The Bankrupt Nihilism of Our Fallen Fantasists
by Leo GrinI used to think I was a fan of the genre known today as fantasy, and specifically the subgenres of High Fantasy and Sword-and-Sorcery. This was due to a number of factors. A childhood imagination dominated by Dungeons & Dragons. An exposure to memorable movies like Excalibur, Clash of the Titans, Conan the Barbarian, and their lesser 1980s cousins.
Towering above all, though, was (and still is) my unabashed obsession with the two titanic literary talents chiefly responsible for birthing the entire shebang: J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). I consider each the complete equal of the other, two flat-out geniuses destined to be remembered and reread hundreds of years after the Pulitzer-winning authors praised by most mainstream critics are forgotten.
But it was only recently, after decades of ever-increasing reading disappointment, that I grudgingly began to admit the truth: I don’t particularly care for fantasy per se. What I actually cherish is something far more rare: the elevated prose poetry, mythopoeic subcreation, and thematic richness that only the best fantasy achieves, and that echoes in important particulars the myths and fables of old.
This realization eliminates, at a stroke, virtually everything written under the banner of fantasy today.
The mere trappings of the genre do nothing for me when wedded to the now-ubiquitous interminable soap-opera plots (a conservative friend of mine once accurately derided “fat fantasy” cycles such as Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time as “Lord of the Rings 90210”). Nor do they impress me in the least when placed into the hands of writers clearly bored with the classic mythic undertones of the genre, and who try to shake things up with what can best be described as postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage.
Take the latest novel by popular Brit author Joe Abercrombie (b. 1974), who regularly hits the UK bestseller lists with his self-described “edgy yet humorous un-heroic fantasy.” Titled The Heroes, the tome is guaranteed, given the scribe’s past work, to feature the exact opposite of what it advertises. “Abercrombie takes the grand tradition of high fantasy, and drags it down into the gutter, in the best possible way,” gushed Time magazine about Best Served Cold, his previous book.
Alas, I haven’t read it — Abercrombie’s freshman effort, the massive First Law trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Were Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings) was more than enough for me. Endless scenes of torture, treachery and bloodshed drenched in scatology and profanity concluded with a resolution worthy of M. Night Shyamalan at his worst, one that did its best to hurt, disappoint, and dishearten any lover of myths and their timeless truths. Think of a Lord of the Rings where, after stringing you along for thousands of pages, all of the hobbits end up dying of cancer contracted by their proximity to the Ring, Aragorn is revealed to be a buffoonish puppet-king of no honor and false might, and Gandalf no sooner celebrates the defeat of Sauron than he executes a long-held plot to become the new Dark Lord of Middle-earth, and you have some idea of what to expect should you descend into Abercrombie’s jaded literary sewer.
On various blogs you can find critics raving about this mythic bait-and-switch. “Gritty, violent, morally ambiguous and darkly funny fantasy with a streak of intelligent cynicism,” says Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone. “Dark, almost nihilistic, yet shot through with black humour,” writes Simon Appleby at Book Geeks, adding approvingly that, “[Abercrombie] writes about ordinary people thrust in to extraordinary situations who seldom, if ever, acquit themselves heroically.”
Troll the Amazon reviews of many of the latest books hailed as among the great mold-breaking fantasies of the last few decades, and you’ll see similar memes cropping up again and again. One fan reviewing Matthew Woodring Stover’s otherwise ingeniously plotted Caine books bemoans, as I did when trudging through them, the main character’s continuous “bitter, cynical and almost self-hating monologue.” Most of the second book in the series has Caine paralyzed and gracing the reader with detailed descriptions like, “I am — right now, lying naked in a pool of a dead woman’s shit, chained to stone, gangrene eating my dead-meat legs….”
The latest entry in Steven Erikson’s ten-volume Malazan Book of the Fallen, a series running many thousands of pages, is described by one exhausted fan as “pointlessly depressing. . . a lot of death that seems purely random and serving no purpose at all.” “Despair and fatalism dominate,” confirms another reader. (For those who haven’t gotten enough, Erikson recently announced that, with the help of another writer, he will now be expanding his opus from ten volumes to twenty-two — assuming both he and his fans live that long.)
Michael Swanwick’s subversive 1993 novel The Iron Dragon’s Daughter sported a title that lured in many young girls thinking they were getting a standard Young Adult fantasy. According to Publisher’s Weekly (and confirmed by my torturous slog through it a few years ago), it was actually a “nihilistic tale features a human changeling who tries to make her way in a cutthroat society that mirrors contemporary life. . . a powerful, yet dark and hopeless fantasy that should forever shatter charming illusions of Faerie and its folk.” Scenes of teenybopper elf sex and coke-snorting pile one atop the other until the book becomes to fantasy literature what the films of Larry Clark (Kids, Bully) are to cinema.
To be sure, people have every right to publish such books, and in so doing express their frustration or boredom with what can loosely be called the classic Tolkien/Howard mode. Such blowback against the grandmasters of fantasy is nothing new — it stretches back at least to 1934, when a teenaged Robert Bloch (who later went on to write Psycho) wrote in the letter column of the pulp magazine Weird Tales that:
I am awfully tired of poor old Conan the Cluck, who for the past fifteen issues has every month slain a new wizard, tackled a new monster, come to a violent and sudden end that was averted (incredibly enough!) in just the nick of time, and won a new girlfriend, each of whose penchant for nudism won her a place of honor, either on the cover or on the inner illustration. Such has been Conan’s history, and from the realms of the Kushites to the lands of Aquilonia, from the shores of the Shemites to the palaces of Dyme-Novell-Bolonia, I cry: “Enough of this brute and his iron-thewed sword-thrusts — may he be sent to Valhalla to cut out paper dolls.”
But, to quote Tolkien’s famous rejoinder to his critics from his introduction to the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings, “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.” The other side thinks that their stuff is, at long last, turning the genre into something more original, thoughtful, and ultimately palatable to intelligent, mature audiences. They and their fans are welcome to that opinion. For my part — and I think Tolkien and Howard would have heartily agreed — I think they’ve done little more than become cheap purveyors of civilizational graffiti.
Soiling the building blocks and well-known tropes of our treasured modern myths is no different than other artists taking a crucifix and dipping it in urine, covering it in ants, or smearing it with feces. In the end, it’s just another small, pathetic chapter in the decades-long slide of Western civilization into suicidal self-loathing. It’s a well-worn road: bored middle-class creatives (almost all of them college-educated liberals) living lives devoid of any greater purpose inevitably reach out for anything deemed sacred by the conservatives populating any artistic field. They co-opt the language, the plots, the characters, the cliches, the marketing, and proceed to deconstruct it all like a mad doctor performing an autopsy. Then, using cynicism, profanity, scatology, dark humor, and nihilism, they put it back together into a Frankenstein’s monster designed to shock, outrage, offend, and dishearten.
In the case of the fantasy genre, the result is a mockery and defilement of the mythopoeic splendor that true artists like Tolkien and Howard willed into being with their life’s blood. Honor is replaced with debasement, romance with filth, glory with defeat, and hope with despair. Edgy? Nah, just punk kids farting in class and getting some giggles from the other mouth-breathers.
