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

[Umbran]

Not at all; however, it is not traditional fantasy and throwing it into the fantasy section versus the romance section is wrong.

They are romance novels.

Genres are not exclusive. A work can be fantasy AND romance at the same time.

And, I am sure that there are romance readers who are like, "What? That's a fantasy, get it out of my romance section!"

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Romantasy is just a romance novel with a fantasy background.

It is killing traditional fantasy publishing.

So by that standard, Conan's stories are adventure novels with a fantasy background, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a heist novel with a fantasy background, The Black Company is a war series with a fantasy background.

Genre has ever been a fluid thing.

Now, there is a ton of shovelware romantic fantasy out there, don't get me wrong. But the genre itself is not the problem.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So by that standard, Conan's stories are adventure novels with a fantasy background, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a heist novel with a fantasy background, The Black Company is a war series with a fantasy background.

Genre has ever been a fluid thing.

Now, there is a ton of shovelware romantic fantasy out there, don't get me wrong. But the genre itself is not the problem.

Fantasy as a genre has long felt overly narrow to me. That said, the direction of expansion that seems to have taken hold, has very little interest for me. I think what draws me to fantasy, for lack of better language, are the 'metal' elements to it. But I would say this goes beyond fantasy for me. A lot of newer media, often turns out not to be my cup of tea. So I might just be getting old. My tastes might be old. I generally get more pleasure when I read or watch older media these days, and I okay with that. Once in a while I find something new that I like and that can be a pleasant surprise.

 

[Belen]

Genres are not exclusive. A work can be fantasy AND romance at the same time.

And, I am sure that there are romance readers who are like, "What? That's a fantasy, get it out of my romance section!"

That is the choice of the publishers and bookstores. I feel that it would be better to just create a romantasy section in this case. They did it with YA and then placed a lot of traditional sf&f in that section. They even went far enough to create a YA sf&f section now.

The net effect, I feel, is that traditional sf&f suffers and folks who want it find it much more difficult at a discovery level.

I draw a distinction with romantasy versus romantic fantasy. Romantic fantasy, imo, are books like Lackey's Valdemar series. They are clearly fantasy books versus novels that are intended for romance with a fantasy twist.

 

[Umbran]

Now, there is a ton of shovelware romantic fantasy out there, don't get me wrong.

There's a ton of shovelware of any and all genres out there. As the man said, 90% of everything is crap.

If someone wants a fantasy section that is limited to things they personally feel should be there, well, that's what their own bookshelves are for.

 

[Belen]

Fantasy as a genre has long felt overly narrow to me. That said, the direction of expansion that seems to have taken hold, has very little interest for me. I think what draws me to fantasy, for lack of better language, are the 'metal' elements to it. But I would say this goes beyond fantasy for me. A lot of newer media, often turns out not to be my cup of tea. So I might just be getting old. My tastes might be old. I generally get more pleasure when I read or watch older media these days, and I okay with that. Once in a while I find something new that I like and that can be a pleasant surprise.

You are not alone. There is a growing complaint over the lack of more traditional fantasy books and people feeling shut out or looking for books published outside of traditional publishing.

I am in publishing so I ignored Amazon's self-published stuff for years (I like editing) and I started looking at it because I could not find anything that appealed to me at the bookstore and that it when I started seeing that a lot of folks were feeling the same way.

Of course, with Amazon's move to cancel the ability to archive my books, then that avenue is now cut off too.

I read 1-2 novels a week and I like new stuff but it is very difficult to discover new content at the bookstore.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A Song of Ice and Fire was intended, at least in part, as a deconstruction of LotR. There are interviews with GRRM where he says that.

I remember reading an interview a bit like that, but I guess because he also kept going on about how much he was inspired by Tolkien's worldbuilding, which he didn't deconstruct at all, and indeed, only less intensively replicated, I don't really see it as a deconstruction of LotR, but rather a deconstruction of heroism/character behaviour (specifically) in epic/high fantasy.

So by that standard, Conan's stories are adventure novels with a fantasy background, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a heist novel with a fantasy background, The Black Company is a war series with a fantasy background.

Genre has ever been a fluid thing.

Now, there is a ton of shovelware romantic fantasy out there, don't get me wrong. But the genre itself is not the problem.

