: Re: Fantasy novel with obvious - but never defined - sci-fi elements? I'm considering writing a fantasy novel. While I'm striving to make the world as original as I can, and not rely on many of
I would say, you don't get off on a technicality when it comes to readers, so whether you are explicit in telling them it is scifi, or aliens are spaceships or super-high-tech, is all immaterial.
If you expect them to figure it out, then it is not different than if you told them. Just because your characters have no concept of aliens living on other worlds doesn't make your readers stupid!
So the real question is only whether you should mix fantasy and scifi.
The answer: Yes, if you can make it work, with one big caveat: IMO you should not put significant mysteries into a story that do not have any influence on the plot in that book, and it sounds to me like you plan to do that. If you drop an alien out of the sky or talk about the rogue star, then you have Chekhov's Gun; and it needs to be fired:
‘Chekhov’s Gun’ is a concept that describes how every element of a story should contribute to the whole. It comes from Anton Chekhov’s famous book writing advice: ‘If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.’
In other words, everything that is introduced in a story needs to have a function.
So, if your intent is to just mention these things and they have no influence on the story, then yes, your readers will be displeased, partially for having ray guns in their fantasy, but more importantly, displeased that you wasted their time describing a bunch of stuff that did not matter.
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