I am not having a problem.
A little bit of pseudoscience handwaving is all I need to be good with this. Dwarves were just heavy gravity sorts, who grew strong but short under 1.5g. Elves grew long and fine in .7
No problems.
If you like fantasy races in space,you should check out 40k
For me the only reason why I can say the whiplash didn't hit me as hard would be because of Shadowrun. Shadowrun was the first time I ran into a setting that was a mix of Science Fiction melding with Fantasy. If we start seeing Cyberspace type situations than I"m down for that.
I will say it is a bit jarring to see Dwarfs and Elves and Orcs. If anything they're fantasy type humanoids. I wouldn't mind less bipeds and more quadrapeds or other sci-fi type races. Robots, Rock People, Sentient Slime. Maybe I feel spoiled with my own personal history playing games like Star Control 1, 2 and 3. Where Aliens like the Illwrath and Ur-Quan go up against the hybrid fused race like the Chmmr or even the goofy Pkunk.
That said, >G hasn't let me down with Sentinels so before I pass anything that sounds like a final judgement, I want to see how this one pans out. The game play sounds fun and for me that's the important part. They (or us the community) can always add other races in later.
Maybe it seems weird to me just because the races are straight up called elves and dwarves and stuff (even with the extra bits like "Quasimetallic" ;)), names that are from the Fantasy genre rather than the Sci-Fi one. I dunno, I suppose I just expect these things to have different names so I can go "Oh, Eldar...okay so they're basically elves". And since I always try to play the most non-human-looking race that I can, that's probably another reason why I don't find these ones too incredibly amazing-looking (apart from the speccies, who as mentioned I think look cool)...but I [i]am/i] basically judging this entirely on the artwork and race names, with no clue at all as to how they play. And maybe some more races wil be added in expansions or something :).
Just throwing my thoughts out there. Have you guys thought that maybe they are called that and have that name as to not alienate some of the more wary purchasers/players? I mean, a nerdy guy like me has no problem pronouncing the full name, but when someone says these guys are dwarves, there are already preconceptions that could help speed up explaining and gameplay. Knowing that dwarfs are stubborn, tough to kill and great at technology. So i already have a grasp of what who my dwarf character is. Then the space stuff is extra. Gimli in Space!
Penta: 
In ancient times, during the intitial genesis of this game, Christopher and I held in our hands two potential settings for what was then known as Project Tungsten: we could either go incredibly "hard" sci-fi, and have alien races as scientifically realistic as possible (no resemblance to earth species, i.e., no bipedal tetrapods, or obvious birds/reptiles/fish/etc, and really delve into the chemistry and evolutionary history of each race, or embrace the inherently "science fantasy" nature of every popular science fiction setting of the past century. We opted for the later as we find it to be more accessable, and more amenable to the over-the-top science-fictiony feeling we want for this particular game. It lets us be ridiculously dramatic in a fun and tongue-in-cheek sort of way, which really fits in well with the game's flavor.
And who knows, one of these years we might even right the proper game for the first, "hard" sci-fi setting!
My main concern wasn't that it was space-fantasy, but just that its space-fantasyness hadn't been mentioned anywhere previously and it's not even mentioned in the Setting section of the Kickstarter. That allows people for form a more hard sci-fi expectation before they're surprised by the mention of elves and dwarves. Might want to weave the space-fantasyness of it into the public descriptions, is my suggestion. If the game were described as a space-fantasy game from the get-go, I don't think anyone will have problems with it.
I think thats too much putting things in Boxes. Im all for breaking boxes.
One thing I'm curious about, and that I *almost* expect is that new races will be released in expansions, and then we may have more crazy things going on. These are just the base races, but yeah, I did a double take with space elves, then remembered space orcs, it feels odd, but I also have limited knowledge as to the world and races, so I expect I'll get more comfortable. A little warning would have been appreciated though as spiff has mentioned.
Funny comment from a guy on the Kickstarter who was also taken by surprise by the elves and dwarves:
Meta-human... sure, fine
Sulph-orc... interesting
Techno-dwarf... ermmm.... really?
Neo-elf.... No no no, frikkin quit it,no!I love Sentinels, and this looks like a neat game design, but the fiction is killing me. The beauty of space fantasy is that the races can be anything. ANYTHING! Slapping on the same, tired old Tolkien fare is weak sauce, even if it's "neo". If you used them as starting archtypes, so be it, but at least give the races some respectably original names.
Are the orbit-goblins, cyber-ogres, and astro-wizards waiting for the first expansion?
(Hypocritically, I like the war-spectres...)
Now I want orbit-goblins and cyber-ogres too! Astro-wizards would be too much though. ;)
…and the response from GtG:
Which is pretty accurate, considering the incredibly awesome backstory for Technodwarf society.
I want Astro-gnomers!! and Cosmo-paladins!!
+1 +1 +1 +1
Dark matter necromancer.
We decided to be very obvious and over-the-top with the "science fantasy" theme
I think that was probably the problem right there. When one person thinks they're being goofy and over-the-top but the other person isn't in on the joke, it looks like the first person is just being dumb. A little prep work to make sure the community knew what to expect would have gone a long way.
I dunno, it felt pretty obviously over the top to me...
There are people who think Stephen Colbert and Sasha Baron Cohen's characters are real, so you can never assume people are going to get the joke, but I'm not sure I think it's worthwhile to cater to the humorless.
Oh man, I totally want this to be a thing, now.
Also, elves and dwarves didn't make me bat an eye, but I groan a little bit each time I say "Sulph-Orcs" out loud. Puns.