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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gizzard" data-source="post: 980792" data-attributes="member: 527">I'm pretty sure he made the term up, but it does damn a set of authors pretty effectively.  To me it's connected back to the word "hack", that the author isn't doing anything more than turning the crank on the standard fantasy tropes and seeing what falls out.  If the hero of a book is an unappreciated but plucky lad who goes on a mystical quest with a band of stout companions and, in the process, discovers his hidden wizardly / draconic / noble bloodline - well, the author isn't exactly breaking new ground.  She's offering the same old warmed-over fantasy -- "Oh, the hero starts out and things are sucky for him.  But then things get better and better and better until he's....um....a wise Wizardy-King-thingy.  Can you identify with this, loyal reader?  I hope you can, 'cause I'm not presenting anything new."Taking it back to recommendations, I'd say that the Harry Potter books flirt with this genre, but manage to avoid it.  OTOH, I'd say that Bujold, despite being a pretty good writer technically, can't pull free of the morass.  And there are scores of authors (hacks?) who just happily wallow in turning out the literary equivalent of a warm hand rubbing your tummy.  The key is what Mieville says, that consolatory fantasy is, "not to challenge or to subvert or to question; it is absolutely status quo oriented."  People sit down with a book expecting to have the same experience they had with the previous book.</blockquote>

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