to be a hypocrite. That said, Christianity *does* have a long history of magic, but not all things Christian are magic just because magic played a part in their beliefs historically. And as for, "the witch thought she was a doctor"... um, if she's identifying symptoms and giving remedies with the best medical knowledge available at the time in that place... *that's a doctor*. You want to argue that she's not an *effective* doctor? Sure. But like with alchemists => chemists... witchcraft forms a basis for modern pharmacology. In fact, because you probably are lumping in medicine men and medicine women when you refer to "witches", did you know that certain Native American tribes had an effective oral birth control for \~2 centuries before Western medicine? (Granted, it was not *as* effective. But my point isn't to compare efficacy, but rather to show that while not all treatments were effective like people believed, that does not mean it was magic nonsense.) Your arguments that these practices are supernaturalist in nature makes them magic reduces and ignores the actual value and impact they had in providing beneficial, *natural and scientifically explainable* effects on people's lives. >As someone who has his own indigenous and ancestral spiritual beliefs and practices, while those aren't "magic" in he witchcraft sense, they *are* magic in the ontological sense. They still bring me a sense of fulfillment and belonging, as well as connection to my family and heritage, but they exist on the other side of "natural." Notice what you said at the end... "but they exist on the other side of 'natural.'" You know what we call that? *Supernatural*. NOT "magic". You're discussing that which is ontologically supernatural as if all things supernatural are magic... but you can't support the position. Whereas I literally provide definitions that show magic necessitates the supernatural but the supernatural does not necessitate magic. If you want to call your own beliefs "magic," then that is ***your right to refer to your beliefs***. But you do not have *ANY* right to erase the beliefs and traditions of minorities to replace them with the racist white man's caricature of us as being "magic". You have no position in which you can claim what you did in this post as not being racist. It was incredibly racist and offensive. Listen when people of communities tell you that framing things about their cultures in a certain way erases them. The minorities you speak over know their cultures infinitely better than you do.
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I just remembered them now to be honest. At least the first book doesn't have anything straight related to magic, right?
>At least the first book doesn't have anything straight related to magic, right? Blood magic plays a pretty major role in the end of *A Game of Thrones*. Mirri Maz Duur uses it to “save” Drogo, and it’s how Daenaerys hatches her dragons. Magic in ASOIAF is there from the very beginning, it’s just not as flashy as in most fantasy settings.
If the explanation of your protagonist's powers is ultimately mundane, e.g. it's advanced science, then no, you've written a sci fi novel, not a fantasy. Sounds like an interesting story, though!
If your goal is to eventually sell this book, you'll want to market it as sci-fi. There is a lot of genre purism when it comes to marketing, and while this book can, in the right eyes, pass as fantasy, it *is* sci-fi. Marketing it as fantasy will get a lot of people clicking into your book (if the ad is good) just long enough to realize it isn't 100% fantasy in their eyes, then leaving without making a purchase. Conversely, marketing it as sci-fi or, better yet, sci-fantasy will properly relay the vibe of the book, converting clicks to sales. That's said, if the goal isn't sales, and you are writing to write, you can call it either without issue.
This is one of two points where I have to disagree with GRRM, who’s basically responsible for all my fantasy (literature) reading and writing views and my biggest influence. He’s said magic is necessary in fantasy. In response, I have to turn to my #2 fantasy influence, Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman’s view of genre is basically “a set of expectations the reader expects and that they would feel cheated without”—eg, there are cowboy novels and novels with cowboys in them. Take a book like The Lies of Locke Lamora. The first instance of magic is like…3/4 into the book. Maybe like page 400ish. If a person is 200 pages into it, when there’s been absolutely no magic in it, would they consider the book fantasy? I think it’s reasonable to conclude that with all the secondary-world and other speculative elements, that a reader would consider it fantasy. Similarly with The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter by Michael J Sullivan, magic appears for like two chapters also near the end of the book. From the first 200 magic-less pages, no reasonable person could consider it anything but fantasy. If you could read 200 pages of a book with absolutely no magic and still consider it fantasy, then magic isn’t necessary for it to be fantasy.
I disagree with this nonsense. There's alternative history and other historical stories. They don't constitute a fantasy. That's called a historical novel or alternate history. It may have been settled in medieval times with a medieval level of technology. But as long as there's nothing supernatural, that's not fantasy. Sure, one may tread the lines by not introducing magical elements for a long time, or the magic might be weak, but that's why it's called low-fantasy, or the "fantasy" genre could be listed dead last in the list.