It’s quite rich to see many of the guys writing fantasy today being praised for (to once again quote Publisher’s Weekly talking about Joe Abercrombie) successfully exposing the “madness, passion, and horror of war.” How soon we forget that some of the early work of J.R.R. Tolkien — the man who pioneered the selfsame High Fantasy now being dragged “down into the gutter” to make it suitably “edgy” — was penned while he sat in the trenches of World War I, even while most his closest friends were being killed. Tolkien later wrote the a sizable amount of The Lord of the Rings during the Second World War, while worrying about two of his sons as they headed off to do their part.
Call me humorless, call me old-fashioned, but I daresay the good professor had a much better idea of war and heroes than the nihilistic jokesters writing modern fantasy.
To be continued. . . . .
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332 Comments
Leo, well said. While not a 100% fan of fantasy (I'm more of a sci fi gal, although I do plan on finishing The Lord of the Rings – sad to say, I did get a little bored of the detail, but I'm willing to try again since I love the movies so much – the story is just magnificent), I agree with your assessment of the "new stuff" because I think it happens in every genre. Sometimes it's good (like I guess film noir would be to the usual happy Hollywood endings), but many times it's not.
Sometimes the difference is fine the first time around and then it's like beating a dead horse, gets old and unfresh and needs to be redone again, even if it means going back to the classics. Like vampires – I happen to think that Anne Rice's original "Interview with a Vampire" was very interesting. Perhaps it wasn't the first time, but it was for me, to hear from the POV of a vampire and I liked it .
Shame that she got rid of her editor later because she still needs one, no matter how good of a writer she might be. And as sometimes the endless flowery language and the endless descripton of sucking blood, yada blah etc. can also get old. But it was good while it lasted. The 1st four books she wrote in that series are the best.
But now that vampire with a conscience thing has gotten a little old, although I'm enjoying that show on Sci-Fi (no i will not use "y's" in place of "i's", it's just stupid) called Being Human.
Anyway, I think it's very astute of you to point this out, especially because it does seem to be a conservative/liberal thing and it does get tiresome.
How long before mold-breaking becomes tired?
BTW, I just grabbed an e-version of Conan.
Can't speak for Howard; I was amused by some of his Conan books, but not captivated as I still am with Tolkien more than 40 years after picking up "The Fellowship of the Ring."
Tolkien captures in his trilogy the grim determination of his time: the realization on the part of weary Britons that a grim new evil had arisen in the East amid the ashes of Imperial Germany. That an England which was still reeling from the unspeakable carnage of The Great War must somehow summon the resolve to confront the new totalitarian Axis. (continued)
His fantasy is not escapist, but bracing, highlighting great truths. Frodo and Sam, huddling on the path below Shelob's lair, discuss how their peril is like those of the heroes of the great epics of Middle Earth, the part of the tale where overwrought young hobbits cry, "Close the book now, Dad! I don't want to hear anymore!" It is the great truth that great deeds are done by frightened young men thrust into situations in terrible places like Thermopolae, Lepanto, Waterloo, Shilo, Belleu Wood, Iwo Jima, and Fallujah.
The modern fantastists you describe have no interest in either truth of reality. It is totally unsurprising to me that there is now a whole genre of fantasy books devoted to a sympathetic portrayal of Orcs. Denial of truth and goodness certainly fits in with the Orkish worldview.
While I don't read anything of sci-fi or fantasy, I share the sadness that the author feels about literary standards taking the same nihilistic fall from grace that everything else in entertainment has done.
Tolkien and Howard were standard bearers; sadly, their literary successors won't evern recognize the standards and are content to put out trash instead.
I don't know–even as a teenager in my prime sci-fi/fantasy reading years I found Howard a bit juvenile and repetitive. (I didn't learn until many years later that he shot himself in the head when he found out his mother had fallen into a coma. A wee bit drastic, and something Conan would never have done). And while I confess I never made it through Tolkein, I adored Herbert's Dune and David Edding's Belgariad series, the latter of which had Tolkein's scope of good vs. overwhelming evil, but with much more human characters and dare I say it a dollop of humor. I do like that 'steampunk' seems to be making a strong comeback, though. I read many more mysteries than fantasy these days, but I think the same difference between, say, Agatha Christie and the much more graphic and shocking "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" might be unpleasant to some, but reflect the changes in society and writing in the last 75 years. And both can be white knuckle page turners that keep me up waaay too late on a work night. But the beauty of books is that there's really something for everyone, and the great authors will endure, at least until the current ones Grin hates are revered as classics in the 22nd century!
"The other side thinks that their stuff is, at long last, turning the genre into something more original, thoughtful, and ultimately palatable to intelligent, mature audiences. "
So….those of us who enjoy seeing good triumph over evil are stupid and juvenile? Thanks. *eyeroll*
Must be nice, being a nihilist. You get to sit back without any convictions, all while calling yourself "intelligent and mature".
Um, I'm a life-long reader of SF and Fantasy. I gave up on Jordan after I realized he was doling out a plot point per book (at most), and I've NEVER read any Abercrombie, Stover, or Swanwick. I hadn't even HEARD of them before you mentioned them here. So they get lots of good Amazon reviews — so does Tuscan Whole Milk.
How about Glen Cook's "Black Company" series? It's 'gritty' but mythic in scope; the characters are far from innocents, yet still do their best to do good — or at least, the least harm. Or his "Garret, PI" series that is a hash of Nero Wolfe and fantasy?
How about Terry Pratchett's Discworld? As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive fantasy parody, though it's so successful it's contributing its own set of tropes to the genre.
How about a refreshing take on a LARGE number of old ideas? Elizabeth Moon's "The Deed of Paksennarion" will leave you saying "I've seen all this before" but you'll keep going; it's so well-done and the main character manages to be saintly without being cloying.
Why waste your time on depressing crud like you've listed? There's an endless supply of good reading material out there.
If you like "Being Human", catch the BBC version. The SciFi series is a nearly-identical remake, to the point of casting nearly identical actors in the roles.
Now I do happen to be a big fan of Tolkein and Howard as well, and in fact frequently defend the former of whom many of my friends don't find exciting enough. I've re-read the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion several times.
That said, I've liked Abercrombie's offerings. I've read some "iconoclastic" fantasy, and his tends to rise above and beyond the rest. His characters are well done; his books readable if overwhelmingly dark.
I will concede that there's a rather large amount of drivel in the fantasy genre nowadays, and there's even less great Science Fiction any more.
Fantasy's caught in an iconoclast mode? Huh. guess it's changed since I stopped halfway through the umpteenth novel about the scullery lad who turns out to be the long lost heir to the throne, destined to fight the dark lord in his icy haunts to the north.
But then, iconoclasts and deconstructions are just as tired these days as the tropes they're ripping to shreds.
About the only fantasy novel I've read (barring Gene Wolfe, Terry Pratchett, and one or two others) in the past five years that I've actually enjoyed is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I suppose it's a deconstruction like any other, but it's not as shallow and vile as most of those works tend to be. At least, not yet. Two more books to the trilogy.
