D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[LordBP]

Yes. And he was in print in the '90s, thanks, oddly enough, to White Wolf.

And Moorcock has published new works over the last 20 years, but his older stuff hasn't consistently been in print, AFAICT.

They re-released Elric in hardcovers over the last few years and you can pick them up on Amazon. Believe they have done some of the eternal champion series too.

The Elric Saga

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes. And he was in print in the '90s, thanks, oddly enough, to White Wolf.

And Moorcock has published new works over the last 20 years, but his older stuff hasn't consistently been in print, AFAICT.

I remember talking to a girl my age who was into fantasy novels when I was like 17 (so in the 1990s!), and trying to explain Moorcock to her, and she's like "Oh you mean the crusty old dude who is in a bad prog band?" (Hawkwind, she specified, she was kind of a metal fan), and honestly, that's probably a good summary of the higher levels of understanding of him from most fantasy fans in my generation.

I've also had people, especially ten or more years younger just outright deny that Moorcock is of any importance, because they "know" that Tolkien started it all. Even if you point to specific things, some people can be very dismissive because it doesn't fit with their view of fantasy history, which is often wildly simplistic and is basically just:

1) LotR is published
2) [SCENE DELETED]
3) A Game of Thrones and Harry Potter are published (maaaybe some other '00s stuff if you're lucky)
4) and often then [SCENE DELETED] again until Brandon Sanderson or Sarah J. Maas appears

And this is actual genre fans!

It's not totally blank. People do bring him up. And Glen Cook and Gene Wolfe and a few others. You can definitely win some nerd cred by doing so, but equally, people can be just bizarrely dismissive about the influence of honestly any SF/F writer who isn't Tolkien.

I can understand everyone knowing Lord of the Rings, as that one of the most, maybe the most, important work in the genre. But there are books before that and after that also matter a lot (and my understanding was always that one of the things that was important about Moorcock was he was a kind of reaction and response to Tolkien). Could the end of book stores have to do with this? I remember growing up, the way I got most of my books was going to books stores (whether used book shops, boutique book shops, mall shops like Walden Books or the big ones that came later like B Dalton and Borders). But most places would have a shelf that contained most of the major works in a given genre. A lot of how I navigated my way around horror and science fiction was from those book shelves (plus the staff often were informed and could point you in the right direction). But what I do often see are the books you mention. There is still a B. Dalton near me, and I go there occasionally. But places like this seem more rare and I often can't find pretty standard books in the genre shelves.

 

[wizard71]

One change that I've noticed over the decades is that there is a lot more literary writing in fantasy. When I was a kid, most fantasy was written at a pretty pulpy level - it was an increasingly profitable but not very serious genre. Much of the published work was very much of a potboiler nature. Predictable characters, predictable plots, little by way of theme and growth. Fun but essentially disposable reading. TSR made mint off that stuff, for example.

Now there are a lot more writers who take fantasy seriously, and consequently we get many more works that are richer in literary merit. There are still plenty of lowbrow options, and sometimes that's just what I'm in the mood for (hello, Dungeon Crawler Carl), but it's good to have more range and more ideas to explore.

I have to disagree with you there. I don’t see anything particularly great about George R.R. Martin’s writing which seems much more like pulp than Tolkien. Many of the current fantasy writers really aren’t that appealing. I got more enjoyment from Weis & Hickman back in the TSR glory days than anything from other fantasy writes from the 90’s moving forward.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Could the end of book stores have to do with this?

Maybe?

I can't speak for anyone else, though, I bought Moorcock's books in the White Wolf edition because I'd heard about them. If I'd just seen them on the shelves in the bookshop in 1994 (and I do remember which bookshop and which part of the bookshop I found them in! Amazingly the bookshop still seems to exist, even), I would have been like "cool covers" and probably not bought them based on the blurbs.

So I think you kind of need that cultural connection.

Fantasy, as a genre, I think is vastly more generally read and popular now, in 2025, than it was in 1995 or 1985, indeed I think the big change started post-2000, with the triple-punch of the LotR movies, Harry Potter fandom (which brought a lot of adults and young adults back into reading fantasy, even as JKR was amazingly still denying it even was fantasy - separate discussion lol), and A Song of Ice and Fire Books starting to go mainstream due to how exciting they were even before the TV show (and obviously the TV show magnified this effect massively).

