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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.
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?