Leo – you should check out John Norman and the Gor novels. At the age of twenty I discovered "Tarnsman Of Gor" and was hooked. I'm surprised Hollywood only made one movie about Gor. They didn't make any money on it is usually the bottom line and excuse and yet they keep producing the Anti-America films of Redford, DePalma, Stone, and Penn, along with the other progressive DB's of Tinseltown. Go figure since NONE of these movies EVER made any money.
Mold-breaking and deconstruction have been tired for a few years now.
I kinda made a mistake. I started with Tolkien first, as an early teenager. And after that, everything else paled in comparison. Although I enjoyed the Narnia books (even though they seemed to be made for a little bit younger kids, they were still fun because of the fantasy element). And then I did the Shannara books. First one was great, the second one was pretty close, but then the third was just kinda ok.
But after that, everything else just seemed like a cheap weekly serial compared to the epic Tolkien universe. So, basically I feel pretty much the same as this guy. (As a result, really I stopped reading fantasy a long time ago. But I still love going to the bookstore to look at the cover art.)
I can't honestly call myself a fantasy or sci/fi fan since I didn't read the LOTR books til w/in the last 10 years (that old animated version freaked me out as a kid, what can I say?). However, I am married to a true fan & through him have been introduced to Terry Brooks whom I have thoroughly enjoyed. His Shannara & Landover series are great. He has some other stuff in a modern setting which I haven't read, but those 2 series are truly enjoyable.
Surprised you didn't mention the most acclaimed fantasy series of the past twenty years, George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.
It's being adapted by HBO and premiers on TV in April.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ5p18wIQEI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5YvIn6XB8
It's very gritty and realistic, not in the sense that there is no good, but that the "good" choice is not always clear and does not always lead to a positive outcome. Women and children suffer mightily, in the way they must have in medieval times.
There is very little magic, it's a fantasy world, but the physics of it are the same as ours.
Best of all, no one is safe, characters the author and reader/viewer have invested lots of time in can be killed at any time.
The reasons for Howard's suicide are much more complex than a vague appraisal of the events would indicate. There is evidence he had considered suicide a number of times before, and many indicators in the surviving letters and testimony of acquaintances that he may well have suffered clinical depression. Far from taking his life in a fit of despair, it's equally likely that without having to look after his sick mother, he had no more earthly obligations, and was finally free to do what he wanted to do for a long time.
In any case, judging Howard on the Conan stories – his most commercial and repetitive by design, as he was seeking to create a reliable series character that would be picked up by Weird Tales and ensure he got paid – is judging a man on less than ten percent of his work. Even then, to call the likes of "Beyond the Black River," "Red Nails" and "The Hour of the Dragon" juvenile does speak of the adolescent mind incapable of seeing the rich depth of symbolism and meaning beyond the ripping adventure Howard excelled at. Not that I'm criticizing you: I myself didn't appreciate The Lord of the Rings until years after my initial readings.
Always easier to destroy something than to create something.
Howard's work is less juvenile than first appears. Also, there's been a very large number of stories written using the character and world long after Howard was gone, which further muddies the water.
The best of Howard's Conan work presents themes of the futility of civilization. Even though the timeline is presented as prihistorical, there's evidence of civilizations predating Conan's world. Conan repeatedly encounters ancient evils and mysteries. He overcomes not merely through strength of arms and body, but through a nigh-animal instinct that rejects civilized understanding.
Great article but its more far reaching than that. Leo (and anyone else who's conservative and a geek like myself) have you not noticed Hollywood and the comics industry's inability to make a straight forward hero? Note the archetype that is praised is always a "conflicted" hero. Actually the hero is always a tortured unsure of himself soul, while the villain is always sympathetic. To the point of re-writing origins(Halloween) and messing up existing ones(Superman Returns). Hell lets stick with my fave-Superman. They REALLY don't know what to do with him. I hope Nolan helps get it right for the new movie but look at Smallville. Does that even remotely resemble the character who's been here since 38? I think all of what we're discussing is the sad trend of writers inability to separate either their own political view or mental baggage in a creation.
I started on Tolkein and l'Engle. Howard, Norman, Piers Anthony and Esther Friesner (for humorous fantasy), Eddings and Pratchett have all written enjoyable tales. Even Jacquelyn Cary's S/M fantasies are good stories. The point is these are all good storytellers. "Art" is usually a rationalization for the mediocre to publish. I'm sure there are good "dark fantasy (read 'nihilist')" writers, I haven't found them. My one criterion for judgement is that ANY writer tell his story well.
Tom Shippey, probably one of Tolkien's best exegetes, makes the point in his books on the subject that for much of the 20th Century, while writers like John Updike and Philip Roth were being praised by the critics, it was the fantasists — Tolkien, William Golding, George Orwell, even Kurt Vonnegut — who were dealing with issues closer to the heart of society. I don't think you can accuse 1984 or Animal Farm or The Lord Of The Flies or even Slaughterhouse-five of being "escapist" fiction.
Stergeye says,
"Can't speak for Howard; I was amused by some of his Conan books, but not captivated as I still am with Tolkien more than 40 years after picking up "The Fellowship of the Ring."
I'm guessing that large parts of the books you were "amused" by weren't even written by Howard (most of the Conan books from that time were heavily padded by the contributions of awful pastichists).
Imagine a bunch of crappy writers being allowed to flesh out your precious The Lord of the Rings with chapters of their own, and then bookstores exclusively selling that new monstrosity in favor of Tolkien's original, and then seeing a bunch of stupid LotR comics appear from another set of crappy writers, and then listening to readers and critics call Tolkien juvenile trash based on a reading of all that stuff he didn't even write. Howard fans had to live with that for decades before some Christopher Tolkien-types stepped up and began to set matters right.
There are many people who prefer Tolkien over Howard or vice versa, but in their best work they are far more similar than different. Of course Howard wrote in a more constricted mode (short form instead of long, for pulps instead of for book publication) but even with those restrictions he regularly managed to match and even surpass the tone and air of Tolkien at his very best. "Captivated" doesn't even begin to describe it. No way could I pick one over the other.
I was a foaming at the mouth Tolkien and Howard fan as a teen. I also loved Michael Moorcock's much different but excellent Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum books as part of his Eternal Champion series. Those are classics of fantasy up there with Tolkien and Howard, though Moorcock was more cynical.
Today, the best fantasy out there is George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire which is about to be a series on HBO called A Game of Thrones (the first book in the series). I've just read all 4 books. There are 3 more to come. It is the most compelling and well written fantasy I have read since Tolkien. It 's very dark and has profanity, sex, etc. But never gratuitously. It is a realistic deception of a medieval world. While there are many unlikeable and downright evil characters, there are others who are noble, honest and heroic. But all the characters are given enough depth that you can fully understand them, even the evil ones. It's like a cross between the Wire tv series (for its depth, grit and complexity) and Lord of the Rings.
I can't recommend it highly enough. I just finished all four books and am tempted to start rereading them all over again because they are so rich.
It's also, as ningrim points about above, not a high fantasy type series. There are no elves or dwarves (just a human dwarf, one of the best characters) but there are dragons and some other creatures in the background of the story. The focus is on human greed and corruption in a kingdom going through a civil war similar to the War of the Roses.
