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Witch World 3 - Science Fantasy?
Witch World has transdimensional travel, dart guns, airplanes, and metal sea-going vessels (possibly subs), not to mention some kind of test-tube reanimation device and wireless zombie control. And it also has magic in the form of weather control spells and premonitions. Today we tend to lump novels into SF or fantasy and seldom the twain shall meet, but the lines were much more blurry in the early days. Several publishing houses like Grafton/Granada and Berkley even had 'Science Fantasy' imprints. Do you like this setting conceit? Wish we could go back to it? Or are you a purist, feeling this book is clearly fantasy (or SF)?
1982 Ace Publishing cover by John Pound
Comments
I'm fine with Science Fantasy. That was not a problem. If you listen to my music you know I don't give a rat's ass about genre boundaries...
So it's kind of posing a common question... what happens when magic meets tech? Obviously a kind of alternative approach to Clarke's "indistinguishable from magic" assertion -(an assertion I don't really subscribe to myself). In gaming terms maybe akin to the world of Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne) in which magic and tech artefacts coexist?
I'm fine with the melange of different bits. It's a story, Norton can put together the fantasy world how she likes. It also draws from the planetary romances of John Carter and the like: high tech, magic, and swords. The main difference, I think, is that there are so many elements in this book, and in a short book, that I was overwhelmed by all of it. A simpler book would have been better, I think.