With a name like Dragonflight you might think that the 1968 book by Anne McCaffrey involves stone castles, knights, magic, and all the trappings of high fantasy. And the book does have a lot of fantasy within its pages. But what you learn, pretty quickly — spoiler alert! — is that the book takes place on an alien planet, and the dragons are an indigenous species genetically altered to help protect against the deadly “threads” that rain down on the planet.
Mixing science fiction and fantasy is a fun genre-bending approach taken by some great writers. Here’s a list of more fantasy/science fiction mixes from ScreenRant:
Ursula K. Le Guin might be the greatest science fiction writer of all time, and The Left Hand of Darkness is easily one of her best works. The story is set on an alien planet on which a human envoy travels to establish contact and convince them to join an interplanetary union. Through the eyes of Genly, the protagonist, the world of Winter, the planet, could not be more foreign, as the concept of binary gender does not exist there. All the people living on Winter are capable of physically expressing the traits of either biological sex.
This exploration of gender and sexuality and the imagined differences of alien races is not uncommon among sci-fi books but also has deep roots in fantasy. Additionally, there are inexplicable aspects of the future, like mind speak, and the ability to predict the future cements the book as a curious blend of many genres. Reading The Left Hand of Darkness today is so urgent and relevant that it’s easy to forget it was written many years ago. The lessons Genly learns in Winter are applicable to any human on Earth right now.