I am a HUGE fan of Terry Goodkind's 'Sword of Truth' novels. The books are each good, though some are better than others, but they all feed into the greater story arc. Goodkind's ability to find the voice of each character helps with their development and, most of all, they act like Adults!
That Goodkind's story is a fantasy exposition on Ayn Rand's Objectivism only helps me connect with the story, with 'Faith of the Fallen' being, by and way, my favorite of the series. I re-read it about once a year and always come away with some new insight and truth.
The fantasy genre is not dead, it's simply bloated, infested with insects and parasites but it's good heart still beats and if you look hard enough, there is still glorious life within it.
strega2010 says,
"I don't know–even as a teenager in my prime sci-fi/fantasy reading years I found Howard a bit juvenile and repetitive."
If life, death, myth, and poetry are juvenile, then yes, he's juvenile in spades. Of course, many critics regularly make the same claims about Tolkien (whom by your own admission you never made it through).
If you adored David Eddings, the precursor to many of the fat fantasy books of today, then my guess is that you read fantasy not for the prose poetry or the air of myth, but for the soap opera element so common in virtually all writing in all genres today. You want lots of characters all filled to the brim with Oprah/Dr. Phil emotional drama, along with lots of modern dis-concordant jokes and dialogue, and enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing as what's going to happen next on "Days of Our Lives."
I don't begrudge you that, but it's the sort of writing that is discarded with every generation in favor of whatever new writers appear to dish out the next helpings. Tolkien and Howard, on the other hand, aren't going anywhere. If Eddings, Jordan and company are "Days of Our Lives," then Tolkien and Howard are Lawrence of Arabia, The Seven Samurai, and Once Upon a Time in the West.
Today's artists need to learn an important lesson: to do something differently does not require that you do the opposite of what is typical.
greasywrench says:
"Leo – you should check out John Norman and the Gor novels. At the age of twenty I discovered "Tarnsman Of Gor" and was hooked. I'm surprised Hollywood only made one movie about Gor."
Yeah, the Gor novels are fun, both for the sword-and-planet vibe and for their refreshingly unapologetic political incorrectness (it's nice to see that ebooks have allowed them to be republished despite the cries of the publishing industry's liberal blacklist/censorship apparatus).
But you are surprised that no movies are being made about a world that turns women's suffrage so completely on its head?
"Imagine a bunch of crappy writers being allowed to flesh out your precious The Lord of the Rings with chapters of their own,"
Don't need to IMAGINE it; that pretty much describes 99% of the fantasy fiction genre, which simply borrows the elves, ogres, swords and sorcery and paste them into contexts which began by being warm & fuzzy New Agey spiritualism, and are now descending into the miserific swamps of nihilism.
Way too much of contemporary fantasy is written for the Orcs.
ningrim says:
"Surprised you didn't mention the most acclaimed fantasy series of the past twenty years, George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series."
I lump Martin in with Robert Jordan and the rest of the fat fantasists and the moral relativists. Thousands of pages of little more than narrated plot, juggling dozens of characters and intrigues, but with nary a tip of the hat to the kind of prose poetry that I feel forms the heart of all great writing.
Quick example: here's a typical scene from Martin's STORM OF SWORDS:
Not a single attempt at taking the reader out of the mundane world of general description and into the dreamy netherworld of True Myth, and that kind of bland reportage goes on for THOUSANDS of pages over the course of the series.
Compare the above to a scene from one of Robert E. Howard's lesser Conan tales, "Iron Shadows in the Moon," which also features the sun and oars on water:
In Howard's universe, rivers don't just "shimmer," they becomes "lakes of fire." Night skies aren't just "dark," they are made of "soft, dark velvet." Water isn't just "still" or "blue," it serves as a "mirror to the stars." Conan isn't described with rippling thews at the oars but "etched vaguely against the softer darkness." And Howard's overriding themes leak through as he turns Conan — ostensibly the hero — into "a fantasmal oarsman, rowing her across the dark lake of Death." REH packed more prose poetry into a single paragraph than most modern fantasists do in an entire book.
Like Jordan, Martin is huge in today's marketplace, with legions of fans begging for the next volume in his literary soap opera. But also like Jordan, it's ultimately just product, and I'd be surprised if it long outlasts the lifetime of the author. To stick, you need to be doing something more with your writing.
C'mon Leo, don't knock The Savage Sword Of Conan.
Sure, it wasn't quite Howard's Conan. But I'd take a single issue of Savage Sword over any of the same era's bubblegum fantasy novels (Book Seven of the BLAH BLAH BLAH series, etc.) any day!
In addition to those, I can also recommend a few more books. You really, really MUST check out the Dresden books by Jim Butcher. Modern-fantasy wizard as noir detective.
You can take my Pratchet books out of my clutching fingers – but only after after everything else except my Weber and Ringo books (side note, Weber's "War God" fantasy series is also awesome…)
I only wish he hadn't fallen into the following two traps: The "and this solution causes the next ptoblem" trap, and the "lets beat our readers with a 4×4 over the head to get our point across, and if that doesn't work, a railroad tie."
Did enjoy the first few very much.
You've touched on an important thread here Leo: The nihilism you observe in so many contemporary fantasy writers is echoed in contemporary films and the theater. "The Wizard of Oz" must be revised like the rest of history–who are WE to judge the Wicked Witch of the West, who is made the real heroine in "Wicked"?
Today's writers have been raised to view dragons, witches, werewolves and vampires as sympathetic victims of the judgemental mortals on whom they feed.
The old biblical warning about days when evil is declared good, and good is denounced as evil are being fulfilled.
Small wonder that "feminists" and "human rights advocates" embrace the resurgence in the middle east of a mysogynistic, theocratic ideology that calls for hanging homosexuals and stoning adulterers. They have become so versed in moral relativism that they can no longer recognize Evil when it's biting them on the arse.
I agree. It's got heroes who are noble, mosters who are vile, people who pretend to be evil but are really more good than they'd dare admit. There's a character for every fantasy fan, and an even chance that the character will die. It's really good, but Martin has writer's block something fierce. The fifth book in the series has been "forthcoming" for years now: http://isadancewithdragonsoutyet.com/
I agree with you on Faith of the Fallen. I had the whole run of the series–I recently sold all of them except Faith and the conclusion trilogy.
People have a love/hate relationship with Goodkind. He's got more than enough nudity, sex, rape and bdsm–some books are more rife with it than others. There's also some internal inconsistency with his characters–the ends justify the means for both the villains and the heroes, and often it's the same means for similar ends. IE., Kill everyone who disagrees with you and you'll have world peace.
The series does have all the trappings of the great fantasy of yore.
I'm not fond of the dark hero garbage as it's never done right. Furthermore if you aren't careful you can get into a book which is basically one inexplicable sex scene to the next. (Occasionally, when I haven't been smart, I've run into some that were so bad I stopped the book entirely. Sometimes authors are sick.) When venting a new author, I tend to check the low star ratings first. You can't generally trust the 5 star ratings at face value. If the story is depressing, deprived or in any other way garbage, it usually shows up in those 1-star ratings.
