Lord Dunsay once said (alright fine, he said it over and over again, a favorite line of his at chess tournaments, African game hunting and war) that the land of fantasy existed 'beyond the fields we know'. That to enter the realm of faerie and the impossible we had to leap that final fence at the far edge of the field and wonder into that forest most strange and glamorous, to tread where human feet were not meant to go.
So. How many fantasy novels have you read that have truly strayed off the beaten track? Left the fields of men and gone deep into the mysteries of the impossible, wonderful, bizarre, surreal and strange?
Heck, seems like most 'fantasy' novels are as filled with tropes and stereotypes as anything else. When one thinks fantasy, immediately a number of basic themes and items come to mind. You've got your average idealized Western Medieval setting, replete with castles, knights, swords, knaves, battles, kings, advisers, assassins, honest yeomen, etc, etc. Throw in a dash of rehashed Tolkien (elves, dwarves, dragons, Barbara Streisand, rangers, etc), and you have your basic fantasy novel.
But come on, it goes beyond similar settings. Even the plots tend to be the same. Young kid with a nothing background discovers that he has inherited magic power/weapon of doom/strange destiny/whatever and now he has to gather a small band of intrepid friends about him as he journeys to save the world from the Dark Lord against all odds, yada yada.
I mean, this isn't exactly 'beyond the fields we know'. This is some old retrodden ground here.
It's rare that you come across an actual fantastic setting. Few break the mold. Because there's a fine balance between titillating the reader and losing him. Go too far into faerie and your reader won't follow. They'll linger back by the gate, hand on the post, uncertain and finally annoyed that you're not speaking intelligibly. So you have to strike that balance. You need to lure the reader in with certain familiarity, but then take them as far as you can go.
What novels have you read that really went out there? That did something new? Why is our fantasy so predictable, so constrained by what has gone before? China Mieville is excellent at forging new ground. Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis forged some new ground with their Death Gate series. Gene Wolfe hit it out of the park with his New Sun series (after a serious nod of respect to ol' Man Vance). People love Neil Gaiman for what he did with his Sandman books. But what else?
Imagine me speaking in Tyler Durden's voice here:
"I say, fuck dragons and castles. I say, leave the Middle Ages behind. I say, forget Tolkien and the Quest. I say, make some shit up. Unfetter your imagination, and do something new. Quit looking over your shoulder at what has gone before and mix them up, cross this with that and invert that part over there. Play with gravity, the law of physics, the basics of biology. Make up new monsters, new fears. Find new heroes, new foes. Imagine new moralities, new cultures, new needs and desires. The next time you sit down to write fantasy, god damn it, write something that's actually fantastic."
5 comments:
Huzzah! Wonderful sentiment.
As for your query, your brief list is good, but definitely overlooks the one and only Terry Pratchett. IMHO his talent as a writer is often dismissed because of his talent as a humorist.
It's a relief to see other people that want more than what's out there right now. IMO fantasy should be a genre where anything goes, or what's so fantastical about it? It makes me cringe to see people cling (almost desperately?) to convention.
Freshest stuff I've read lately is by N.K. Jemisen. Definitely not a world we've seen before.
@Will - agreed on Terry Pratchett. The man is brilliant, but I wouldn't necessarily say he is pushing the edge of fantasy, rather he subverts the tropes and stereotypes by poking fun at the sacred and established. What do you think?
@T.S. Bazelli - Welcome to the blog! I absolutely agree with your sentiment. I think it's a question of comfort zones, with people dwelling quite happily in the milieu they were raised on, and not being interested in trying something radical and new.
And yes! I've read Jemisen's first novel (have you read all three?) It was indeed fresh, and her take on religion, architecture, and different cultures was exactly the kind of innovative stuff we need more of.
I'm actually inclined to push back against the premise, or at least to suggest that "what's out there" is far from impoverished. Moorcock and Leiber are the obvious old masters missing here, and I'm surprised Phil hasn't mentioned Jeff VanderMeer alongside China Mieville. Peake's Gormenghast books, Holdstock's MYTHAGO WOOD, Brust's Dragaera books, K. J. Bishop's THE ETCHED CITY, Steven Erikson's GARDENS OF THE MOON -- not a hobbit-baiter or ink-and-paper RenFaire in the bunch. And that's not counting recent reworkings of these settings and tropes that are really well done -- The Kingkiller Chronicle and A Song of Ice and Fire are the obvious ones, as are (to a lesser extent, and for different reasons) Harry Potter and the Dark Tower books. I'd argue that even Robert Jordan, whose flaws are monumental, has shown some pretty serious imaginative chops in terms of world-building and magic.
One question raised by some of the above examples is, to what extent is "fantastic" the highest goal of fantasy? A lot of what makes Mieville and Martin good is a certain realism about politics, power, and human nature, and the use of that to de-fantasize fantastic tropes like knights and magic swords. Not that they don't also contribute their share of straight-out imaginative triumphs -- just to suggest that wild imagination doesn't always work on its own. I'd cite Jack Vance as the paradigm example of conceptual pyrotechnics gone not quite right, and that's acknowledging that he's also incredibly gifted at comic dialogue; the characters just don't pull. You like Cugel, but you don't care what happens to him, except inasmuch as it sets up a good performance.
Anyway, no question that it's better for everyone when everyone brings their A game, and no question that there are plenty of people, some of them massive bestsellers, just going through the motions. But I don't think there's any shortage of high-profile work that does this well.
Hi Matt,
I've already left a response to your questions on your blog, but, unable to sleep, will essay a further response here.
First, I'm going to admit my ignorance: I've not read Moorcock, Lieber, Vandermeer, Holdstock, Brust, nor Erikson. That in and of itself may account for my position. Clearly I need to begin acquainting myself with what's out there.
To what extent is 'fantastic' the goal of fantasy? Again, I think I side with your point of view. Certain of the more fantastical works such as Lord Dunsany's dreamier stuff and Edison's THE WORM OUROBOROUS don't work for me, fantastical as they are, while it is indeed the grittier realism of works such as Mieville's, Morgan's and Martin's that lure me in.
I suppose what I desire to see is my adult sensibilities toward morality and society extrapolated into a fantastic setting. I connect with motives that I can empathize with, I connect to depictions of societies working in manners I believe to be true, regardless of whether they have dragon steeds or other fantastic trappings.
So how fantastic does a fantasy novel have to be? As fantastic as possible while still allowing me to connect and empathize with that which makes that world real for me.
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