Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Hello friends, I'm wondering if there are any good books that mix fantasy and space opera. Magic and spaceships for example. Something more fundamental than, for exmple, Star Wars. Thanks

No spaceships but it is a colony on another planet where the original colonist have taken on the "powers" of the Hindu gods and a beset by the original aliens (aka demons) of the planet. In truth it is pure SF but it can be read as fantasy as well - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

There's also a new one that I have not read: Space Unicorn Blues by T.J. Berry

There is also a world which goes from a science base to a magic base - A Wizard's Henchman by Matthew Hughes. It a serial from either Lightspeed or Clarkesworld magazine and free to read online, inspired by The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. So while science and magic never coexist here, the characters have to survive the change from an SF world to a Fantasy one.

Personally, I love the imagery of tall sailing ships that fly. hence, I recommend,...

The Daedalus Incident, Sail to Mars aboard the Daedalus with a combination of steampunk, magic and interplanetary flight.


John Scalzi has an odd story, The God Engines, in which spaceships are powered by captured gods. (I didn't remember the title of this, but I did remember the first line, "It was time to whip the god." And Google did the rest. :)

Oh, Andre Norton's Moon of Three Rings and Exiles of the Stars are a perfect example of spaceships and shamans, often called her Moonsinger series. (We had it as a group discussion topic back in 2014.)

G33z3r wrote: "Personally, I love the imagery of tall sailing ships that fly. hence, I recommend,...

The Daedalus Incident, Sail to Mars aboard the Daedalus with a combination of steampunk, magic..."

I think I have that on Kindle somewhere and never got round to reading it.

I do like the idea of a kind of Age of Sail in space. Revenger is a bit like that, but purely sci fi (in a pirate milieu).

Thanks for the replies

Well, perhaps not all the books but the Darkover serie by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It begins as Fantasy but the more you learn the more you realize it's SF and, in some books ther eis a mix of both: The Shattered Chain I think is a good example.

G33z3r wrote: "John Scalzi has an odd story, The God Engines, in which spaceships are powered by captured gods. (I didn't remember the title of this, but I did remember the first line, "It was time to whip the god." And Google did the rest"

Even before you posted that I had thought of and discarded Dune's Navigators, seems a similar idea only this one took it to the fantasy extreme. Now I want to read it!

Emmanuelle wrote: "Well, perhaps not all the books but the Darkover serie by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It begins as Fantasy but the more you learn the more you realize it's SF and, in some books ther ei..."

Agreed! Darkover Landfall tells you how it all began. It's been years since I read these, but as I recall, I never quite got the order in which these were supposed to be read.

Ghost wrote: "Hello friends, I'm wondering if there are any good books that mix fantasy and space opera. Magic and spaceships for example. Something more fundamental than, for exmple, Star Wars. Thanks"

Magic and Spaceships
The Mageworld Series - Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald

Tallships in space
Check out - The Seafort Saga - David Feintuch or Alexis Carew - J.A. Sutherland

The first time I ever heard the science fantasy tag was The Dragon Riders of Pern series.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Greene's Deathstalker series, yet. There are castles that are space ships & the tech is often quite magical. Quite a few of Greene's books might fit the bill.

Hickman & Weiss are best known for their Dragon Lance series, but they also did a space opera trilogy with blood ships. Lots of swords & sorcery in space. It starts with The Lost King.

Ghost wrote: "Hello friends, I'm wondering if there are any good books that mix fantasy and space opera. Magic and spaceships for example. Something more fundamental than, for exmple, Star Wars. Thanks"

Ninefox Gambit - more SF (space opera/military SF) but has some fantastical elements to it.

Yeah, I read that.

Somewhat confusing, but i really like Yoon's writing

Ghost wrote: "Yeah, I read that.

Somewhat confusing, but i really like Yoon's writing"

I have another one, always forget it's science fantasy, not SF.

Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha. Basically it's Middle-east in space with bug magicians. Starting with God's War.

I've thought that Michael Moorcock was the archetypal science-fantasy author. Try his Warriors of Mars series https://www.goodreads.com/series/4921...

I have a science fantasy shelf.

There’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe, though I didn’t LOVE it. It has spaceships plus magic.

I enjoyed the following, though they aren’t space opera:
There’s also the Sabriel series and Mistborn Era 2 and Quintessence andThe Invisible Library. These don’t have spaceships, just science-y stuff.

Red Sister hints at spaceships; I have to read the sequels to find out for sure.

If you want to go indie, Seeds in the Wind has airships and magic.

Always tricksy as most meet the Arthur C Clarke “Sufficiently advanced magic...” thing. Most I have read tend to be Fantasy but reveal a scifi origin or similar along the way:
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels
Sherri S. Tepper’s highly underrated True Game
Piers Anthony mixes it up with his Blue Adept series (assuming you can take the author’s suspect views on women/sex)
Mark Lawrence’s Red Sister series do indeed wrap themselves in a sci-fi blanket.
Dune ( but more sci-fi of course)


None are truly fantasy/space opera in the way you mean, though, but most are fun reads. Call out any you do find in your travels though