That said, there are plenty of great fantasy authors out there even today. Just… not necessarily anyone you mentioned so far save Tolkein. (In fact, I've never even heard of most of the authors you list and fantasy is my favorite genre! Perhaps these nihilistic morons were too far before my time?)
I will confess that I never found Howard all that enjoyable, but I always assumed that was because I was born with an XX chromosome set. But I've loved Tolkein since I was a wee lass, and practically grew up reading Andre Norton, David Eddings, Michael Moorcock, and others. And I will confess to having a liking for Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind, but George R.R. Martin's massive series has been a huge turn-off.
I got enough snickers from people for just reading fantasy. But then these same people bristle when I point out how morally bankrupt Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books are.
And once you have the bad novels, what do you do? You give them bad covers (mostly sci-fi, but still…):
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/
At the risk of being laughed at, I adored some of R.A. Salvatore's early novels (the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies) back in high school and early college. Unabashed heroes willing to travel across the world to save their friends, willing to face down ultimate evil to protect the innocent, completely uncompromising.
Flash forward a couple of decades, and Salvatore has continued with the same characters. Or at least he had, until he finished killing off all but one of them in his last novel. The main character, a dark elf ranger, has turned from the purest soul willing to fight impossible odds into a navel-gazing whiner who looks for any opportunity to cut a deal with evil and is currently shacked up with a murderer. And, of course, along the way there have been poorly written Israel-Palestinian parallels and Iraq War metaphors (all with the obvious left-wing POV).
Whatever happened to heroes being… heroes?
Sorry but I found that prose example to be flowery pap. Different tastes I guess, no worries.
"The sun sank like a dull-glowing copper ball into a lake of fire." or you could just say "as the sun set, it cast a fiery orange reflection on the lake", to me there is no difference. Martin comes from a screenwriting background, and you can see that in his clear simple setting descriptions. It's something I appreciate as a reader rather than trying to figure out what a bunch of prose is trying to describe.
All I'm interested in is plot and dialogue and characterization. For that, Martin has no peer.
Why do you think HBO chose his series?
Great blog! I'd almost picked this Abercrombie book up in a moment of drugstore desperation but something made me hesitate. So I'm glad to know my instincts were correct. The author also hits on what I so love about the fantasy genre – heroes, the good old fashioned kind, who, against all odds, do the right thing and save the world – and what has made me throw books away in disgust – nihilism.
I happen to like Jim Butcher (both the Dresden Files and Codex Alera Series) and Carol Berg has some pretty good ones (Bridge of D'Arnath series and Flesh and Spirit are my favorites.).
I'm a BIG fan of SciFi. I do NOT like (or even mildly appreciate) Fantasy in any form. Even in SciFi, however we find dragons, though. I note McCafferey's "Pern" series, the difference being that her dragons are genetically altered and bred that way out of practical necessity if you dig deeply enough into the series. There are no "wizards," trolls, Hobbits or other non-human magicians in her books, thank heavens. Her son's attempt at continuing the series are certainly not her equal and I fear the series will die with her. Give me a good, old Heinlein, Azimov, Bradley, Bova, Clark, and lately, Ringo, Williamson or Weber instead. I appreciate good storytelling. If I want to be preached at, I'll go to church.
I love Tolkien, The Hobbit is the first book I ever read without being forced to and started my love of reading, I've read LOTR at least a dozen times and The Silmarillion is his master works IMHO (part of the reason being that it is more realistic with main characters being killed). Saying that I love ASOI&F and some of Martins other books as well, plus I don't really consider ASOI&F to be 'high fantasy' in the scope of LOTR.
I don't see that one has to like one over the other, I can enjoy both for what they are, the high fantasy, poetry of Tolkien and the gritty realism and more grounded Martin. Saying that I do agree in general with you about the state of a lot of Fantasy these days, I don't mind a good anti-hero but it has gone off the deep end and that has played a large part of me reading less fantasy and more history, alt-history and other types of books when I originally read sci-fi/fantasy exclusively.
ASOI&F is my favourite reading at the moment and I cannot wait until the HBO series comes out. I really like your description of it as a cross b/w The Wire and LOTR, quite fitting.
Oh and if Martin would finish the next book soon I would greatly apreciate it.
According to hints from his editor and GRRM himself, they should be announcing A Dance with Dragons release date around the time the show airs in April. Last winter he had all but a couple chapters finished. And they were in outline. H'e already got parts of the next book after that done.
You would probably like the George RR Martin "A Song of Ice and Fire books". Many people describe them as fantasy for people who hate fantasy. They are more like historical fiction with some fantastic elements in the mix, but it is so well done it never feels fake. And Martin has written plenty of SF so his stuff is grounded.
Add Frank Herbert, Vernor Vinge, Orson Scott Card and Larry Niven to your library and you will find depth and political and social exploration that make the older masters seem sterile. Herbert's Dune was not about blue-eyed (drugged) mystics (which unfortunately is about all that came through in the screen version) but about knowledge, prescience, free will and millenia-long intrigue. Vinge explores science, power, networking and enforced Peace, in short stories and novels that are a joy to read. Card, intelligence, how we fight, xenphobia and cooperation, also in fascinating ways. Niven, characters, cultures and species of wonderful variety. And among all of them I see useful models for thinking of some of our 2-legged fellows. Ringworld vampires, puppeteers, sisterhoods, emergents, peacers, warriors and users and sociopaths and a dozen other types – they are all among us.
I must say that I have to disagree somewhat with the Robert Jordan analysis. I rather like the Wheel of Time series. Now, I'm not saying that he's on par with Tolkien, but he's very enjoyable for me. Yes he's very long winded and there's an awful lot of space devoted to young people's relationships as it goes on, but the overall concept of the series is fascinating to me.
His concept for the story – of we being the source of the characters' myths and legends and they ours – gives me plenty to think on and analyze as I reread the series. I'm rereading it now and noticing the particular attention that Jordan put into how events get distorted as they move further away (both temporally and in physical distance) from where it happened. I realize that Jordan is a love-or-hate author, but I for one find his work fascinating and entertaining.
Thanks for the update, I had stopped looking on the web for updates over a year ago as it was depressing me seeing the years go by with no book. It does make sense to cash in on the HBO publicity machine and release the book at the same time as the TV series.
I think I may have to write a reply to this on my blog at some point. As someone who has read most of Abercrombie's work– I disagree that there is no value in it. It is nihilistic to a degree but it also has some of the best characters, from a psychological standpoint, ever written in modern fantasy in my opinion. Inspector Glotka was endlessly fascinating to me. He's a grim survivor for sure, but he shows the capacity for mercy (as you'd know if you had read further into the series). I think a lot of the reviews of Abercrombie's work miss the point actually. They focus on negative aspects without looking for the glimmers of redemption that do exist. My main complaint was the blunt profanity– it does get old.
And for every Abercrombie there is a Brandon Sanderson– who writes very much in the David Eddings mold– who refuses to curse in print and does not take the low road when it comes to his characters.
I love fantasy fiction. There is something for everyone. It's not just about swords and sorcery and most of what you'll find still features very heroic characters. The myth-based fiction, like those written by Juliet Marillier, have incredible, strong female characters and a strong lyrical sensibility. I even like much of the dystopian fiction (zombies are heavily featured these days) because the underlying theme is surviving incredible odds. If all you're seeing are nihilistic themes then I have to think that's what you're trying to see.
