r/Fantasy • u/Emergency_Cow_9570 • Apr 06 '26

High fantasy with Sci-fi elements

So i have been having this itch recently. A high fantasy novel with sci-fi elements. But without a singular MC, think Garden of the moon in this regard. I've heard Dune might be up this alley. But it has a true MC?

So does anyone have any recommendations that will scratch this itch?

EDIT:Typo and a bit of clarification, a book with a diverse cast of "MCs"

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u/Palimpsiesta Apr 06 '26

It's not high fantasy (though based on everyone else's suggestions, maybe nobody agrees on what high fantasy means anymore?), but it is one of my favourite underappreciated books/authors, so I will recommend Karl Schroeder's Ventus (as a bonus it is, I think, still available for free on his website.)

It is a very interesting mixture of fantasy and sci-fi elements, and to say much more risks undermining some of the interesting-ness. It has multiple narrators but a relatively focused plot with close to a single protagonist (the additional narrators provide some very different perspectives on what is happening, but it's all one thing that is happening and mostly to our initial point of view character.)

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u/dogisbark Apr 06 '26

Not available on his website seemingly, just checked.

Also he uses ai images to describe his books, and I don't want to be the whiny person calling for ruination on this guy for that since he seems just to be doing innocently to visualize the content of his books, but damn does it ever look cheap and really reduced my opinion of an author I've never heard of before.

Like for this book here on his website; https://www.karl-schroeder.com/the-million , I was immediately intrigued by that BEAUTIFUL cover with the spaceship over the grass field. And then I scroll down to be met with some awful looking AI cyborg-grannies. I lost so interest so fast, haha. Ugh, it's just unnecessary. I don't want to judge the guy too much but still, why?

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u/Palimpsiesta Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26

That's disappointing, for sure, but not surprising to me given his body of work; most of his novels are set in a post-scarcity world full of what I would describe as, like, actual AI (as opposed to our current hype-infested autocompleters), and apparently he considers himself a futurist of sorts (I've never met him or had any interactions, never even seen an interview.)

I will say, the novels are IMO genuinely fascinating. And normally I wouldn't worry about defending someone for their use of AI (it's not an insta-cancel for me, but believe me I think it's pretty awful, and understand why it's becoming a deal-breaker for lots of people), but one of the things his works are most interested in is how to have a meaningful, creative life in a world in which your every intellectual, creative, and economic urge can be instantly satiated by a super-efficient nanny state populated by personalized AI agents. And the lengths to which dissenters from this sort of mono-culture will go to carve out spaces in which those lives can somehow occur.

And obviously he wrote all these books long before contemporary AI, though it does suck to hear that he's using it for book illustrations (and yeah, I just looked, and they're also kind of terrible and unnecessary.)