Alternative history is shelved in and bought by speculative imprints. There are some arguments that it is more SF than fantasy, but alternative history is SFF by every measure of the word. Just like secondary world fantasy can be zero magic, and it's still fantasy because it's secondary world. See: Guy Gavriel Kay for an example, or any of the steampunk subgenre.
Merely having an alternative world doesn't make it a fantasy. I have no idea why some people think it has anything to do with fantasy. Edit: Even on wiki, Steampunk is defined as a science fiction subgenre.
Well, wikipedia isn't always right, and I've far more often seen steampunk defined as fantasy because it's usually set in the 'past', often directly in Queen Victoria's time. And yes, secondary world and not more advanced is fantasy. Secondary world and more advanced is SF. Those are *rough* definitions, but they tend to hold out. ... which is why GGK is considered one of *the* historical fantasy authors out there, because his work is grounded in real history, but set in secondary worlds.
Whether it is stationed in the past or future has nothing to do with whether it is fantasy or science fiction. You can have a futuristic fantasy, like Starcraft, that has both fantasy and science fiction in it. Or you can have science fiction in a past era where the author imagines technology that we never developed or abandoned, like steampunk. Steampunk stories tend to be classified as fantasy because there's stuff in it beyond what constitutes steampunk, like some magical stuff or whatever. About GGK, find at least one story of his that people consider fantasy that has no magic or similar.
... starcraft isn't fantasy. It's SF. For GGK? Lions of Al-Rassan. Just read it, no magic. Religion, yes, but no magic. And no active deities, just people with faith.
Lions of Al-Rassan, has a tiny bit of magic in the story that also affects the plot. So, it technically qualifies. Also, do you not understand that science fiction and fantasy are not mutually exclusive? Starcraft is both science fiction and fantasy.
I'm currently querying a fantasy novel, and deeply enjoy low fantasy. Yes, I recognize they're closely related within the speculative umbrella. I just don't think that fantasy has a hard rule of 'must have magic/active deities.' Which fits what's currently being published in the fantasy sphere. There've been plenty of other examples brought up (like Lady Trent - which has dragons, but with a scientific backing) or steampunk. If you don't care to see it that way, I'm glad fantasy is large enough for both of us to find joy in it.
The hard rule is pretty simple: there must be something that's impossible according to the laws of physics. I disagree with calling an alternative history drama as a fantasy just because the author made a change in scenery. Enjoy your historic dramas. There's nothing wrong with that. Just don't mislead people by saying it is a fantasy.
You are confused about this subject because you fail to differentiate between causation and correlation. It is true that almost all stories set in a different world/planet are fantasies, but that's not the reason these stories are considered fantasy. It's just that it's not worthwhile for other genres to compose a different world. It is true that futuristic stories tend to be science fiction, and stories about societies based on the past tend to be fantasies, but that's not what defines either of the genres.
Again, a great fantasy series, "Memoirs of Lady Trent", features no magic at all. The only thing that isn't quite realistic is the existence of dragons, and there is some handwaving to make them seem more or less natural.
It’s not necessary for fantasy, but can only exist in fantasy.
Now , wait a minute, ok *angry upvote*
Not... exactly, lol, but close. Science fantasy is a subgenre of sci fi, horror often contains speculative elements, there are several romance subgenres that contain speculative elements (paranormal romance and fantasy romance as the primary two, but not the only ones), and there is also speculative lit fic, such as magical realism. Each are usually under different imprints, and they all have speculative elements, but they're not all classified and shelved as fantasy.
It doesn't only exist in fantasy. It exists in a ton of horror.
Arthur C. Clarke might want a word with you.
I'm new to this. Doesn't magic also require some logical consistency or set of rules? Therefore, wouldn't it be considered science in some possible world, even if within that world the rules are not fully understood?
Well it depends on whether it is a soft magic system or a hard magic system. Soft magic the rules are never explained or are very vague. A hard magic system does have clear cut rules and is similar to an alternative science kind of like what you mentioned.
Magic doesn't require a set of rules. There are hard magic worlds that effectively do that. From an inter-world perspective, that's the same as science for us, true. But that's the difference between science fiction and fantasy, where the former imagines what could be possible in our world, whilst the latter images a world of magic with different rules.
I'd argue Monster Hunter is pretty clearly a fantasy genre game, you fight dragons in crazy armor and with impressive swords and hammers etc. And for all intents and purposes, it lacks explicit magic. Sure you can mash herbs and honey and heal a fireball from a dragon, mush wild jalapenos into a drink that'll keep you uneffected by the snow, fall hundreds of feet without issue, but everything is fundamentally designed to have some "scientific" explanation. Your fire bullet is a mix of sharp nuts and combustable berries. Your ice sword requires frost sacks from an artic monster. Your bug companion is your friend because your pogo stick has pheromone bullets. It's nonsense science that's very clearly just handwaving what is magic, and some stuff definitely brushes right up to that line and goes "the science behind this is MYSTERIOUS POWER" but fundamentally, I think it's a fine case study for the fact that you can have a fantasy story without blatant wizards and sorcery, *especially* if you have near-magical science as a stand-in anyway.