It's funny that you wrote this because I've been musing over a post about why I think fantasy/sci-fi has some of the most hope and optimism of any genre out there– if you know where to look.
From Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule:
Richard: 'How could anyone fight on his side? Darken Rahl wants to dominate everyone, to be the master of all. How could they fight for him?'
Zedd: 'Because, Richard, many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves. Some of them think think that when Rahl wins, he will smile on them, and they will be rewarded, and so they are as ruthless as he to gain his favor. Some are simply blind to the truth and fight for the lies they hear. And some find, once that guiding light is lit, that they are wearing chains, and then it is too late.'
To piggy back off of this post, SQT, Jordan's Wheel of Time series also eschews cursing – a point which turns off some of the less mature readers because they equate four letter words with mature themes or maturity in and of itself. I was pleasantly introduced to Brandon Sanderson when he was chosen to finish off the Wheel of Time for the late Mr. Jordan.
I like the Wizard's Rules part of the series. Every book illuminating some self-evident truth, the story being an allegorical example of the Rule in action.
Oh I'm sure the feminsts hate John Norman. And that is what makes the Gor novels so much fun with their fantasy depiction of many women as slaves. Pissing off the women's groups and hags such as NOW members can't be all bad. They don't seem to understand the meaning of the word FICTION hence the word "fantasy". Feminists have pretty much lost all of their credibility when it comes to their silence on Sharia and Islam's treatment of women.
As far as being surprised I probably shouldn't have used the word. But… if it has a chance of making money Hollywood will bankroll it, at least that's what I always thought. Then again the DB's in Tinseltown aren't known for their intestinal fortitude. It's a catch 22 riddled with pretzel logic to even try and understand the thought processes of Hollwood.
The most preachy of the books is Naked Empire. Then again, it speaks directly to people who. within the context of the story, refuse to even attempt to listen so it kinda works.
I read that the King and Queen characters from 'Soul of the Fire' are based directly on Bill and Hillary with little to no attempt at disguising them or their attitudes.
Faith of the Fallen is still my favorite and I'm dying to get it in hardcover so I can dog-ear and mark it up like I do with all my favorite books.
Again, good storytellers. To paraphrase the Bard – "The Story's the thing!"
Fantasy is at it's best, the same with SciFi, when it explores substantial and timeless Human issues. Good v Evil, Light v Dark, Will v Won't, etc.
Norman, the pen name of John Lange, labors under the disadvantage of a writing style next to which Dan Brown's work flows like a mountain stream and which deteriorated rapidly as the series progressed. Both of the films supposedly based on his work were distributed by Cannon International and are probably not, strictly speaking, "Hollywood" productions.
I'd say the article is scathing but considering the horrible condition of the genre maybe it doesn't go far enough. I agree that like most modern artists they mistake the vulgar or pessimistic as edgy. Much like a child thinks a fart is high comedy.
Sadly Tolkien and Howard are not immortal even if their writing is. I'd love to hear in a follow up article what current authors, if any, in the sci-fi/fantasy genre you consider to not be faulted for lazy nihilism and stale writing. Hopefully the genre isn't completely dead. Any good writers worth mentioning?
Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. She has two more books written in that world that I'm not as fond of.
Terry Pratchett's Disc World. Start with the Sam Vimes books.
Robin McKinley
"my guess is that you read fantasy not for the prose poetry or the air of myth, but for the soap opera element so common in virtually all writing in all genres today. " You'd be very wrong, then. (but I will admit that when I want the air of myth…I read actual myths) What can I say? I found Tolkein's style plodding, and Howard's prose too purple, while Conan himself was kind of a dimwitted, one-dimensional muscleman. But I don't begrudge you your love of that sort of thing, either.
If I hadn't read the Iliad, King Arthur, Gilgamesh, Beowulf and many other classics of heroic fiction _before_ Howard, I think I might have found him more original and exciting. But after sampling the o.g.'s of heroic literature, well…he just seemed kinda pale in comparison. And I'm sure one of these days our paths will cross again…if I could ever clear books out of my to-read-next shelf.
While not matching the prose of Tolkien, I can recommend many of the fantasy stories published by Baen books. Baen does not go for nihilism that has infected so much of the work published today as fantasy. As an example, I point you to David Weber's (of Honor Harrington fame) Bahzell Bahnakson books (starts with Oath of Swords). The heroes are good and the villains are evil. I think you will find works like this much more to your liking than the majority of claptrap published by other publishers.
This is sort of related to the reason I stopped reading RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. Halfway through the second book I tired of all the heroes being slain or turning out to be contemptible bastards. The two halfway interesting characters (Jon Snow, and Daenerys) got the least text. Meanwhile, the series is unfinished, and it seems to be taking forever for the latest one to be released, with two more books to go and Martin getting quite old in his age. People praise it for being true to the era and realistically gritty but I just don't see it. All I see is the harsh GRIMDARKness that goes on and on and on for an exhausting number of pages.
Also, sex and adult content is arguably one of the hardest things for fantasy/sci-fi authors to write, and Martin is awful at it. Yet he seems to enjoy writing about it a lot. Makes for a bad combination.
You have to try Jim Butchers novels. Both the Dresden Files and The Codex Alera are very nice high fantasy. And he's a puppy too. Many years of good stuff yet to come.
I really don't think George RR Martin has anything in common with either Tolkien or Howard.
Halfway through the second book I tired of all the heroes being slain or turning out to be contemptible bastards. The two halfway interesting characters (Jon Snow, and Daenerys) got the least text. Meanwhile, the series is unfinished, and it seems to be taking forever for the latest one to be released, with two more books to go and Martin getting quite old in his age. People praise it for being true to the era and realistically gritty but I just don't see it. All I see is the harsh GRIMDARKness that goes on and on and on for an exhausting number of pages.
Also, sex and adult content is arguably one of the hardest things for fantasy/sci-fi authors to write, and Martin is awful at it. Yet he seems to enjoy writing about it a lot. Makes for a bad combination.
It's kind of pointless to condemn something you haven't finished. For one thing, all of the characters (for the most part) are fully fleshed out three dimensional people. With a couple of exceptions, there are some right villains in the piece, but people whom you hate in the beginning prove to be very complicated later, and change for the better due to their own personal tragedies.
And while the heroes get dragged through hell and some are killed, the "bad guys" don't fare much better. In fact, they suffer some really brutal ends in many cases. The second half of the second book, which you failed to read has a lot of great pay offs. And the third book is amazing. The fourth book focuses on mostly lesser characters. The fifth should be out this year after the TV show debuts and GRRM is already well into the sixth book at this point. The fifth book took so long because its the middle of the story and that is the hardest nut to crack for most writers. Especially with the complex story and character timelines he's had to juggle.
Yeah, there is a lot of grimness in these books, but there are also some great pay offs if you stick with them. It's not like many of the writers Leo mentions who just like wading through filth and misery. In Martin's books he is dealing with some of the dark aspects of human nature because his story is about power struggles. But he also sets up some very complex and clever mysteries and plots which pay off over the course of several books in some cases.
