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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36763
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36763
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Mixing sci-fi elements into a mostly fantasy story has been done before. For example, Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonriders of Pern_ starts out as a typical fantasy series, and then turns out to have also been sci-fi all along (humans have come to a planet, bio-engineered dragons...). Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series is also fantasy, with hints that the world has had a "modern" and even "sci-fi" period before becoming a fantasy world again. Diana Wynne Jones's _Hexwood_ is a mindscrew that mixes King Arthur, aliens, and a calm English farm. So yes, **you can mix elements of both genres, and it is possible to do it quite successfully**.

However, @Amadeus is right: Chekhov's guns that do not fire do nothing but confuse the reader. You can leave hints that could be expended into sci-fi later, but those hints have to _also_ be relevant to what's happening in the story you're telling right now. If there's an oddly moving star, it should be, for example, a part of local mythology that's relevant in some way to the plot. If there are people who "came from the sky", we should meet them, and they should provide the story something. And so on. **Everything that is in your story, should have a reason to be there; not as a hook for the next book, but a reason that's relevant to the story you're telling here and now.**

Original score: 22