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I read it as just regular fantasy. If you're going to classify books like that as sci-fi then even wheel of time is Sci-Fi. If all it takes for something to be sci-fi is "there was a civilisation with technology once and this seemingly magic artifact is a remnant of it" then a good 50% of high fantasy might be sci fi :P

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I think Jemisin is moving SciFi/Fantasy toward a point in which the hard line is becoming irrelevant. In general, I can't tolerate SciFi for much the same reason that I'm bored with High Fantasy. Jemesin brings enough of each into her stories that I can enjoy the science and am not seeing an ill-defined magic system bail characters out of poor choices.

The "New Wave" authors of the 1960s and 1970s such as Zelazny, Delany (directly mentioned in the article), Aldiss and others already pushed the boundaries of the "hard line" between Sci-Fi and Fantasy to the point of irrelevancy. It's not entirely a new struggle for these "two" genres to play with their boundaries.

It's clearly not hard SF, but if I had to classify it I'd call it SF based on feel. Similar situation to The Urth of the New Sun; I don't think anyone really considers that fantasy, even though it has a similar (or even more extreme) "lost technology is unknowable magic" setup.

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