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Books that focus on a collision between medieval fantasy and sci-fi?

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DSMK2 Since: Sep, 2009
#1: Mar 11th 2013 at 10:36:41 PM

Do you guys know of any literature that involve a person (or group) from a high(er) tech society upsetting the political, cultural, and intellectual balance of a LOTR-esque medieval fantasy world through their own actions or their mere presence?

Preferably, ones that involve a lot of curb stomp battles from the high tech side.

Thus far the closest I've gotten to this are:

The Salvation War Grunts! Gate - Thus the JSDF Fought There (Manga) Star Ocean series (Videogame)

I would like to know the tropes strongly associated with it as well.

Phoenixflame Since: Nov, 2012
#3: Mar 12th 2013 at 6:37:59 AM

The Prince of Thorns is set in a very far-future earth. It's medievalish and the previous people are known as "the Builders." Half the fun is realizing what they are talking about, like a castle actually being the remains of a high rise, and the characters utterly confused by a nuclear physics manual. It's too awesome to spoil, but advanced technology does feature into some spectacular fights.

edited 12th Mar '13 3:52:11 PM by Phoenixflame

Hodor Cleric of Banjo from Westeros Since: Dec, 1969
Cleric of Banjo
#4: Mar 12th 2013 at 7:27:08 AM

The Book Of The New Sun is set in a far future Earth or possibly far future alternative Earth that is dying leading to a combination of Low Culture, High Tech and Scavenger World- it has an overall feudal feel, but there was some very high tech (including Casual Interstellar Travel) before society decayed- all of this comes through the narration of an Unreliable Narrator.

In The Culture series, once of the novels, Inversions is set in a Medievalish culture/world, and one of the characters is implied to be an agent from the Culture (an ultra-advanced post-scarcity utopia).

I'd also kind of recommend the novel Matter in that some of the plot is very fantasy-ish (Evil Chancellor takes over and becomes Regent for Life and the slain king's sons deal with the aftermath), but is set in a science fiction setting, and while the king's sons have a fantasy plotline, the king's daughter has become a Culture citizen and an agent of their State Sec.

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ArcadesSabboth from Mother Earth Since: Oct, 2011
#5: Mar 12th 2013 at 8:04:25 AM

David Brin's Uplift series has a trilogy that involves a high-tech alien invasion of a multi-species medieval planet, although the low-tech folks haven't forgotten what high-tech is (they're deliberate luddites) even though they can't hope to replicate it. Also, that trilogy isn't going to make sense unless you first read Startide Rising, which is pure scifi.

But Startide Rising is awesome if you like "space opera" scifi, so I'd recommend it anyway. The Trilogy are Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach.

The high-tech invaders do get several curb-stomp battles, although considering that they're genocidal ideologues it I don't find it fun to watch, and the author is "cheering" for the underdogs. (Also "battle" in this case is "drop weapon of mass destruction on civilians.")

No magic, very little psionics.

edited 15th Mar '13 8:16:06 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
MrShine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#6: Mar 12th 2013 at 11:29:39 AM

[up][up]Hodor and I are kindred spirits, those are all great books. One series that has a curbstomp of the kind you describe is the Darksword Trilogy. At one point a modern army from our own world, with tanks and everything, invade their world which is a medieval fantasy world of magic users. I don't recommend it highly as the books themselves aren't great but they do have the elements you wanted. Oh and it gets more sci-fi with the fourth book of the trilogy (yeah) having actual aliens but i dont remember anything about that book.

Also this kind of encounter can be experienced by playing Civilization on a low difficulty setting. Giant Death Robots vs Spearmen!

edited 12th Mar '13 12:01:26 PM by MrShine

FuzzyBoots from Outlying borough of Pittsburgh (there's a lot of Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
#7: Mar 12th 2013 at 11:58:19 AM

^_^ It's the medieval side winning, but check out The High Crusade. It's well worth it. Leo Frankowski's Cross-Time Engineer books have an update of A Connecticut Yankee involving a modern engineer being stuck in medieval Poland shortly before the Mongol invasion and his successful attempts to prepare the land to repel the invaders. Fair warning, the latter got knocked off the site for "pedo-pandering" on account of the main character having sex with a 14-year-old and not immediately collapsing in remorse (he in fact winds up marrying her).

