[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

From what I've heard, Hubbard didn't get advice, he gave it.

Well, I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It's the sort of mental self-defense move that someone who has to walk past the local Scientology centre in order to get to the central downtown library branch develops over time.

Thanks for the info on Verne and Wells. I've been starting the excellent annotated Barnes &Noble Classics versions with the essays and explanatory notes that B&N have offered as freebies recently, but I haven't dared read too much of the introductory material, because they have spoilers like whoa for people who haven't yet finished the story.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And my SO has told an amusing story or two about things she's discovered shelved in the YA section at our local library branch, placed by librarians who obviously haven't read the books in question and are going by blurb or Publisher's Weekly thumbnail that doesn't mention the relative amount of spice...

My personal favourite is finding a copy of Tintin in the Congo (version francophone) filed in with the younger childrens' books in the library.

Ahahahaha… even if the librarians who did that didn't speak French (unlikely, given the size and breadth of the French collection at that branch), a simple flipthrough of the comic would have shown violence and outdated racial stereotypes they certainly should have thought twice about shelving in the kiddie section.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Campbell was responsible for another of my borderline examples: the late Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" stories.

I've been meaning to read those. MZB mentioned it in one of her many anthologies and it always sounded very interesting to me. Plus, I not only love "sufficiently advanced technology" and its corollary, I'm also a sucker for alternate history.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Other edge cases I point at are Mellisa Scott's "Silence Leigh" stories, and Patricia Kennealy's Kelts in Space series.

I did read Kennealy at one point. Unfortunately, her later works seem to have been a way of working out her personal issues via writing therapy, but the first six Keltiad books (the Aeron and Arthur trilogies) are still fairly decently entertaining and I quite liked them, despite a touch of Mary Sue-ness on both Aeron and Arthur's parts and that handwaviness on the tech/tradition mix that you mentioned.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Silence Leigh is a sorceress who travels the stars with her two husbands in a ship powered by magic.

Well, I can see I'll have to at least check these out. Polyamory is yet another one of my fictional attractors. Thank you, Mr. Heinlein, for that and my redhead fetish.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My current recommendation is Liz Williams "Inspector Chen" stories.

Sounds awesome. This was another one I was considering as a maybe at Baen's Webscriptions when I finally set a proper account up, and I'm still divided on whether to get the single-author bundle, or spend a little more and get the publisher monthly bundle and the cost of a couple of works I'm probably not really going to be interested in but might want to try anyway.

However it works out, I'll definitely have to get these. AH, near-future, sufficiently advanced magic, not-entirely-EU-based-cultural-backdrop, and sleuthing by agents meant to contain magical incursions?

The only way it could be better would be if the Chens were in an open relationship with hot, competent, gunslinging mathematical redheads and there was some time travel to an Important Historical Event, But Not As We Know It, Jim, involved. Also, dragons. Preferably fully intelligent, independent talking ones not being ridden by empathically bonded riders.

Thanks so much for the recommendations. And for anyone else who was looking for more tech/magic mixes, a couple of the more entertaining ones that are probably still available:

Diane Duane's Wizard series. Two versions, YA with teens, and "adult" with cats. The magic system exists in our "real" world perfectly alongside tech, and is treated in a mostly scientific manner, with current physics-grounded explanations for much of it.

Margaret Ball's Mathemagics, and the accompanying stories in the Esther Friesner-edited Chicks in Chainmail anthologies, all from Baen. Math is the basis of spells on a parallel traditionally clichéd sword-and-sorcery world, and solving equations etc. produces magical effects. Intentionally silly, but fun stuff.

As a special bonus, Ball is a mathematician herself, and titles the chapters of The Novel with little in-jokes.