I agree.

I haven't read a lot of romantasy, or romantasy-adjacent stuff, but I don't think it was at all wrong to put in the fantasy section. Like, Sarah J. Maas I think is on the borderline, but isn't romantasy, the romance is more of a backdrop, however wish-fulfilment-y, to a more straightforward adventure tale. T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is clearly romantasy, I remember thinking "Omg I'm reading a romance novel!", but guess what? I finished that book and the first sequel (and might read another)! Because frankly, the world-building and fantasy elements were better than the vast majority of fantasy novels I've read. More interesting, more engaged, more real-feeling even somehow? And without being grimdark!

So I don't think that's a real problem. As you say, genres are flexible, and there's always been a lot of romance and adventure in fantasy novels, it's just a matter of how they lean. Far better romantasy than '00s grimdark rape-obsession, I say! We survived that!

What might kill fantasy as a genre, frankly, is if LitRPG and closely linked subgenres start getting published by major publishers and put on the shelves/recommend heavily by Amazon etc. to people who read fantasy, to the point where it starts to eclipse other types of fantasy. Thankfully this is not currently the case, and I don't anticipate it becoming the case, given that so far that genre seems to combine "being really ultra-niche/bad-nerdy/head-in-ass" with "having no elements with crossover appeal". So I'm not too worried.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I draw a distinction with romantasy versus romantic fantasy. Romantic fantasy, imo, are books like Lackey's Valdemar series. They are clearly fantasy books versus novels that are intended for romance with a fantasy twist.

"Romantic fantasy" was basically just a euphemism for fantasy aimed more at a female readership than a male one. Again there was always stuff on the borderlines too. Robin Hobb's very successful and long-running Assassin series, for example, had an awful lot of tropes associated with "romantic fantasy", but had a darker spin to it that maybe gave it a wider audience.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I remember reading an interview a bit like that, but I guess because he also kept going on about how much he was inspired by Tolkien's worldbuilding, which he didn't deconstruct at all, and indeed, only less intensively replicated, I don't really see it as a deconstruction of LotR, but rather a deconstruction of heroism/character behaviour (specifically) in epic/high fantasy.


I agree.

I haven't read a lot of romantasy, or romantasy-adjacent stuff, but I don't think it was at all wrong to put in the fantasy section. Like, Sarah J. Maas I think is on the borderline, but isn't romantasy, the romance is more of a backdrop, however wish-fulfilment-y, to a more straightforward adventure tale. T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is clearly romantasy, I remember thinking "Omg I'm reading a romance novel!", but guess what? I finished that book and the first sequel (and might read another)! Because frankly, the world-building and fantasy elements were better than the vast majority of fantasy novels I've read. More interesting, more engaged, more real-feeling even somehow? And without being grimdark!

So I don't think that's a real problem. As you say, genres are flexible, and there's always been a lot of romance and adventure in fantasy novels, it's just a matter of how they lean. Far better romantasy than '00s grimdark rape-obsession, I say! We survived that!

What might kill fantasy as a genre, frankly, is if LitRPG and closely linked subgenres start getting published by major publishers and put on the shelves/recommend heavily by Amazon etc. to people who read fantasy. Thankfully this is not currently the case, and I don't anticipate it becoming the case, given that so far that genre seems to combine "being really ultra-niche/bad-nerdy/head-in-ass" with "having no elements with crossover appeal".

Again I couldn't really get into the books but I like GRR Martin as a concept lol. He seems like a very intelligent and interesting person in interviews. His writing is very good. The shows entertained me a lot (not sure how much they align with the books). But the overall impression I have, and people can correct me if I am wrong, is he is very interested in history and a lot of the stories play out as history might play out, rather than how fiction often does

 

[Belen]

Again I couldn't really get into the books but I like GRR Martin as a concept lol. He seems like a very intelligent and interesting person in interviews. His writing is very good. The shows entertained me a lot (not sure how much they align with the books). But the overall impression I have, and people can correct me if I am wrong, is he is very interested in history and a lot of the stories play out as history might play out, rather than how fiction often does

I gave up on Martin because I hate grim and gritty and he got way too graphic with rape and other things that were a complete turn off.