The current state of fantasy literature

[RiggsWolfe]

Confession time. I too am one of those "line straddlers". I enjoy both "high art" and "low art" Especially in movies. I can watch Just Married, then watch a French Import of Cyrano De Bergerac.

In literature I lean more towards the modern stuff than the old classics, or even the modern classics. My favorites are people like Christoper Stasheff, the occasional Piers Anthony and Steven King, David Farland, the guy who write Honor Harrington, J.K. Rowling, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

I read somewhere that something like 80 percent of all new technology fails, for one reason or another. I think the same is true for literature - 80 percent of what is on the shelves is not worth the money to buy it and not worth the time to read it.

Grumpy Celt, you missed a perfect opportunity to invoke Sturgeon's Law:

"Ninety percent of everything is crud." Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crud. That's because ninety percent of everything is crud." Oddly, when Sturgeon's law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to "crap".

Sturgeon's law might be regarded as an instance of the Pareto principle.

Given that "ninety percent of everything is crud," how do you find a decent fantasy novel to read? If you're like most fantasy readers, you buy the first book of one of the many obviously popular series on the shelf, then, when you're done, you go back and buy the second one. It takes a lot of effort to figure out which books are good, so shoppers rely on cues ("There are ten of them; they must be popular.") and experience ("I liked the last one.").

Of course, in this day and age, it's much easier to do some on-line research and find lists of classics, articles on why they're the classics, reviews on Amazon, etc. Why waste your time with something that isn't likely to be good when you can "cherry pick" the best books from the last century or two?

 

[Mallus]

No offense, but your reply is what I'm talking about. Did you notice how you had a need to distance yourself from the King and Clancy readers? I on the other hand could care less about Borges and Nabokov.

Oops. My bad. The bracketted text only applied to Tom Clancy --I just don't like him. I enjoy King, and a wide variety of epic fantasy that plenty of fantasy afficianodos sneer at; like Eddings and Fiest.

I still think my point stands. There's a lot to like in literature, and to categorically avoid any one type is wrong. Wrong because it cheats the avoider out of a potentially valuable experience.

 

[mmadsen]

Why is it a false dichotomy?

Barsoomcore answered this quite nicely:

Just to hook in with mmadsen -- you have most definitely invented a contrast that doesn't exist.

I read purely for enjoyment. One of the things I enjoy in a book is having it provide me with intellectual stimulation. It's not the only enjoyment reading can provide me with, but it's definitely one of them. But even when I enjoy a book because it provides me with intellectual stimulation, I am still reading for enjoyment.

From his name, you should realize he's not "above" a good, two-fisted, action yarn, but one of the things he enjoys in reading is intellectual stimulation.

For instance, those who do it for some kind of intellectual stimulation tend to be somewhat arrogant and condescending about the "mainstream". The ones who do it purely for enjoyment tend to find the others elitist and snobby. These are of course generalizations, but I see it alot. Especially on college campuses.

Certainly there are pretentious English majors who enjoy Ulysses specifically because you don't. But there are also people who have read both "classic" pulp and derivative pastiches and much prefer the classics -- which are not at all dry, stuffy, or pretentious.

As for the Conan stories I've never read them.

I highly recommend them -- and not at all because they're "good for you"; they're just good ol' rip-roarin' yarns.

I will say that most of the older fantasy and sci-fi I've read I disliked.

Can you tell us which works bored you? I can certainly understand finding Tolkien slow. A pulp editor would have cut the whole Lord of the Rings down to The Hobbit's size. And, as much as I loved The Worm Ouroboros, if you don't enjoy ancient sagas translated into King James' English, the language will kill you. Similarly, Lord Dunsany's works may drip with poetry and metaphor, but they don't drip with bloody action.

I can't imagine finding Robert E. Howard's works slow or boring though. I also can't imagine finding Edgar Rice Burrough's stories slow; you may find them corny and dated, but certainly not slow.

 

[Belen]

I have read both Conan and Elric and I disliked both. Fantasy and sci fi are really a matter of taste.

