Specifically, got any slow-paced, slice of life, or pastoral stuff? Scifi with trees in, mostly just about people (the people can be robots/aliens/clones/sapient animals/time travelers, that would be awesome). I’m going through City withdrawals or something, I guess.

Hi! I started to reply about my novel, and then realized who I was talking to! You've already read it! Sorry about that!

Normally I don’t comment on stuff like this, but since it weirdly specifically fits mine in some ways, you could always try checking Minimal out. There’s a big focus on characters and their relationships. I wouldn’t call it pastoral per say, but the first planet they visit is a small beach village and they’ve been there a while.

But if not what you’re going for, that’s fine. It’s in my signature below. The first one. Not “Minimal: After Dark”

Hey, this is shameless advertisement. Where else can you shamelessly advertise, if not here? I’ll check it out!

I have a weird scifi mostly thriller about the mob and an alien immigrant kid named Maks who gets roped up in it. AU world where aliens landed in 1100 sort of world. It's called Now Hiring, the scifi is baked into the world rather than it being gadgets up front :'j

I have a sword and sorcery comic where, however, there is no explicit magic, so it could count as sci-fi if you squint your eyes a bit.

It is "pastoral" in the sense that people have a low technology level, however they end up killing each other a lot.

Yay shameless advertisement!

I gotta admit an opening with a trifold symmetry alien running across one of the Plain People out fishing is my thing to an almost embarrassing extent.

Um.... not exactly weird but it is still a space opera......

Now that I think about it, I also have two concluded webcomics that happen to be sci-fi:

Gemito 2o73 is a cyberpunk/detective story, 100 pages. It's my first webcomic and shows a lot of change in the drwaing style, expecially because up to page 15 I drew traditional and from p.16 onwards I started to use a drawing tablet from sketches to color.

Bunyan Mk7 is a giant robot self-conclusive 32 pages story, more humouristic than my other 2 comics.

Again, I am so glad you enjoyed it.

Well, since this is in the "Shameless Advertisement" section, for any onlookers wondering what we're talking about, my novel is Alien In a Small Town and it's available on Amazon. The premise is that, a few centuries hence, the world has changed enormously, but the Mennonites of rural Pennsylvania still live much as they always have. Our story follows a nonhumanoid, silicon-based alien who ends up living in their midst, and of the close friendship he develops with one of them over the years.

Doodler, if it helps, I can tell you some of the stuff that influenced my book (though they're mostly not comics), and you can check them out:

* The "All Creatures Great and Small" books by James Herriot, the memoirs of a country veterinarian in rural Britain before WWII. It's been adapted to TV twice, both times excellently. The newer one is currently running on PBS. (The original stars Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor!)

* The novel "Nor Crystal Tears" by Alan Dean Foster, about First Contact between humanity and his insectoid aliens the Thranx, told from a Thranx's point of view. And I love the cover painting by Michael Whelan.

* "Watership Down" (both the novel and the animated film) about the culture and trials and tribulations of a group of rabbits in rural Britain. Far less sedate and peaceful than that description would imply, though there is much beauty in it.

* Miyazaki's anime film "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind," about... geez, how do I summarize it? It's peaceful and tranquil and also exciting and inspiring and it has giant insects and fungus forests in it. There is an accompanying long-running manga series, which I'm afraid I have never read.

* Gainax's first anime film, "Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise," about a fictional world's first space program. It's only partly set in the countryside (the scenes with the protagonist's girlfriend and her home), but the overall feel of the film is exactly what you're talking about, I think.

And, um..... Fyodor Dostoevsky's novels "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov," which were a huge influence on the psychological stuff in my novel, but which do not fit your requirements at all. Oh well :D. And I could list other influences like the Star Trek episodes "Metamorphosis" and "Devil In the Dark," but they're not pastoral at all.

Clifford Simak's novel "Waystation," and Raymond F. Jones's "Weeping May Tarry" would also be good picks, though I read them after I'd already finished my book. Oh, and "The Wind In the Willows" isn't s.f., but I was amazed how much I enjoyed it.

I think mine might count? Lol

It's slow & I'm currently on a break from updates but working on new pages to get posted soon....

Terrestrial may not be what you're looking for setting-wise, but it is long form and is very character centered.

It's gonna chill in an almost Gothom meets cyber punk cityscape for most of the series but some of the volumes will be set in rural locations.

