-How common is it that science fiction and urban fantasy are blended together and done well? Is there and audience for this and can anyone give any good examples from books,movies,anime,comics ,even video games? My story setting takes place in 2030.A main plot point is that in year 2012 a cosmic storm containing 'Mana' struck the earth,changing the atmosphere.This made it so that not just select people could use magick but anyone can but its not widely practiced and there are still skeptics.There's also an unknown company that arose and boosted certain aspects of technology up to 2050 with martian and moon colonies and androids/cyborgs in the streets.There's also the fact that witches,vampires,and were shifters exist out of public eye (they're invisible to all but mutants,and can be detected by scanners,only as shadows) and human psychics who act as super police to combat illegal use of magick. Also,if anyone can offer any good advice on genre blending ,that would be appreciated.
Genre blending happens all the time. Do not fear it. Just remember to keep focused on the story and characters and not get too bogged down in the awesomeness of the setting. As for books: There's the Hell's Gate series by David Weber. An okay (not a huge fan) tale about a conflict between two pandimensional empires. That is empires that conquer Earth. Repeatedly, as they move from one alternate reality to another. One of the empires has WW1 era weaponry and psychic powers (mostly for communications; the empire would collapse without it), while the other had actual magic with dragons and PCs (personal crystals). I stopped reading but apparently there was going to be another power introduced that was ultratech (pure science developed FAR beyond our level, none of that psychic powers nonsense). There are in fact a couple novels/short stories that detail interactions between science-minded worlds and magical ones. Oftentimes that interaction is the main conflict of the story. I am currently working on a novel with a similar premise. A half dozen powerful Earth empires bitching over who gets alternate Earths. Several of them appear "magical" or science fictional in nature. And none of those empires are run by humans. Too often with parallel universes you just get crap like what if the Nazis won WWII (apparently the Soviets, who accounted for 80 percent of German casualties, didn't exist in those universes). Or where Rome or ancient China conquered the world. Boring. Especially when the tiniest change (damn butterflies) in Earth's evolutionary history could get you snake-people and shadow men instead. Or the Reapers from Mass Effect. I modeled one of the darker powers after that old chestnut. And magic? Well that's just a word for stuff people don't understand. It's not the snake-peoples fault that those human things living in some realities are so genetically base they can't even channel felgon particles to shunt their extra mass into pocket dimensions like any proper species. To those primitives it's just "magical shapeshifting" or something. The least aggressive power "mentors" primitive Earths, including sharing technologies (none of that Prime Directive crap). The crazy guys have even started colonizing space in their home reality. Madness. A lot of their tech is "magical", which they are fine letting primitives view it that way. A car could be very well be magical. Not knowing how it really works doesn't keep you from operating it, just fixing it. Cue potential plot point. Dum dum dum....
It sounds like a great premise but all stories ideas are great as long as the story is told greatly (I think I just made that up). It's all in the telling. I wouldn't worry about genre-bending or crossover. Write it. Re-write it. Edit it. Polish it. Then worry about where to put it. Get to work... get this one out there!
I think that novels, in general, tend to have more than one genre in them anyway, which is fine. It's only a problem if the sub genre takes over and becomes the new main genre. If I bought an epic fantasy book advertised as Lord of the rings, for example, I expect it to be within the borders of the genre. I don't mind a bit of horror here, or a tad of humor there; as long as the book doesn't suddenly turn into a love/comedy in a spaceship I'm generally OK with it.
There is no problem with Genre blending esp. sci-fi/fantasy. What matters is the story you write, and more important still, How you write it. Both genres require that the auther establish laws as to what can or cannot happen and why or why not. The theme of technology meeting magic, is always enjoyable, just make sure that you focus more on the story, and not the setting. If you constantly remind the readers that they are in another world, it may lose the affect of pulling them in and becoming believable
Hey afrodite7, Definitely genre blending happens on a regular basis, and it is a personal favorite of mine because it opens up a lot of doors. Take steampunk, for example. It is a rather seamless merger between two levels of tech that spawned a genre of its very own. There is much creativity when it comes to blurring chronological fact like modern day and the past, or the future and the extreme past. We all saw Avatar, right? It had virtual genre dyslexia, but it was done intentionally. As it becomes clear that the mana and the cyborgs are a part of the universe as you write it, a reader is unlikely to say 'that doesn't work' unless the writing style gives them pause to do so. It sounds like you've gotten a very good idea going. Keep up the good work! Regards, Torian
If you wouldn't mind a suggestion, I'd make the time of the storm, DEC 21, 2012... which is the doomsday date, obviously, but, hear me out. There is a school of thought, based on the magnetic frequencies of life, and the magnetic poles, in regards to the Universe, etc etc... that when the day comes, we reach a point in our solar system where those frequencies align, potentially creating a universal shift in consciousness.. which would conicide with the coming of 'Mana' and the resulting evolutional shift in humans being able to use it.. shrug, just a suggestion, not to be taken at face value, but it would help suspend disbelief.. considering the science is real, and humans could have attained a level of consciousness that allows them to tap into Universal Energy, which is what mana, essentially, is.