For example, I hate Gene Wolf! I read the Book of the New Sun and was just disgusted.

However, I really enjoy the modern authors. Just because a book is larger does not mean that it is all extraneous language. In some cases, the larger books allow for more characters and larger plot. The modern stuff seems far more well-rounded to me.

Yes, you have to weed out a lot of chafe, but then, you always had to weed the field. For all the Lieber's and Howards out there, another dozen go unnamed even though they published at the time.

Only a very small percentage of books stay in print.

I do not think we need worry about the state of fantasy anytime soon.

Personally, I lament the death of science fiction. Very few people still write sf and most of those are in the magazines. Star Wars and Star Trek have killed most of the original sf. Heck, you should read the article by John Kessel sometime about the Death of Science Fiction.

Fantasy is easy to write in comparison because you do not need to do near as much research as a sf novel.

Dave

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ari, did you mean 2000 PAGE opus, there?

D'oh!!

Yep, I certainly did.

I do, too. What I'm saying is that they just plain don't sell as well, and really haven't for a long time, in the narrow S&S sub-genre of Fantasy.

Right, but I'm not sure we've got the chicken and the egg in the right order. Do stand-alones not sell as well because people prefer series, or do people buy more series because there are more series than standalones out there in modern fantasy?

Let me clarify:

I have no doubt that, at one point back when the numbers were roughly equal, people were no doubt buying series more than standalones. But I'd hazard a guess that it's not because a majority of the fans prefer epic series to individual books. Look at in terms of numbers (and I'm pulling numbers out of a hat to illustrate something; one again, I don't claim these are statistics).

Let's say that, on average, 1 out of every 10 stories published in fantasy becomes popular. If a story is five books long, it will sell more books than a story that's one book long, because people who like the story want to finish it. It's not that they "prefer" a series; it's that they have to buy more books to finish the story, so the sales indicate that series are more profitable.

In other words, one could argue that series sell better because they force fans to buy more books to get the whole story, rather than because people inherently prefer them.

Publishers realize this, and begin pushing writers to write series, rather than standalones. If a series fails on the first book, the publisher need not continue it, and has lost nothing more than the cost of a single book. Should it succeed, the publisher/writer keep adding to it, and making more off it. Under this model, you're correct that it makes financial sense for publishers to prefer series--but that's not because it's what the majority of the market truly wants.

I don't think series are evil. The vast majority of my favorite fantasy novels are series--but then, I can't think of very many standalone fantasy novels I even own anymore. I'd just like, as a consumer, to have the option of one or the other, and I feel that option has been largely taken away from me in the past decade or so.

(And we won't even talk about what this situation does to those of us who are trying to get novels published.)

 

[barsoomcore]

As I said in my reply to MMadsen's post, I was speaking in generalities. See, I view the intellectual reader in much the same way I view film critics. Both of them somewhere along the line ceased to have fun and began to view their chosen form of entertainment as some kind of high artform. I'm not explaining it well, but I truly believe for instance, that it is a rare movie critic who still enjoys movies. They're too jaded.

What makes you think I'm jaded? What makes you think I have ceased to have fun? What gives you this deep insight into other people's motivations?

You don't know. You're attacking a whole class of people, not because you know anything, but for some reason of your own -- but in any event you're doing so without a shred of evidence.

Are some people snobs? Yep, they sure are. It is NOT snobbish, however, to state one's tastes. If somebody says "Borges rocks and King sucks" they're not being a snob, they're just telling you what they like. If somebody says "Only jaded cynics like Borges" then they're being a snob.

I suppose my idea is that this kind of thread is an example of my "non-existant" divide. To me saying it doesn't exist is similiar to saying there is no difference between Liberal and Conservative political thought.

The difference between Liberals and Tories is that they share different opinions on how political decisions ought to be made. If you want to say that some people enjoy intellectual stimulation and some people do not, I have no argument. But to pretend that you know people's motivations is just silly, because we all know you don't.

