Oh, I love some good world-building, and especially when there is a set of rules that's followed to their consequences. [Ayuc sums it up nicely in this comment

Oh, I love some good world-building, and especially when there is a set of rules that's followed to their consequences. [Ayuc sums it up nicely in this comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056594 ] If you look at it this way, it CAN be done in fantasy. Check out Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker (a great one-off), or the Mistborn series. (There are quite a few similarities between them.) Or Max Brooks' World War Z was great in this way, I think. Although it's been quite a while since I read that. (I know this is an older thread, so I hope you'll find this comment. Made a HN account for this. :D )