Say a setting looks cyberpunk it has everything from androids, low life and massive corporations dominating the world but it is runned by magic instead of technology. Does that make it high fantasy or science fantasy instead?
I think the mixing of Sci-fi and Fantasy is Speculative Fiction, though I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong about that. IDK, it sounds kinda similiar to the world of Rwby, though it is more a mix of Steam and Cyberpunk along with Fantasy Elements as well. So I would say call it whatever you want, cause it can be hard to define something that complex in a simple way.
Well, is this 'science' part of the world actual science, or is it just magic becoming a commodity? I think that, if the former, it's Science Fantasy. If the latter, I think it's just Fantasy. From what I've seen, High Fantasy is when the story takes place on a world that isn't our own, so it could be High Fantasy as well as Science Fantasy. I think, at least. EDIT: I think that you could also describe it as Science Fiction, but the science is actually magic.
It takes place in a world that isn't our own, its a society that was run by mythological pantheons of their own realm that modernizes and uses spells and mana to modernize and run society using tools that resemble those of our own. For example, a price tag gun of our world in their world is a device enchanted to cast a text spell upon pressing the trigger and imprinting the price tag.
This is a thing. I’ve heard it called Magepunk before. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DungeonPunk?from=Main.Magepunk I think you can choose whichever genre you like, and which has readers that will enjoy your story. The spectrum between fantasy and science fiction revolves around how important science is to your story. Fantasy would mean not so much. Science fiction would mean that it’s an important part. Then there are other genres too which can be set in any kind of world. Genres are just categories that help us stay sane in a world where books can really dive into whichever topics they want to
Harry Turtledove's The Darkness series was about WW2 fought by fantasy kingdoms that industrialized using magic.
I would say it doesn't matter. Any reader of fiction is only interested in whether the story is brilliant fun to read or not, they care not for genre unless they're being picky. If you want to get technical then I suppose Cyber-fantasy might be an adequate genre, but then if it's the first book of a relatively large saga, then perhaps High-Fantasy is more suitable. At the end of the day, if it reads well people just won't care what genre it is. Happy writing!
Science fantasy sounds closest. Just “fantasy” will work as well. Speculative Fiction is an umbrella term that includes SF, Fantasy, Horror etc.
Google defines science fiction as: fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets. I'd say throwing in magic would take any story out of that category. If there is a category called Science Fantasy that might fit. Or just plain Fantasy—a genre that isn't confined to Tokienesque orcs and elves. I have always thought of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy divide as : Sci-Fi is speculative fiction about real-universe possibilites, while Fantasy is fiction about things that we know aren't actually possible, given the way we know the universe works. Of course the line can blur, but in my own mind, the presence of magic means it's not Sci-Fi, unless you actually believe magic does exist. I know if I started out reading a book that was advertised as Sci-Fi and magic appeared in it, I'd be less than impressed. And yes, even Star Wars is Fantasy, not Sci-Fi, as far as I'm concerned. I enjoy some stories that contain magic, but I'm not going to believe they might happen. Any more than I believed the Fairy Stories I loved as a child were 'real.'
If I were submitting to someone looking for Fantasy, then it would be a fantasy novel with technological elements. If it were to someone looking for sci-fi, then it would be speculative fiction with fantastical elements.
If you submitted this to a market asking for science fiction the editor might think (reasonably) that you don’t understand their market or genre boundaries.