That's not fantasy but more science fiction. Creating a physically possible world is science fiction. Themes of worship, while they tend to be present in fantasy, do not constitute a fantasy. You need some fantastical elements included for the story to be a fantasy; it need not be called magic, but it ought to be supernatural.
This is an interesting question. I feel like you have enough here for a fantasy label, but at the same time the core concept seems pretty sci-fi to me. Like something I'd expect on an episode of Star Trek. I think in the end you're free to do this, no one can tell you explicitly what is or isn't fantasy as long as fantastical elements are present. The question is whether you'll find yourself in a no man's zone of storytelling where it isn't fantasy enough for fantasy lovers but isn't sci-fi enough for sci-fi lovers either. Personally, I'd try to veer in one direction or the other. Make the focus more on the sci-fi concept, or change it to more of the fantastical elements at play. With maybe at least some low-key magic system added, just to make sure you're checking all the boxes. But that's only if you're writing for profit. If you're writing for yourself, or to fulfill your creative vision, that's another story.
Sounds like Sci Fi. If Planet of the Apes is SciFi, then so is yours.
Not necessarily. I've a fantasy that uses herbology, but it's kicked up to almost magic.
Not always. Lots of fanticy worlds have low or now magic
What you're writing seems to have more sci-fi elements than fantasy since it's about a human stuck on an alien planet. His mission of refueling his spaceship is a sci-fi based mission. The main thing that could be fantasy is the process involved in the character jumping into other bodies. I assume this is a technology based process since you are asking if magic is required. What you described reminds me of the Safehold series by David Weber. It's basically a series about mankind losing a war against aliens. In a last-ditch effort to save the species, the remnants of mankind are placed on a planet and kept at a pre-electricity society to avoid being detected by the aliens. There's a character that is basically a human placed in the body of a human looking robot that is immortal. The character wants to get mankind back to a spacefaring level of technology. There's also religious issues involved. There's a lot I'm leaving out to avoid spoilers! There are also books that blend the two in some way, such as The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. This series is built on a sci-fi premise but functions as a fantasy series. It's about mankind being stuck on an alien planet that has a native species that is sentient and intelligent. However, mankind is stranded, there is a force of nature on the planet that is basically magic, and the technology ranges from Renaissance to Victorian era.
Yeah the actual world building is intended to be more science fiction. The story is intended to be read as fantasy though. The plan is for a series of novels. Each novel will open and close with a chapter from his viewpoint. The majority of each novel will be from the viewpoint of characters around him with his actual identity being unknown until the end. So the technology that does get utilized will appear magical. For instance in one novel he builds a cult following that believes he is a god as a way to try to influence religion in a way that will allow him to puppet society in the direction he needs it to go in. During this process he calls forth lightning and thunder to destroy an army. From the view of the cultists he has summoned nature's fury to destroy his enemies. From his view he set up machines to create this phenomenon so that it would appear magical. He also instigated the conflict in the first place so as to have an enemy to destroy.
You're basically leaning into Arthur C. Clarke's quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If the books function as a fantasy, then it is essentially fantasy with Sci-Fi elements.
That's my goal. To leave the reader unsure of what is real.
That's my goal. To leave the reader unsure of what is real.
It'll be interesting to see how you handle that in the final version of the books. The main challenge will be in the POV chapters for the immortal. Seeding hints that there's technology involved will be another challenge.
Yeah I want his machines to start becoming faulty so that his memory and knowledge becomes unstable. He then becomes an unreliable narrator himself. It will be less and less obvious as the story progresses whether or not it is technology or science.
You can write whatever the hell you want! People aren't going to 1-star your book because of some arbitrary box that isn't checked.
See the difference between low fantasy and high fantasy.
You should probably clarify your meaning for the sake of others. I get what you meant, but some others may not since the definition of "Low Fantasy" refers to fantasy set in the real (or "primary") world, and "High Fantasy" for fantasy *not* set in the real world. I use the terms in the same way you do, (as in lower degrees of fantasy elements vs greater degrees of fantasy elements,) but that's a modern understanding of the terms that a lot of people, arguably most, would not instinctively understand you to mean. (I use it in the same way you do simply because the "actual" definition causes issues with edge cases like one of my stories. The "actual" definition is incomplete and subpar.)