PhilippeO Since: Oct, 2010
#8: Mar 13th 2013 at 9:48:56 PM

Turtledove 3×T had a story Non Interference about ancient society who accidently getting immortality serum for its queen.

Weber Safe Hold and third book of Empire From The Ashes also about scifi character interfere in Medieval/Renaissance stories.

There are no high-tech battle unfortunately.

JimmyTMalice from Ironforge Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#9: Mar 14th 2013 at 11:07:47 AM

Another Culture book that features this: Matter. The medieval civilisation in question has only just developed steam power, and they live inside a Shellworld, a planet with 16 concentric levels, and the more advanced civilisations are interfering with them with catastrophic consequences.

edited 14th Mar '13 11:09:02 AM by JimmyTMalice

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."
tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#10: Mar 15th 2013 at 2:55:44 PM

Hells Gate is full of this. In general check the Science Versus Magic trope for examples

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Xtifr World's Toughest Milkman Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
World's Toughest Milkman
#11: Mar 15th 2013 at 8:01:58 PM

The High Crusade is a similar concept, except, A) there's no magic; it's just aliens vs. knights, and B) the knights (mostly by pure luck and stuff) win. It's also very funny, and the guy who wrote it did the research. (Is quite well-known for doing the research, in fact.)

Another page to skim for possible examples might be Science Fantasy, which is about sci-fi/fantasy blending in general.

eta: Whoops, someone else already mentioned The High Crusade. But at least now you know that more than one person recommends it. :)

edited 15th Mar '13 8:08:45 PM by Xtifr

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Lightningnettle Nettle Since: Apr, 2012 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
Nettle
#12: Mar 16th 2013 at 10:05:50 PM

Not so many curb-stomp battles, and lots of author tracts; but Stasheff's The Warlock in Spite of Himself would fit your parameters. There are a lot of sequels too.

Xtifr World's Toughest Milkman Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
World's Toughest Milkman
#13: Mar 17th 2013 at 7:31:04 PM

[up]We have that: The Warlock in Spite of Himself. :)

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
nojay Since: Nov, 2012
#14: Aug 25th 2013 at 3:59:42 PM

Harry Turtledove wrote a short story called "The Road Not Taken" about alien invaders trying to conquer Earth, except that it turns out spaceflight and starships are incredibly easy to build, basically medieval-level tech once you know the trick but once a race develops this tech it freezes, going out and conquering rather than developing more modern engineering and science. For some reason Earth missed this tech development. Result is the aliens who have flintlocks, a major advantage over other races they have already conquered, end up running into the US National Guard in California somewhere and get stomped. There's a sequel I've not read, "Herbig-Haro".

In a similar vein there's Charlie Stross' "Merchant Princes" series about world-walkers from a parallel medieval world getting involved with our world. Things don't go the way they want, they decide a show of force is in order and the first series ends with the curb-stomp to end all curb-stomps. Charlie is currently writing a trilogy followup for this series.

swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#15: Aug 26th 2013 at 1:39:55 PM

It's not exactly fantasy and more science than fiction, but CJ Cherryh wrote a lot of books about humans encountering foreign cultures, which are not exactly medieval, but different, and less technological. Well, she also wrote some Fantasy series, which have elements you would expect more in a science fiction series, like the Moraine saga. She is a good bet if you want a more grounded and less cliché take on the two genres.

Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#16: Aug 26th 2013 at 3:11:56 PM

I don't particularly like them myself, but Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books sort of address this in the later books, once the Terran Empire recontacts the Darkovans. The books listed in this section and the next one involve the future Terran/basically medieval/feudal Darkovan conflicts.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#17: Aug 26th 2013 at 4:22:52 PM

Voyage Of The Jerle Shannara does this to an extent. Since the whole "Shannara" verse is set After the End (with The End coming around the mid 21st century or so), Sci-Fi is the distant past, and in "Voyage" they end up seeking ancient ruins of "magic," with delightful consequences.

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