See, when I was thinking of a soft magic plot I honestly first hit on like slipstream scifi. Moeibious kinda stuff. Where I can't myself feel any magic about the world I can about the universe. Magic? Bullshit. Le Incal? A magic pyramid fought over by the technopriests with unknowable magic powers? Obviously plausable and emotionally relevant.
So there is a synthesis here. As star treck is that same science fantasy kidna setting.
There is obviously a link there but herbet went out of his way to keep some aspects of the story grounded. There was little effort in that reguard. It sounds more like what you are talking about than dune. He does have stuff like the azarch that veers out into pure metaphor.
You should check out prophet as well. It was an old gritty 90s comic that got rebooted into mythical science fantasy.
What else is on the list? Greg egan? Roger Zelazny?
Follow your heart once you read enough of the scifi you will roughly be able to guess the publication date based on the tech in it.
Especially since you said you are looking for works with a sense of the numenous. We got those from the 70s when authors tended to get acid and experience wonder directly. Now then of recent vemtage we have them were the authors can see into the future enough to recapture a sense of wonder. But in the middle it felt like they really didn't have any true imagination
You make a valid point anthropology wise. Can you think of a time where magic being fundamentally unknowable like you said was narratively satifying?
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See, when I was thinking of a soft magic plot I honestly first hit on like slipstream scifi. Moeibious kinda stuff. Where I can't myself feel any magic about the world I can about the universe. Magic? Bullshit. Le Incal? A magic pyramid fought over by the technopriests with unknowable magic powers? Obviously plausable and emotionally relevant.
So there is a synthesis here. As star treck is that same science fantasy kidna setting.
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There is obviously a link there but herbet went out of his way to keep some aspects of the story grounded. There was little effort in that reguard. It sounds more like what you are talking about than dune. He does have stuff like the azarch that veers out into pure metaphor.
You should check out prophet as well. It was an old gritty 90s comic that got rebooted into mythical science fantasy.
What else is on the list? Greg egan? Roger Zelazny?
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I'd be interested to hear what you think is of note form your list
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Follow your heart once you read enough of the scifi you will roughly be able to guess the publication date based on the tech in it.
Especially since you said you are looking for works with a sense of the numenous. We got those from the 70s when authors tended to get acid and experience wonder directly. Now then of recent vemtage we have them were the authors can see into the future enough to recapture a sense of wonder. But in the middle it felt like they really didn't have any true imagination