Imagine, for a moment, a world where science and technology prevail. Then, imagine what would happen if magic found its way there. What would change? What would stay the same? What kind of impact would it have on daily life?
This is what I’ve been pondering for a long time. Since November 2009, to be exact. Back then (feels longer than it is), I imagined a dystopic world devoid of any creativity. It was called Soulfire, and it was to be my novel for National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo). Long story short: life happened, and I never got a chance to write it. I put it into my To Be Written Within the Next Decade file, promising myself I’d explore this in the near future.
So fast forward to October last year. I got hit — no, hammered — with another idea that would fuse sci-fi and fantasy. That is the novel I’m writing right now, Fey Touched.
Fey Touched started its life in November 2003. It was called The Sacrifice then, and it was my first finished novel ever. It was pretty cliche — vampires, vampire hunters, and a guardian angel. Possession, the characters being trapped in a mirror, a murder mystery. Fun stuff. I’d tried revising it over the years but never got anywhere. Nowadays, vampire fiction is about at its saturation point, so when I considered this, I realized that the vampires — while I loved them — had to go.
My first idea was the Fey. They could do the same thing in the story and it would be more unique. After all, this story is 9 years old (*shivers*). Still, it didn’t quite gel and I set it aside.
In October of last year, I was pondering my ideas for possible release with Turtleduck Press, and I already had a book I was working on. But…it wasn’t gelling. So while doing some boring filing at work, I let my mind wander.
What if I made my Fey based in science rather than myth? What if they were immortal, but were genetically engineered to be that? What if they could weave illusions with the energy of life versus fairy magic? What if they didn’t have souls and had to feed off humans to obtain them?
What if there were Hunters created for the purpose of eradicating Fey that fed off innocents? What if they were given some of the genes that the Fey had along with one of their weaknesses? What if they could kill with moonlight?
There’s the science. Now what about the magic?
This came a bit later. I always knew I’d put it in somewhere, but I didn’t know when I started the novel (by the way, this novel is the first I’ve ever written that I had no actual plot written down anywhere. It exists only in my head). I let things play out, let my muse chew on it.
And then it hit me (most likely at work, but I don’t actually remember): Magic. Witches. People who fuse magic and science for all kinds of nefarious things.
So now I have a shadow group that is working against the Hunters, that will create a weapon unlike anything else in the world that will target just the Hunters. Because you know, the Hunters are killing the Fey, and the Fey must survive.
The Hunters must find out what’s killing them and stop it. And let me tell you, it’s a doozy.
Of course, there’s romance, as there always is in my books. I had one romance planned, and a a few days ago, the other one surprised me — pleasantly. This other romance will make things more intricate. Especially at the end, where lives will be sacrificed and only a few will walk away from it.
Fantasy is an amazing genre which I’ve been writing in since 2003. The sci-fi bug didn’t bite me until around 2006 or so, when I started reading S.L. Viehl’s StarDoc series. And Peter Watts’s Starfish. They collided and gave me some of the freshest ideas I’ve ever had. But fusing them? Even better. More stuff to play with. A more unique world to write about. The hard facts of science and the mysticism of magic make it much more rich.
I hope to be releasing Fey Touched this year. I’m still writing the first draft, although I am in the final 30k. It’s been one of the coolest books I’ve had the pleasure of writing. It’s almost like I’m seeing it play out like a movie and all I’m doing is transcribing what I see.
Fellow writers, have you ever experimented with this genre? Readers, have you ever read any science fantasy books? What did you think of them?