# SF stories or series where the 'science' was basically magic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076 "2025-04-15T18:13:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/1 "2025-04-15T18:13:49Z")
I’m thinking of Blish’s Cities in Flight books, which I loved when much younger. Lots of ‘sciency’ names, like Dirac and Bethe in the narrative But the Spindizzy breaks… well, conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and all of relativity. I still want one, though… ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/2 "2025-04-15T18:39:56Z")
_Star Wars_ Unfortunately, most every popular sci fi has something in the tech that “magically” works. All the power goes out on the Enterprise - except the artificial gravity. And don’t get me started on transporters! In Niven’s Known Space, stasis fields can’t work as described, yet their use drives a lot of stories. Still like them, though. Dare I add 2001? At least, it is _indistinguishable_ from magic. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/3 "2025-04-15T18:47:25Z")
[The Artifact](https://www.amazon.com/Artifact-Daw-Book-Collectors-809-ebook/dp/B075PVRW95/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31QHCM4HRT93R&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AmLb-w1kxim5eFqjTRxvZqCQ3eQJUkEloKOOoXu792rGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.Y8f8GnY5xIuatT--ky3df5YqLxTYSle3lsO4lejfQCM&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+artifact+book+gear&qid=1744742531&sprefix=%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1) If I remember right, there’s a lot of hard sci-fi with respect to the human technology, some heavy handed PTSD, interplanetary politics / intrigue, and an alien artifact that breaks all the rules of everything. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/4 "2025-04-15T19:06:51Z")
That description probably fits more science fiction than it doesn’t. But I’ll play along with an example: Iain Banks’s _Culture_ books. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/5 "2025-04-15T19:08:57Z")
Oh, and _Doctor Who_. They give him a friggin’ _magic wand_, for cripe’s sake! ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/6 "2025-04-15T19:42:11Z")
Heinlein’s _Sixth Column_. The technology is so clearly magic, that the characters actually disguise it as magic in the story… > **[Sixth Column](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column)** > > Sixth Column, also known under the title The Day After Tomorrow, is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, based on a then-unpublished story by editor John W. Campbell, and set in a United States that has been conquered by the PanAsians, who are asserted to be neither Japanese nor Chinese. Originally published as a serial in Astounding Science Fiction (January, February, and March 1941, using the pen name Anson MacDonald) it was published in hardcover in 1949. It is most... > Heinlein’s work on Campbell’s “All” was considerably more than just a re-slanting; Campbell’s story was felt to be unpublishable as it stood, written in a pseudo-archaic dialect (sometimes inconsistently), and provided no scientific explanations for miraculous powers of the American super-weapons, which the PanAsians have no explanation for other than to conclude that weapons’ powers must be divine. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/7 "2025-04-15T21:22:16Z")
I had this discussion awhile ago here. Is there really anything that qualifies as “hard” science fiction? Any story with faster-than-light spaceships is fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/8 "2025-04-15T21:38:01Z")
> **[Mundane science fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundane_science_fiction)** > > Mundane science fiction (MSF) is a niche literary movement within science fiction that developed in the early 2000s, with principles codified by the "Mundane Manifesto" in 2004, signed by author Geoff Ryman and the "2004 class" of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. The movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre of science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth or within the Solar System; a lack of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel or human contact ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/9 "2025-04-15T21:39:51Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Any story with faster-than-light spaceships is fantasy. But our heroes use **wormholes** not only to travel faster-than-light but also through time and into parallel universes! ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/10 "2025-04-15T21:42:07Z")
_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ would seem to qualify as “mundane”. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/11 "2025-04-15T21:44:25Z")
It has to be said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” - Arthur C Clarke ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/12 "2025-04-15T21:46:48Z")
For an example of what the OP is looking for, I just read _Dune_ for the first time, and the whole ecosystem of Arrakis, with the spice and the sandworms, is totally magical. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/13 "2025-04-15T22:07:12Z")
[Unsong](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28589297-unsong) by Scott Alexander fits the bill, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/14 "2025-04-15T22:22:58Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It has to be said: Someone already did (post 2) ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/15 "2025-04-15T22:23:56Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Is there really anything that qualifies as “hard” science fiction? The TV show Century City was basically “LA Law _in the future!_” It featured court cases raised by new technologies, that were usually quite plausible. The effects of self-driving cars; what happens when you can tell which in vitro embryo you might implant will be gay, based on genetic analyses; A teenager suing their parents because they use technology to track her every movement, stuff like that. > **[Century City (TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_City_(TV_series))** > > Century City is an American science fiction legal drama television series created by Ed Zuckerman, that aired on CBS from March 16, 2004, to January 20, 2005, before being cancelled due to low ratings. The series is set in Los Angeles in the year 2030. > The show follows the legal team of Crane, Constable, McNeil & Montero. At the helm are the firm's four partners, the founder and senior partner Hannah Crane; veteran attorney Marty Constable; the pleased-with-himself attorney Darwin McNeil; and... ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/16 "2025-04-15T22:45:39Z")
There’s no such thing as “totally realistic” science fiction. Even if something is theoretically possible, theory will only get you so far - there’s no way you can ever know anything will work until you actually try it. So any piece of invented technology involves a leap of faith to one degree or another, and that means magic. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/17 "2025-04-15T22:48:14Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > The TV show Century City was basically “LA Law _in the future!_” It featured court cases raised by new technologies, that were usually quite plausible. From the Wikipedia page it states: > In a time when lawyers can go before judges as holograms That doesn’t sound very different than doing it over Zoom, which became extremely common due to the pandemic starting in 2020, 10 years before the year that show was supposed to take place. Kind of funny to me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/18 "2025-04-15T23:12:25Z")
Ach. Read it but did not register it. The point is still worth emphasizing: not being consistent with science as we currently understand it is not a problem for me as long as the “science” stays consistent with in universe. I shouldn’t be able to understand how very advanced technology works any more than someone a thousand years ago would understand what a black hole is, or about gravitational waves. I more go the other way. In Fantasy isn’t magic just the same as science that we as readers don’t understand? As long as it follows consistent rules they are the rules of nature in that world, using forces that are real in that world. Any true “magic” is science not yet understood. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/19 "2025-04-15T23:16:52Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Star Wars Pretty much. IMO, the only reason it’s considered science fiction at all is that it takes place in space, and there’s energy weapons. It’s “space opera,” with no pretensions of being anything approaching hard SF, and the Jedi and Sith are effectively wizards with energy swords. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076/20 "2025-04-15T23:21:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The point is still worth emphasizing: not being consistent with science as we currently understand it is not a problem for me as long as the “science” stays consistent with in universe. I shouldn’t be able to understand how very advanced technology works any more than someone a thousand years ago would understand what a black hole is, or about gravitational waves. Yes. Sci-fi/fantasy requires a suspension of disbelief from the audience (book, movie, TV show, whatever medium it’s in). When a work can be internally consistent, that suspension of disbelief can be maintained. It’s when it contradicts itself that the whole thing breaks down. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-stories-or-series-where-the-science-was-basically-magic/1017076.md?page=2)