For example, a murder mystery you think is solved in book one turns out to have been done by someone else for entirely different reasons that you won't see coming. That is revealed in book three near the end. In book 4 he is setting up all sorts of very interesting and strange situations that will pay off in book 5 or later.
I'm sure he's done enough notes that some other writer can finish if need be.
I have to disagree. The first book of that series – back when it was supposed to be a trilogy – was great. By the end of the second book, however, when I looked back over the 'plot' it turned out that of the five or six he had going by then, about one had actually gone anywhere. By that point, I found it so tedious that I was ready for those things that lived north of the wall to come down and just wipe everybody out. When I learned that the series had doubled in projected length, I figured it was going to be three books worth of plot stuffed full of enough filler to double the length and stopped where I was.
Haven't even tried to read any other fantasy or sci-fi authors other than Tolkein and the first few Dune books in years. And Dune goes off the rails when it gets all god-like on Leto II. Otherwise, I read contemporary fiction or biographies. The fantasy genre is not really worth the effort, mainly for the reasons you gave in the article.
Martin isn't Howard, and as the original author notes, the series is very much a Soap Opera. I enjoy the series, yes, but it's not LotR for sure. Some of my friends enjoy how the world is gritty, "realistic" and such. As a fan of the old Arthurian legends (merely a casual fan, mind you, I can't quote the best stories from it) I've enjoyed the romantic notions of Chivalry and Knighthood. The thing that always bugs me in Martin's series is the seeming need to tear such notions down. Those that remain true the ideals get killed, those that turn against them seem to prosper. I get enough of that sort of activity in real life. I don't need it in my fantasy.
Love those series. It's fluff, for sure, but fun and Butcher allows you to like his characters, and feel good about rooting for them.
"It's kind of pointless to condemn something you haven't finished."
Really? Is it equally pointless to praise a series that you haven't completed? =)
I notice you seem to think that while you feel my critique was pointless, yet you felt it warranted a strong reply. If it's pointless, why the in-depth reply? So I'll just assume you slipped that in there because I'm critiquing your favored author. Suffice to say, if nobody who ever walked out of a bad movie ever critiqued it, I think John Nolte would not be running this site.
As for the rest:
I lost interest when I had to suffer through George RR Martin thinking he could write sex and foreplay, making me suffer through about 10 pages of Greyjoy and his whore.
Don't get me wrong. I wasn't trying to insult you, merely pointing out that what you're complaining about isn't the issue you make it out to be. If you followed through with the second book you'd have seen that.
If you don't like it, you don't like it. I just think you might have changed your mind if you finished the book.
As for judging the series based on an incomplete work, I am judging what I have read so far,. I liked it so much I read each 900 pager a week apart. They really held my interest.
PS: Greyjoy does some really bad stuff that he comes to really regret. He seriously pays for heavily for what he does.
I totally agree.
Which probably explains why the last ten years or so I haven't read much new fantasy. Instead I've been picking up old fantasy, foundational stuff – the Worm Ouroboros, Dunsany's Pegana, even The Wind in the Willows. I'd rather read that old stuff that risk the hit and miss of modern fantasy, some of which my gamefic scrawlings are better than.
As for Dungeons & Dragons, aside from leading me into those glorious old school realms of fantasy literature, it also ultimately led me to my overwhelming commitment to the Constitution, so I'm completely committed to it.
Oh, speaking of George Martin and Fire and Ice:
A few years back when the Fire and Ice thing was just gearing up, some friends tried to recommend it to me. After some back and forth, I got a description of it as "Robert Jordan crossed with Robert Heinlein". While I've never read Jordan I know his reputation. I have read Heinlein. So I quipped back, "What, he takes 1,000 pages to tell you he wants to boff his sister?"
(I'll leave a space here for the obvious dead air that should follow that.)
There are those who look down on Sanderson for the reasons you state, but I think it's very immature to think every situation has to be punctuated with a four letter word. They're like teenagers who can't wait to drink and curse. I like Sanderson a lot. His Mistborn trilogy is really well thought out– he's great at developing his magical systems– and I've read "Elantris" twice already. Abercrombie has drawn a lot of attention but he's by no means the only fantasy writer of note these days. Everyone seems a little hung up on George R.R. Martin too… but if you browse the shelves in the fantasy section they're packed with tons of great books for pretty much any taste. I hate to see such a great genre being written off so easily.
I love Howard. But a lot of his work is florid purple pulp prose. I found a REH pastiche I wrote when I was 17 in his style that made me crack up when I read it, I think his work had a lot of passion and imagination, but Tolkien was a literary writer and Howard was more of a pop fiction writer.
I seriously disagree with your assessment of Martin's writing. I feel Jordan is as you describe, but Martin does detail to flesh out his world which is extremely dense and layered. Martin is not moral relativistic. If you only gave his work a surface glance then I could see how you come to this conclusion. But the truth is he goes way deeper into his characters than Tolkien did, as great as I think Tolkien's work is, he would not go beyond certain areas he set aside. Neither Tolkien nor Howard's work is realistic. Martin's is more believable and adult. Howard is more like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tolkien like Lord Dunsany.
Martin's work is a wholly different kind of game than what Howard or Tolkien was playing. Aside from the fact that they are all doing fantasy, It's like comparing tennis to football and chess. All three are very different from the other.
I neither love nor hate Jordan. I *like* WoT, some of the books quite a lot, but really I'm just slogging through to see if he kills off Rand. If he had spent less time describing his characters' fashion choices he might have finished the series in his lifetime.
It may be petty of me, but I can't stand an author who starts so many sentences with "Too."
What about Lovecraft? I didn't see him mentioned at all in any post here.
Having read those things before Conan myself, I can't say I agree. There are many elements of the Conan stories which are completely alien to the classics of western canon. Conan is a much more modern, and crucially, much more American hero than any of those you list, which makes the stories stand apart in a fundamental way. Not to mention I can't recall there being much discussion of civilization being inherently unnatural to the human condition in comparison to barbarism in the classics, for example, nor the idea of civilization constantly having to be vigilant against the danger of decadence and complacency if it doesn't want to succumb to infighting or barbarian invasion. And, again, that's just Conan: there's a vast body of work beyond Conan even in Howard's fantasy, before you take in the westerns, historical tales and boxing yarns into account.
I am a fan of both Tolkien and Howard. I read the first of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and I will never read another one. I have no desire to read a book where the characters do not grow. Tolkien was the master closest to my heart. For my money, Gandalf is one of the best characters in fiction.
I am so glad to see similar sentiment! I've spent much of my life trying to capture the lost mythic quality of fantasy/science fiction in my work, specifically in my creative consulting of other stories I try to improve and post. I've received a lot of responses as to how much better shlock like Tron Legacy or even Avatar could have been if someone actually sat down and wrote it out logically with an interesting mythic substructure, making it more then a veneer of plot to push a popular agenda or excuse state-of-the-moment special effects.
A history is what keeps drawing me back to stories, characters that have depth, themes that resonate, worlds that live. Someday I hope to participate in making them myself, or helping others to.
Articles like this give me hope.
We need our stories back.