But the difference is, people who came in with these waves didn't tend to have much knowledge of the history of fantasy, nor necessarily an awareness that there even was one. It didn't help that many newspapers and magazines were contemptuous of fantasy as a genre in the 1990s and before, and only that triple punch really stopped that attitude being viable (but some critics were still trying to pull "all fantasy is just juvenile wank-material for zitty teenage boys" as late as 2011, c.f. the NYT's early reviews of the GoT TV series). So instead of critics talking about older fantasy novels, they acted as if fantasy basically didn't exist until the triple-punch, with the sad exception of the frankly should-be-forgotten (imho!!!) C.S. Lewis books. It was particularly face-palm-y because in many cases fantasy novels had been filling out their best-sellers lists for decades, even getting reviewed sometimes, but had the NYT, say, really noticed? Naaah (this is where someone links that insanely snobby review of The Colour of Magic).

I think the only thing to do is politely tell people about older fantasy novels and the history of fantasy, and be maybe a bit of a bore about it, but not offensive/rude, because one thing people on the internet do love, is to be right, or to know stuff others don't and that they can explain (I am not immune to this!). And just pray you're not in some Reddit thread with a bunch of HP or Sanderson fans who refuse to accept that there was really any fantasy between LotR and GoT.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

that one of the things that was important about Moorcock was he was a kind of reaction and response to Tolkien

Not really, no. Tolkien’s classism perhaps, but the thing about Moorcock is he started out importing American pulp fiction into London. He was reacting to Howard, amongst others. Of course the multiverse themes were present in the science fiction of the time, as well as comics. Later, there seems to have been interplay with Zelazny.

Moorcock’s stories are far more similar to Howard in terms of length and structure, but his protagonist is an anti-Conan: physically weak, intellectual, introspective, civilised, decadent, and he generally ends up causing a bad outcome, despite his efforts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not really, no.

I think it's fair to say Moorcock regarded his work as at least partially a response to/revolt against Tolkien though isn't it? C.f. Epic Pooh, which is also how I first came across Moorcock!

 

[Clint_L]

This is where I got the info.

The Man Who Invented Fantasy

It seems like elves and wizards have been around forever. But one man is responsible for book publishing’s commitment to the fantasy genre.

slate.com

Thank you for the link; this article is fantastic and I heartily recommend it!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think it's fair to say Moorcock regarded his work as at least partially a response to/revolt against Tolkien though isn't it? C.f. Epic Pooh, which is also how I first came across Moorcock!

In the sense that Tolkien represented the British Establishment, which, as a Communist, he would have despised. But there is little in common with, or deconstruction of, LotR, in Moorcock’s writing. He was just providing an alternative.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In the sense that Tolkien represented the British Establishment, which, as a Communist, he would have despised. But there is little in common with, or deconstruction of, LotR, in Moorcock.

I agree that it has little in common with LotR, but that's intentional, that's conscious, it's not an accident. It didn't just happen because he read other books or something. He read LotR and a lot of other small-c conservative fantasy (contrary to the childish and rather pathetic assertions of certain detractors of Epic Pooh), and said "To hell with that!", and made it a point of principle to avoid being like that.

It is true to say that isn't a deconstruction, which would require more engagement with LotR etc. (such deconstructions do exist, albeit I can't think of a LotR example, only CS Lewis ones), but it is a reaction to and reaction against LotR.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have to disagree with you there. I don’t see anything particularly great about George R.R. Martin’s writing which seems much more like pulp than Tolkien. Many of the current fantasy writers really aren’t that appealing. I got more enjoyment from Weis & Hickman back in the TSR glory days than anything from other fantasy writes from the 90’s moving forward.

I suppose what 'good writing' means here is going to really be something that could be its own thread.

I like Tolkien's writing style a lot. But I think he is also coming at things from a very different background than most writers. I tried reading Game of Thrones some years back and had trouble getting into it. But the writing seemed fine to me. Some of those TSR books felt much more rough around the edges to me. They were often very entertaining and I might prefer to read them, but if I read George RR Martin or Tolkien out loud, then read Dragonlance the former two have much better flow to my ears. But prose isn't everything. I've read plenty of books that are well written but also mind-numbingly dull. A Jim Butcher Novel, especially the early Dresden Files ones, might not be pristinely written, but they were always entertaining and engaging. Dragonlance was similar for me back when I was into it (though I much prefer the second trilogy as the story is a lot more interesting in my opinion).