I realize asking for scifi with trees is kinda like asking for a swimsuit with fur, oops sorry. :P

And thank you all! I'll have to check these out.

That's a pretty obscure want mate. But I'm feeling generous so tell you what,

What if I pitch half baked ideas to you like you're a literary agent and you get to respond with professionally and vaguely worded emails that entail to "holy fucking shit never write again"?


Is it legal to shill an external comic that's by someone else and I have no links to other than being a long time reader? I don't care. Try out Monster Soup. IMHO a good mix of slice of life, fantasy adventures, and an overarching sciencey/political plot that's slowly unraveling. It's not really super sci-fi so no robots and aliens but some out there technology here and there. And just generally good quality IMHO, I rec it to anyone I think might like it for some element or other

(wanders off to give it a look)

Also I mean people talk about the internet having something for every weird obscure personal taste in terms of porn, but it's true for other stuff too.

Yeah I can vouch to that.

Funnily enough, "casual rural scifi with low stakes that's mostly slice of life" is the type of stuff I used to write tons of at like... 16-19.

So I'm here all "man and I thought those ideas were useless when NOW---"



Anyway the takeaway here is "there really is an audience for anything, kids!"

I know I've read and watched pastoral sci-fi in the dim and distant past, but can't properly remember any of it. There are a couple of works I do remember; not exactly pastoral in setting but definitely positive.

Ghost Protocol by Mark Sachs is a short story. It plays with and outright inverts tropes from "oldschool humans-are-great pulp SF," to use the author's words. I've seen those tropes played straight far too many times, so I love it. :D

A Miracle of Science is a 435-page, long-since-finished webcomic notable for being one of the very few positive depictions of a group mind. It gets a bit gritty in places but, like Ghost Protocol, there's an element of the nicer side of people there all along, often in the person of the group mind's representative! (Not entirely surprising; GP's author is AMoS's artist.) Towards the end, you get to see the group mind's home planet. It's so peaceful and well-tended that I think of it as virtually pastoral despite the towering (and disconnected!) architecture of the bustling cities. In a way, it is. Everyone in the group mind is peaceful and happy while still retaining individuality, and the cities tower so as not to impinge on the fragile and slowly developing ecosystem.

Oh! How could I possibly have forgotten Ellie on Planet X? The main comic absolutely has a pastoral setting. It's written for children, but most of the readers seem to be sci-fi authors and artists. When you start looking into the backstory, you can see why: it's got the kind of depth and detail that only true nerds would create, getting wonderfully immersive at times, but maintains its lightheartedness throughout. I love it so much! XD

But now I'm going to check out a few of the other links in this thread, I think. :)

@windmyrm: Now I've nerd-sniped myself with what "low stakes" means (in a story, not irl). Is the song "Carry Me Across the Mountain" low stakes compared to the comic book guy who eats planets? I mean, yeah, clearly, it's one person vs a few billion, but the subjective vibe doesn't quite go that way. I guess personal taste comes into it too.

This isn't the only kind of scifi I like, to be clear, but when it's done well, it's real good. A spaceship parked at a gas station is an arresting image, ya know?

@eekee:

Oh, that sounds interesting (reminds me of the funny/weirdly touching/kinda biting group mind in that Stanislaw Lem book with the robot army that gets networked and winds up too smart to fight in a stupid war, or ).

Honestly at this point in time I've encountered such an oversaturation of "billions/trillions/an entire planet/an entire galaxy must be saved!" that I can't be invested anymore in that premise, myself. And a lot of writers use it in fantasy and sci-fi to make the threat seem Super Duper Big.

I like small-ish stakes myself. Even on a backdrop of "the entire world!" it's just so much better when the protagonist and team are likeable and have smaller reasons and goals why they want to stop the big bad. Or the big bad is more vague than a dude that eats planets.

Sorry I'm derailing your topic. You want people to shill scifi. So uh. What other sci-fi do you like?

this one isnt really a comic but i think it might fit what you're looking for, its called Kapa Rizon. its about an alien child that survives a spaceship crash landing onto another planet, and how his relationship with the local people develops over the next 800 years.

it does focus on the characters and the planet, and it was really nice seeing the different interactions with the main character and the local people (they have really cute and fun designs). it does cost money to buy but i think it's worth it in my opinion cause i had a blast reading this and is one of my favorite sci fi media

also i might have to check out some of these suggestions too cause they sound pretty good