You don't enjoy intellectual stimulation when you read. Well and good. Like I have said, everybody has their own joys and thank heavens for that.

The existence of moderates (where someone like you might fall if we take your reading habits to be an example) does not mean that there are not two different camps. It just means that not everybody falls into those camps.

Here's the thing, though. EVERYBODY'S a moderate, in some way, shape or form. Creating artificial distinctions like this only makes it harder to hear what somebody's saying, because now they have to overcome your tendency to lump them into a group. They have to first demonstrate why they don't just fall into one of these categories before they can even get listened to.

Categorization (generalization) like this inhibits communication.

You again, are an exception that proves the rule.

Exceptions DON'T prove the rule. They do the opposite. A rule that admits to exceptions isn't a rule at all, it's a false generalization.

In this case, this whole thread revolves around opinions however, which gets us into a subjective area.

So what? As I have noted, the fact that we're talking about subjective opinions doesn't mean we can't have meaningful debates. Convince me that there really are two kinds of readers and that only one kind reads for enjoyment.

Note that I'm not saying NOBODY reads for something other than enjoyment. I'm saying that since it's impossible to know why anybody does anything, using such speculations as evidence for any conclusions is pointless. Much more useful and fun and interesting is for you to tell me what you like or dislike and why. Why don't you like Hemingway? What makes Asimov so great? Those are opinions about which we can have useful conversations.

 

[Desdichado]

I have read both Conan and Elric and I disliked both. Fantasy and sci fi are really a matter of taste.

I love Howard, despise Moorcock. As you say, it's all about taste.

However, I really enjoy the modern authors. Just because a book is larger does not mean that it is all extraneous language. In some cases, the larger books allow for more characters and larger plot. The modern stuff seems far more well-rounded to me.

Exactly. Although Robert Jordan is tossed out as a particularly egregious example of bloated writing, pretty much anyone will agree that it wasn't always the case (although they'll disagree as to when exactly the Wheel of Time became big in a good way to big in a bloated, swollen corpse on the side of the road way.) I like the fact that characters can come and go, plots can entwine into Gordion Knot's -- you simply can't do that in a smaller work. So big is not equal to bad, it's just that big for big's sake is bad.

Personally, I lament the death of science fiction. Very few people still write sf and most of those are in the magazines. Star Wars and Star Trek have killed most of the original sf. Heck, you should read the article by John Kessel sometime about the Death of Science Fiction.

Fantasy is easy to write in comparison because you do not need to do near as much research as a sf novel.

Does anyone actually write science fiction anymore? It seems like "science fiction" these days is simply fantasy (or some other genre) with "science fiction trappings" thrown on top.

 

[Desdichado]

What makes you think I'm jaded? What makes you think I have ceased to have fun? What gives you this deep insight into other people's motivations?

You don't know. You're attacking a whole class of people, not because you know anything, but for some reason of your own -- but in any event you're doing so without a shred of evidence.

Are some people snobs? Yep, they sure are. It is NOT snobbish, however, to state one's tastes. If somebody says "Borges rocks and King sucks" they're not being a snob, they're just telling you what they like. If somebody says "Only jaded cynics like Borges" then they're being a snob.

I dunno, I agree with RiggsWolfe. I don't know (and I'm not saying) that you or anyone else on this thread is a literary snob, but I think it's not particularly useful to pretend that such people don't exist. I do have more than a shred of evidence of such people, I've known some very well.

Although you also make a great counterpoint -- brushing off the "classics" as without merit because only "snobs like that kind of stuff" is just as snobbish.

 

[WizarDru]

Personally, I lament the death of science fiction. Very few people still write sf and most of those are in the magazines. Star Wars and Star Trek have killed most of the original sf. Heck, you should read the article by John Kessel sometime about the Death of Science Fiction.

Humor the ignorant, How is SF dead? Do you mean that you don't care for what is published as SF currently? Because, as far as I can tell, there's a lot of SF hitting the stores at any given time. I went and checked Locus to see if there'd been a sudden slowdown, and there certainly wasn't, AFAICT.