Quote:
Originally Posted by Dazrin
I can certainly understand that position. The Steerswoman, even after spoiling it for myself and knowing I was wrong, still had me fooled. It just never felt like a science fiction book. In the vote thread one person went as far as "this is fantasy, not science fiction, we need a do-over!" And that was after being ensured that it was SF. I really liked that slightly confused feeling, not many books can completely fool you as to what genre they are. Especially not after being told what it is.
The largest "science fiction masquerading as fantasy" series that I can think of is the Pern series. They have fire-breathing dragons and a low tech society but when the reveal about their beginnings came and we find out that it is science fiction rather than fantasy it wasn't that surprising. I felt more relief than anything. "Oh, that's why this hasn't felt like fantasy. It isn't!"
With The Steerswoman, even though I spoiled it for myself and the dragons feel a little mechanical (glass eyes breaking?) and there is obviously a lot of high-technology being hidden by the wizards, the story always felt like a fantasy. I know in my head that it is science fiction but the writing style says THIS IS FANTASY and I just can't get my heart to believe anything else. Wonderful feeling really.
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I know ... it was science - and that was clear with the steerswoman using such a scientific - almost scientific method approach to finding things out. But at the same time technology hidden to not look like technology to "regular" people. I kept waiting for the wizards to have "magic" even though it was science fiction, I felt like the book should have both because of how it was written.