Fantasy and Technology

Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology – Alan Jacobs – The Atlantic.

 

The above link is to an article discussing one of Tolkein’s enduring bequeaths to Fantasy literature – that technology is the enemy.  This still plays out in literatures and stereotypes today.  How many boffer larpers talk about what they do as a chance to escape modern technology? The SCA has more right to aim for this ethic, as it aims to tackle things from a historical bent, but again there are lots of people who describe it as their opportunity to escape the computers and cell phones, and to portray a fictional character. The dominant element in almost every Fantasy setting (in fact, one of the usual defining elements of the genre) is a world without technology. Not that all fantasy worlds are pastoral and idyllic (Lieber and Martin are clear examples of urban and gritty works), but that somehow, if you include technology you are either ‘Urban Fantasy’ or ‘Sci-Fi’. Or perhaps, ‘Steampunk’ depending on the technology in question.

So, I ask you, help me make a list of Fantasy genre items where Technology is not a banished evil or a hallmark of the enemy.  Off the top of my head, Pratchett’s Discworld embraces technology, although in his characteristic tongue in cheek nature.  Rosenberg’s Guardians of The  Flame starts in a standard world, but with the element of ‘Mundane transported to fantasy world’ addresses the introduction of modern sciences and technologies to a fantasy setting.  Stasheff layers a fantasy world on top of a sci-fi universe in the Warlock series. Piers Anthony has mirrored (almost literally) sci-fi and fantasy worlds in the same books, but in many ways this only serves to reinforce the ‘technology bad, pre-industrial good’ vibe.  Harry Potter likewise uses the notion of pre-industrial/post-industrial as a separator and implies that the post-industrial world is inferior.

Where are the things that can be definitively lumped as Fantasy, but don’t try to claim, outright or through inference, that ours is the wrong world to live in, and that technology is the ruin of all?

Mirrored from The Black Horse of the Blog World.