History SchizoTech / Literature

* Happens in the ''Literature/ChaosTimeline'' (at least from our POV). Some of the sciences and technological advances are discovered or perfected more earlier than in our history, e.g. Novorossiya invents the telegraph and electrical devices nearly a century before it happened in our history; cryptography, basic computer science and astronomy are at least twenty to thirty years ahead of our's in the early 20th century, computers of 1990 level are already found in the 1950s etc.

* Creator/EricFlint's ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'':

* Creator/JerryPournelle's ''Literature/CoDominium'' is defined by a century-long period of MedievalStasis following the creation of FasterThanLightTravel, due to every politician in the named entity being either an ObstructiveBureaucrat, a StrawmanPolitical or a WellIntentionedExtremist; the only way all these megalomaniacs could agree not to start WorldWarIII was to agree not to develop weapons technology any further, which of course meant not developing ''anything'', and even trashing all the libraries so nobody could build better weapons by MacGyvering. They then proceeded to deport millions of people every year to every marginally habitable world they could find, often with little more than the clothes on their backs. The result is a smorgasbord of Schizo Tech. CasualInterstellarTravel, but [[FamilyFriendlyFirearms no lasers]]. Hand-held anti-satellite weaponry stored next to bolt-action rifles. Spaceports with horse troughs. Pournelle's [[TheVerse 'Verse]] never actually recovered from the whole mess; a thousand years later, every SpaceMarine thinks [[TechMarchesOn PDAs are state-of-the-art]].
* In Donald Kingsbury's quirky SF classic, ''Literature/CourtshipRite'', the settlers of the extremely hostile LostColony world Geta have held on to biological and genetic technologies far beyond anything available when the book was written, but many technologies that weren't critical for survival have been lost. They can make DesignerBabies, but as the book starts, they've only recently rediscovered radio and are amazed by the concept of the electric light bulb. (Less well-justified is the fact that they still know how to do radiocarbon dating.)
* Cormac [=McCarthy=]'s ''Literature/TheCrossing'' is set in New Mexico (with several trips to Old Mexico) during the 1930s and 40s. As such, it's basically a Western of the kind that could be set anytime during the preceding hundred years or so, with cowboys riding horses and having shootouts with rustlers, violence on both sides of the border, etc. It's only on the occasions when the protagonists go back to town that we're reminded that the world is quite modern, with telephones and movies, and the advanced level of technology is only really brought home at the end of the novel, when [[spoiler:the surviving protagonist drifts close enough to Alamagordo, New Mexico, to witness the first testing of the atomic bomb.]]
* Creator/StephenKing's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series is a great version of this. It takes place in a mystical [[TheWildWest Wild West]] filled with malfunctioning robots. Though it's never explicitly said what happened, the books obviously exist on a planet AfterTheEnd.

** Some apparent occurrences of the trope are actually temporary magical problems, such as the appearances of a movie industry (which was actually about silver portals for {{eldritch abomination}}s) and of shopping malls (really a giant creature-hive that hatches from snow globes and feeds on human society), but other discrepancies are for real. For example, personal technologies aside, one novel introduces a Shakespearean-style theater as a bold new invention, while another has a Victorian-style opera house in the same city that has been there for many years.
** The issue is lampshaded and deconstructed in ''Thief of Time''. It turns out that time itself is not quite as it should be on the Disc, having been ''broken'' once or twice. The history monks are forced to [[TimeyWimeyBall repair the damaged timeline]] with extra bits from previous eras, and the result is that history itself is now a mishmash of anachronisms and continuity problems.
* Creator/LSpragueDeCamp's novella ''Divide and Rule''. It features trains pulled by elephants, knights with armor made of chrome steel and plexiglass, cavalry battles with radio correspondents, and castles that use canned food to outlast sieges, among many other things. This is because Earth has been conquered by aliens who give humans a fair degree of autonomy, but don't allow them certain technologies, such as explosives and motor vehicles.
* ''Literature/TheDivineCities'': The series as a whole is somewhere between SteamPunk and DieselPunk (albeit set in a ConstructedWorld, unlike most examples), with some ''really'' weird combinations:

* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/BetweenPlanets'', the Venus colony is described as such. New London has a mix of technologies due to the cost of shipping high tech manufactured goods from Earth. The hot water in The Two Worlds GreasySpoon is heated by a wood burning boiler despite virtually costless electricity from the nuclear power plant due to the expensive equipment needed to handle the power. The streets are muddy and unpaved but lighted by atomic power, travel is by foot or gondolas within the city but there are rocket-powered sky shuttles between settlements. At the start of the novel Heinlein uses the trope for a BaitAndSwitch; the protagonist is riding a pony in an apparent Western (actually a dude ranch), then a telephone rings out in the middle of nowhere. [[ZeeRust Unfortunately the idea of a mobile phone isn't as futuristic now as it was then.]]

* One very representative example is a short story in an issue of ''Magazine/{{Analog}}'', in which the most advanced two species in the universe can use black hole as a source of energy and have more {{Wave Motion Gun}}s than you can imagine, but are surprised and, for one of the two species (both flew around in gigantic spaceships), destroyed by a lucky shot from a device consisting of a long tube, a titanium coated projectile, and an explosive, i.e., a gun. Apparently, [[HumansAreBastards only humans are brutish enough]] to come up with the idea.

* Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/TheShipWhoWon'' uses this, most of the colonists are living in a neo-feudal situation while their masters are in control of technology so advanced it looks like magic. The technology they're using was created by aliens and is hugely durable.

* ''Literature/AmericasStepbrotherAmericasEnemyTwoPointZero'' is a speculative story where the United States is transported to the world of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' by a temporal anomaly. The Threeist states engage in this a lot, as their military doctrine is based around [[AwesomeButImpractical everything being as flashy and cumbersome as possible]] (the Threeist states don't fight wars to ''win'' - war is just meant to waste resources, generate propaganda and maintain the balance of power; the United States ''does'' fight to win). In an early skirmish, an F-22 Raptor pilot is left stunned by a flight of Threeist 16-engined bombers that dwarf any known modern or historical aircraft (like the Russian Tupolev Tu-95 or the America B-52), though this doesn't stop the squadron from decimating them. At one point the Oceanians attempt to launch nuclear strikes against the continental United States, using zeppelins which act as missile platforms for V-1 missiles with nuclear payloads. [[spoiler:And then there's the stasis pods.]]
** This is an idea carried over from the original novel. In the book, Oceania is said to build unsinkable Floating Fortresses that possess the entire power of a navy and [[MoreDakka have enough firepower to make]] [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 da Orks]] jealous. They also have machines that are apparently smart enough to write novels (albeit very bad ones). This is a nation where farmers still use horse-drawn ploughs. Justified of course, as hard farm work keeps the proles busy, and the Party certainly wouldn't allow ''actual people'' to write.

* The Sivaoans in ''Literature/UhurasSong''. [[spoiler:Turns out they were Luddite aesthetics that make up for their lack of a high tech infrastructure with photographic memories, and the related Eeiaoans were a technology-embracing splinter group that was exiled from Sivao.]]