Technology is super advanced. But most of the world doesn't know this technology exists. People go about their every day lives with stuff like IPhone and Android and Brands like Toshiba or Sony. But there's secret technology that most of mankind dreams about having. This technology plays a large part in the story and is often used. Is this then a Sci-fi? Because the year will still be set in like 2016 or 2017.
That - one of the first things I wrote was a story about an alien invasion that took place in the middle of the war of the roses .. so you had your full on battle between aliens and humans but with humans at huge technological disadvantage since they were fighting with swords and long bows against an invading force who had laser pistols and space craft In the end though this was the story's undoing as the technological gap was so large that I couldn't write a convincing human victory, and the whole project got filed (and subsequently lost as it was in word for windows 95 format )
Of course, this is my favourite type of sci-fi. Retro-futurism, steampunk, clockpunk and petrolpunk are my favourites. I love the sound of your story @big soft moose I would read the hell outta that! Also I don't know whether technology is always the thing that defines a book, what about theme and the sequence of events? It could be anything without knowing a little more.
Cool. I love that shit. The Adventures of Conrad Stargard The Technicolor Time Machine The High Crusade
I've been watching Pioneers of Television and came across an interesting tidbit... In 1965, a TV series called The Wild, Wild West went on the air and it had a lot of technology that would eventually come to be called steampunk. Of course, now I've got to track it down and watch that, too.
Perhaps historical fiction. Historical material need not be about the past. As Lovecraft and many others have shown, the lines between sci-fi and history are often blurred. "The Time Machine" is classic. History or sci-fi?