China Mieville on Tolkien and Epic/High Fantasy

[barsoomcore]

I think Moorcock's dismissal of Tolkien's language has to be seen in the perspective of what Moorcock and the other New Wave SF writers were doing -- which was deeply radical to a degree that Mieville, for example, appears neither imaginative, thoughtful, nor skilled enough to attempt. SF has retreated from the high-water marks of Moorcock, Delaney, Dick and Ballard -- as indeed have most of those writers themselves (try Ballard's latest, "SuperCannes" as an example -- or rather, don't bother).

SF, Fantasy, whatever you call it, however you divide it, the true excitement of these genres (indeed of genre writing in general) USED TO BE that because they were overlooked by "serious" critics and largely marginalized by the industry, writers could get away with murder. Nowadays, genre writing is big business, and it's rare to find a writer who's actually pushing any boundaries.

Certainly Mieville isn't. He's rehashing Gibson, just like a million flash-in-the-pan writers before him. Like Gibson himself is doing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Steven Brust. Brust is doing more daring, more innovative things with the fantasy genre than a hundred China Mievilles. He's actually pushing at the boundaries of what is or isn't fantastic fiction. And simultaneously yanking on the curtains of "serious" literature.

Beyond Brust, I see only Steven Erikson as somebody who's doing anything new. Martin? He's retreading Jordan and Eddings -- albeit he's a better writer than either, but there's nothing new in the Game of Thrones.

Brust and Erikson. And you don't see either of them hacking on other writers -- they're too busy writing great books to spend time generating attention for themselves.

He said, wildly attributing motives without evidence.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Certainly Mieville isn't. He's rehashing Gibson, just like a million flash-in-the-pan writers before him. Like Gibson himself is doing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Steven Brust. Brust is doing more daring, more innovative things with the fantasy genre than a hundred China Mievilles. He's actually pushing at the boundaries of what is or isn't fantastic fiction. And simultaneously yanking on the curtains of "serious" literature.

What do you recommend by Brust? I've read a few of his books, and they really didn't do anything for me. They didn't strike me as terribly original. In fact, I thought they were fairly generic. Maybe I didn't read the right ones? What boundries do you see him pushing?

On the other hand, I have found Mieville to be very innovative, a refreshing mix of Fantasy, Horror, and as he is fond of saying, Weird Fiction. I wouldn't compare him to Gibson, he doesn't even come to mind for me. While reading Mieville's work, I get the same creepy, dirty, something-is-wrong-in-the-shadows feeling I get from Lovecraft and the like.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I think some folk are a little presumptuous in assuming that Tolkien intended or included a message in Lord of the Rings. I respect his stated position that he did not.

Given the evidence of his life, I believe him. He was passionate about storytelling. When he wrote a story he did not do so to create a work of moral relevance, but to create an entertaining, epic story.

I stand by that assertion and will not be convinced otherwise.

As far as the topic at hand, I will reiterate that I have spent far too much time gaming, reading gamebooks, and reading a vast array of literature from author's such as Tolkien, Malorie, King, Lovecraft, Clancy, Gibson, LeGuin, Orwell and so many other authors that I have no idea what constitutes fantasy, sci fi, suspense, horror or any other genre. The lines have been crossed for every genre. Dean Koontz has incorporated suspense and horror in more than a few of his books. I know some lady writes about a detective that hunts down vampires in a style reminiscent of pure mystery novels.

As far as fantasy goes, Tolkein is really only one type of fantasy. China's point seems irrelevant given the plethora of modern day literature that defies categorization.

 

[barsoomcore]

Brust: read The Sun, The Moon and the Stars, Agyar, and then work your way through the Vlad Taltos books and the Paarfi romances. The first two Taltos books are good, if not particularly innovative. It's with the third book that things start to turn around. He starts to play around with our expectations of a hero, a protagonist, with the notion of narratorial authority. His command of language and structure goes beyond any writer I'm aware of.

A Brust novel is constructed like a real Rolex -- not one of those fakes you used to be able to buy on the streets of Bangkok, where the second hand made a little tick with each motion, but a REAL Rolex, where the second hand sweeps smoothly, silently around the dial in remorseless precision. Michael Ondaatje beats him for sensual poetry, but nobody tops Brust for precise diction and keen phrasing.

I don't consider mixing genres to be a substitute for innovation. Gibson was innovative (or at any rate Neuromancer was innovative) because he used a whole new type of language to talk about a whole new set of ideas -- namely, how the interconnectedness of data affected our world. Brust is innovative because again he's brought a new kind of language to bear on a new set of ideas -- largely the question of how to maintain heroism in the face of life's constant mundanity. Which, at the time he started writing was a pretty new idea in fantasy -- interesting that both he and Glen Cook started exploring that at about the same time. Cook just isn't (bless him to pieces) as talented a writer as Brust.

Just to blithely sum up three complicated writers in a couple of nice, sound-bitey sentences.

Mieville doesn't appear skilled enough a writer, nor imaginative enough a thinker, to do this. Certainly I don't think Perdido did.

 

[barsoomcore]

When he wrote a story he did not do so to create a work of moral relevance, but to create an entertaining, epic story.