The absence of God in the lives of post moderns exacts a crushing toll on the soul of the creative class. Nihlism is the natural result when you declare god to be dead and thrust yourself into the driver's seat. Narnia tells the story of God almost directly. Tolkien creates a allegory for the same good and evil but with more detail and richness to serve an artistic purpose as well. As someone said above, the postmoderns have declared the evil to be good as part of their nihilisitic decline into the pit of despair. And what more fitting leader than the narcisist in chief who has no room for a god in his life outside his own image. How does one convince the nihilist that there is a God? They do not. They turn that burden over to God and pray.
Erikson is really bleak. I'm not certain if he has been that way the whole way through his series, but I could barely get through the most recent one I read (second to most recent released). He spent at least twice as long with depressing philosophizing by his characters as on plot, which makes for some pretty tedious reading. It did end on something of a positive note, which motivated me enough to start the next one. Which he began by introducing another depressed, bleak character through a depressing, hopeless inner monologue. Now that I hear he plans to drag this story out even further, I won't bother finishing.
Leo,
Well said. Thanks once again for putting into words what many of us feel. I, too, moved away from the genre for the most part after reading the classics (which I still pick up from time to time), though at the time I didn't really analyze why. Certainly, I abhor the postmodern take on Tolkien in particular, as you and I have discussed before re: the LOTR films. "Piss Christ", indeed.
As always, I look forward to your next post.
–Climbr880 aka "Faramir"
A few years back they published three volumes of only Howard's work on Conan (and all his other characters, actually, in other volumes – love me some Solomon Kane), *and* in their original forms. The volumes also included some of his poetry, and the Hyborian Age essay. It really is to-notch escapist fantasy.
the sinner,
Patrick
I really liked the Codex Alera novels, much to my surprise. Light reading but to have a genuine hero figure who grows not his place, not through magic or fate but by his own will, mind and mistakes. Butcher has a good knack for creating good, honest characters that ring true.
Leo, thank you!
I was a big fantasy fan when younger, but gradually I've fallen out of love with the genre. I had an argument with some liberal friends about the virtues of (rabid democrat) George RR Martin, where I sincerely dislike his work despite the obvious talent poured in, whereas my liberal friends no doubt want to marry him if prop 8 gets lifted.
The reason mostly centers around the lack of heroism. I decry the lack of any decent individuals, the sadistic treatment of women (both by the author and his characters!), and the general lack of anything honorable or inspiring. On the other hands, my friends love it because they think it is finally "realistic" fantasy.
Yet somehow when I see "reality", I see charity, family, honor, and hard work. I think the liberal reality, lacking all that, must be a terrible place to be.
In any event, great column. A great idea, one that'd get you endless Google clicks, would be a list of conservative vs far left fantasy writers.
I notice nobody has mentioned the work of Fritz Leiber. He is best known for his creation of the two anti-heros: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser- a thief and a Barbarian who pal around together in fantasy world known as Lankhmar. Leiber was very much involved in the world of pulps and mid century sci fi magazines frequented also by Howard- and he was influnced both by Tokein and Howard.
But he managed to make lovable earthy heros without resorting to sadism and nihilism. Leiber's writing style is some of the best in fantasy- and if you have never read a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story – I urge you to rush out and check them out of your library. I don't think have been reprinted for a while- but they are well worth searching for!
I hate to have to say it, but . . .
He did indeed resort to sadism, and other sexual excess.
I guess it never registered when I read them when I was younger, but I recently reread the whole series, and finally read The Knight and Knave of Swords which I had purchased but for some reason never actually read, and I was shocked at what I didn't remember.
While their easy attitude towards multiple partners can be excused by their general swashbuckling attitude, it remains that the Mouser has a disturbing, and quite directly stated, taste for barely nubile girls.
The violent natures of the pair result in several encounters that, again directly stated, verge on sado-masochism.
These two combine in the last story, "The Mouser Goes Below", which is probably half a dozen words short of overt sado-masochistic pornography.
I like Fritz Leiber's writing too, but those stories are far from just clean, upstanding, gratuitous violence.
I tend to agree. I remember as a teenager reading the Hawkmoon and Elric series and cursing Moorecock for what seemed to be chapter after chapter of the heroes dying. I HATED Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series because I thought TC was at t best a sniveling little victim that deserved to be slapped around, and at best a worst a rapist to be hung and castrated.
I have to admit that David Eddings and to some extent Mercedes Lackey have gone a long way in restoring the grandeur of the fantasy genre for me. They brought back the splendor of Elizabeth Bowyer's Alfar series and I loved fantasy again.
My sister commented to me several years ago that she LOVED the new Battlestar Galactic series, because it was darker and grittier. I told her that darker and grittier doesn't necessarily mean better.
I agree that they are different beasts and I can and do enjoy both. You say you were sick of all the hero's being killed, I found it refreshing as I was sick of hero's always living through every single life and death situation. It is grim and dark, but as it is more based on medieval history then the normal high fantasy book it makes sense and is more true to life (to me anyway).
I also like big books but am worried that he will never finish them. There is a lot of sex and violent, but from a medieval history standpoint it fits, I like it, just like I enjoy Tolkien, just for different reasons. I like some variation in my reading.
I've yet to try Terry's series. I can see I need to!
I'm about as far from a feminist as you could get, but I loathe John Norman's Gor books. I felt like I had fallen in a sewer after I read one.
Salvatore also has the problem that Wizards of the Coast won't let him write what he wants to write. He MUST write endlessly about Drizzt because that character became a cash cow. The early books in the series were really good. He was forced to bring the barbarian (Wulfgar, I think) back to life.
You saved yourself a lot of dreary reading, jaw3000. I read the Abercrombie First Blade series based upon a friend's recommendation. He told me that the books get better with each chapter, but I found that it got more depressing. The end was a total downer and I resented the time I had wasted reading the books. Needless to say, I don't trust my friend's opinions too much anymore!
Anything by Jim Butcher is awesome. I'm dying waiting for the next Dresden book.
Thank you for your coment, but I must disagree! You make Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sound positively nasty. Okay- there was some kinkiness involved- way more than Howard- whose women it may be noted never seemed to wear clothes- but it was nothing on the scale of these modern writers.
I think you are doing Leiber a vast disservice by concentrating on these particular elements and not acknowledging the other positive and imaginative featuresof his writing. If you read the whole series as you say- how could you not fail to be impressed by his descriptions and the sweeping vistas of the many flung characters, peoples and nations of the world of Lankhmar- not to mention the dozens of wonderfully scripted plots and stories he wrote. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are classic fantasy heros- much better written than most of the fantasy out today!
Thnaks – i also,must note-that Mouser's women were nubile and girl like- but lets be honest- they weren't PRE-TEENS as you seem to suggest. Lankhmar IS a decadent city with slavers and women who are forced to be naked slaves- but that is because it WAS a decadent kinky and dangerous hell hole. I'm saying Leiber put these things in for atmosphere- and that kind of nudity is fairly common in fantasy stories (except for Tolkein who didn't even HAVE female characters).
Even Edgar Rice Burroughs is famous for the amount of nudity is his heroines- Dejah Thoris of Barsoom for example- wore little more than stategically placed gems. Nude girls and small amount of sadism are part of the genre.
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