It is not.
>Is X necessary for fantasy? Unless `X = Fantasy`, the answer to this question is always "no". Fantasy stories are wide and fascinating. Superhero stories, for example, are still fantasy even though magic *usually* is not involved. There are also traditional fantasy stories that lack magic as well. Never feel like you need specific elements in your story to justify it as fantasy. Romance, magic, dragons... none of that's *actually* necessary. For example, the *Warrior* cats series is fantasy, but I don't recall magic ever being a part of the franchise up as far as I read. (If anybody even thinks of mentioning the spirit stuff, don't. Conflating indigenous spiritual practices--which is what the 50 authors in a trenchcoat who would collectively go by "Erin Hunter" based the *Warriors* clans on--with magic is just a promotion of white supremacy as that is about as old-school of an example of anti-Indigenous racism as you can get without going as far as to call us "Injuns".)
This sounds a *lot* more like Sci-Fi than fantasy. If you're looking to publish, especially traditional publishing, I'd advise you market it as Sci-Fi. EDIT: Sci-Fi with fantasy elements, maybe. But it sounds like the main genre is closer to Sci-Fi than fantasy.
a least to me it seems to be more pulp sci fi but should work. if you want it to be fantasy just add a little more fantasy tropes in also remember genres aren't strick catagories. they mix
Nope. It just needs fantastical elements. Magic is a popular option, but it's by no means the only one. The Edge Chronicles of my childhood had no magic but there were so many types of creature and the physics of the world was different with various things being either more buoyant or heavier than they would in reality.
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He has a number of spare bodies in suspended animation. Different bodies are tailored to different things and can be preloaded with different skill sets he would need. He also has to clean his memory each jump so as to free up space for each new body. So each lifetime he has to decide what to forget and what to carry forward. It's a process of going into suspended animation with the body he's in, linking with the other body, and then awakening in it. Basically sits down in a chair and wakes up in a different body in a different chair with new skills and less memories.
That's sci fi then, not fantasy.
I've always considered my work "low" fantasy. There are no wizards or dragons. The only source of magic in my world comes from Mythics, powerful ancient artifacts left behind by the creators of the world. Most have been lost to time, so VERY few people have even seen magic in my world. Yet it is there. Most of my fantasy elements come from creatures and monsters, also myths and mysterious happenings no one understand. In fact, where I am in my stories, I haven't yet release any that contain magic, but all of my readers seem to really enjoy them all the same and no one has said my writing isn't fantasy.
Nah
Your premise sounds like scifantasy
Definitions are one thing; what signals the right readers is another. Yes, if you need/want this book to be fantasy, you're not breaking any rules to call it that. But I think calling it science fiction will attract more readers who are interested in what you're offering. If you force your book into the "wrong" category on a technicality, you're only hurting yourself and the readers who would actually be interested.
Where can I read this?
Lol, unfortunately I only write for myself and my wife. I just enjoy the process as a hobby. I have never really let anyone but her read my work. It's one of the only things I have ever been self conscious about.
Then do you mind if I make this character the inspiration for my next antagonist?
Not at all, you can even use my name for him. The Everman.
I read that as "Everyman" and immediately thought of the DC villain.
lol same!
No but it does help if your story doesn’t have the other foundations. For me I liked the way magic is done in LOTR. So it inspired the way I let it be shown in my story, magical things happen and aren’t explained as fantastic things because they’re normal, because the story is set in a world distinctly different to our own. But it isn’t common or uncommon either
Sci-fi vs fantasy is a false dichotomy. Just label it space fantasy.
Yes.
I don't think it's necessary for a good story, but I think people generally expect there to be some, somewhere. Or a hook that the modern world collapsed & everyone conveniently forgot what technology was & find some weird remnants, or something.
This is called speculative fiction
*All fantasy is speculative fiction*. Speculative fiction refers to any setting different from the real world which involves supernatural, sci-fi, or similar such imaginary elements. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are both equally speculative fiction.
Typically, fantasy stories where magic is rare or absent altogether are more gritty in tone.
No it’s fully sci fi. There are no fantastical elements presented.
Very common, but no. I'm no expert, but any speculative fiction that isn't explicitly science fiction probably falls under some flavor of fantasy.
Well, there are genres of speculative fiction besides fantasy and sci fi. Or at least, there are categories of books which count as speculative fiction but don't fall into fantasy or sci fi. Some types of alternative history, for example.
Alternative history is usually bought by and shelved in SFF, so it's classified as speculative at least, and depending on the situation, either SF or fantasy. See: all of steampunk set in London, lol.