Just to say that an entertaining, epic story had better have some moral relevance, or it won't be very entertaining OR epic.

Great stories are great because of what they say, regardless of the author's intention. Winnie the Pooh is immortal not only because of the brilliant prose of A. A. Milne, but because that prose is in the service of stories that tell us something about ourselves that we recognize as important.

Ideas of "messages" and "meanings" are naive. Literature doesn't "mean" things. It says things. It tells us things, things more than just the events of the story. If it doesn't, it's pornography. (That's my secret definition of the two, if you care)

"Hamlet" doesn't have a "meaning". It doesn't have a "message". But it does say something very profound about our relationship with ourselves.

The Lord of the Rings doesn't mean anything. But it does have a great deal to say about duty, about friendship, about the cost of fighting evil. It's a big book, you can find a lot in it, and you can probably find things in it you don't like.

Entertaining and Epic? You darn betcha, featherbreath. Moral Relevance? Sure does for me.

 

[Mark]

Edit -

I stand by that assertion and will not be convinced otherwise.

OK

 

[drnuncheon]

Not to dis on Brust - I love the guy, I love his stuff, I read everything he puts out - but I'm not so sure I'd call what he's doing 'new'. A lot of it is going over ground that Roger Zelazny has trodden (among others), and I think that Brust himself will be the first to admit the effect that RZ has had on him. (It's probably most visible in To Reign in Hell, but the smartass protagonist of the Taltos books has pretty strong echoes of Corwin as well.) Playing with expectations about the protagonist isn't anything new either - take Donaldson's Covenant books as a big example, where the expectations are shattered so thoroughly that many people despise the books.

J

 

[nyrfherdr]

MARK: In the end meaning and message are what someone draws from literature, rather than (perhaps regardless of) what might be the intent of the author.

This was my point exactly!

Based on Barsoomcore's comments I need to re-read some Brust. I'd forgotten about his work. THANKS Barsoomcore. I needed something for an upcoming flight...

Barsoomcore: Do you feel that Fantasy/SF genre becoming mainstream has diminished the quality of writing?

I don't think so. If only a small % that is published is really good, doesn't more getting published equal more that is really good or does it become too hard to find that really good stuff? Or am I rambling?

(Admitting that everyone will have a different opinion of what is good.)

 

[barsoomcore]

Not to dis on Brust - but I'm not so sure I'd call what he's doing 'new'. A lot of it is going over ground that Roger Zelazny has trodden (among others), and I think that Brust himself will be the first to admit the effect that RZ has had on him.

It's VERY interesting to re-read Zelazny in the wake of where Brust has taken that style (because there is no doubt that Brust draws heavily upon Zelazny, you're quite correct). Now Brust is far too humble to say so himself, but he has far outdone his predecessor. Zelazny simply isn't as skilled a technician as Brust.

What I see in Zelazny is somebody bringing a new language (taking hard-boiled writing and applying it to swords and sorcery -- though you could probably make a case for Leiber doing much the same thing a couple of decades previously) but not really having anything new to say with it. Whereas Brust steps beyond both Zelazny's style (I'll agree that TRIH and the original character of Vlad are heavily derivative -- but Vlad goes places Corwin simply isn't rich enough a character to go, and Zelazny never wrote anything like the Paarfi romances) and beyond the borders of what the genre encompassed at the time.

Playing with expectations about the protagonist isn't anything new either - take Donaldson's Covenant books as a big example, where the expectations are shattered so thoroughly that many people despise the books.

Donaldson's a good case, but to me he falls short on two counts -- one, he's a sloppy writer, and two, too many of his ideas are so thoroughly taken from standard fantasy tropes (that is, from Tolkien) that even the reinvention that he does is not sufficient to render them truly new.

 

[barsoomcore]

Do you feel that Fantasy/SF genre becoming mainstream has diminished the quality of writing?

No, not at all. The signal-to-noise ratio may have gotten a little worse, but I think there's just as much good stuff now as there ever has been.

That is, almost none.

But there are at least two GREAT writers (Brust and Erikson) and a bunch of GOOD writers (Gaiman, Martin, Pratchett and so on) and even plenty of, let us say, workmanlike writers, to satisfy those times when you just need a fix and don't want to hate yourself too much afterwards.



I think it's going to be very interesting to see what happens to writing, especially genre writing, over the next twenty years as the influence of the Internet begins to make itself felt. Suddenly there are communities for writers, something the world has never really had before. Not like this, where writers can come together with no other purpose, no other interaction, than the sharing of their work. Which is very different from something like, say, the Algonquin Circle, where the socialization was more important than the writing the individuals were up to.

And it's genre writing that's going to be influenced the most, since genre communities are much more easily formed and are, in most cases, already forming on the internet spontaneously. Like ENWorld, which is in many ways a potential breeding ground for writers.

It makes it easier for writers to get rid of their crap. I hold to the theory that we all generate a certain amount of crap. If you want to write good stuff, you first have to write out all the crap. Only once the crap is gone can you even start trying to produce good stuff. The internet gives us a forum for, er, dumping crap on each other.

That metaphor didn't work out quite the way I thought it would Never mind.

Yeah, more fantasy. Woot.